Victoria Police Confirm 5 More Arrests Linked To Gay Dating App Attacks
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Victoria Police have made five additional arrests relating to attacks on men via dating/social media apps, bringing the state’s total count to 47. It comes after a slew of violent assaults and robberies in 2025, wherein fake profiles were used on apps like Grindr to lure gay men to locations where they were subject to homophobic attacks.
Continuing the alarming trend seen in earlier investigations, all the alleged perpetrators in Victoria’s latest arrests are 18-years-old or younger. The five arrests were made by the Greater Dandenong Crime Investigation Unit after 11 incidents were reported to police.
Who Was Behind The Gay Dating App Attacks?
The arrestees were all boys between the ages of 16 and 18, with charges spanning kidnapping, armed robbery, sexual assault, and intentionally causing injury. Three of the five boys have been remanded.
These recent incidents belong to a total of 113 cases of a similar nature reported to police since January 2024, which have together resulted in almost 50 arrests. While these alleged hate-crimes have occurred with particular frequency in the local government areas of Manningham, Casey, Hume, Moorabbin, and Knox, police have seen similar incidents occur right across the state.
The continued violence follows a parliamentary inquiry into hate crimes toward LGBTQIA+ people in late June, which heard witnesses describe damning evidence linking the rise of the so-called “manosphere”, alongside racism and other harmful trends in public and political discourse, to recent violent attacks on LGBTQIA+ people.
Following the recent arrests, Victoria Police have reaffirmed that incidents of this nature are treated with the utmost seriousness and that anyone who has experienced this behaviour should make a report. They particularly emphasise that reports should be made to police, not just dating apps, which have no power to conduct criminal investigations or hold perpetrators to account.
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