Three convicted of robbing dating app victims and detaining one in a property on the Costa
After the defendants reached a plea deal with the prosecution, Malaga's provincial court handed down four years in prison for two of the accused, and two years behind bars for a third
In the age of dating apps, the majority of relationships - even if many are fleeting - begin with a match. This is not one of them. Instead, it is the story of the deception and robbery with violence suffered by two men after arranging a meeting through 'Grindr', the world's largest social networking app for the LGBT+ community. The provincial court of Malaga has convicted two individuals and a woman after they admitted their involvement in these events.
According to the court ruling, to which SUR has had access, the three defendants operated using this same modus operandi, driven by the intention of obtaining unlawful profit and acting in mutual agreement. Therefore, on 17 October 2023, they deceived one of the victims through the account they used for this purpose on the aforementioned social network.
Under the pretext of having sex, they gave their first victim the address of a property in Mijas. Once he went there, the accused locked the door behind him and attacked him by grabbing him by the hair and neck. Then, another of the accused pushed him against the sofa and, together with the third defendant, searched his pockets. They took 50 euros that he had on him.
The matter did not end there. Once the victim managed to break free, the woman chased him with a hand blender in an attempt to intimidate him. Despite the distressing situation, there is no record of the man having suffered any injuries as a result of the incident, according to the ruling.
It only took them a couple hours to find a new victim, with whom one of the defendants arranged a date through the app to have sex. This time, the same defendant was the one who locked the door as soon as the date entered the house. According to the court ruling, both of them sat on the sofa, where the defendant, in a threatening tone, demanded that he give him some money. The victim, feeling intimidated, handed the man a banknote he had with him.
Shortly afterwards, the same suspect uttered the word “boss”, whereupon the other defendant and a third individual, who has not been identified, came out of an adjoining room. The three of them managed to detain the man, who they held for about 40 minutes while they demanded that he give them more money and tried to access his bank accounts.
“If you don’t give us more money, we will kill you,” they warned him. Besides the shock, the victim sustained injuries to one elbow that took 15 days to heal.
The three defendants admitted the offences, reaching a plea agreement that has led to a reduction in the sentences requested by the prosecution. As a result, the two defendants will have to serve four years and one day in prison for two crimes of robbery with violence and intimidation, one of them in concurrence with a crime of illegal detention. They were also ordered to pay a fine of 300 euros for the injuries to the second victim. The female defendant was sentenced to two years' imprisonment as she only participated in one of the two robberies with violence.
