{"id":851181,"date":"2026-08-11T07:46:55","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851181\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T07:46:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T07:46:55","slug":"melbourne-teens-allegedly-used-dating-apps-to-find-men-to-attack-rob-and-sexually-assault-melbourne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/851181\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne teens allegedly used dating apps to find men to attack, rob and sexually assault | Melbourne"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of Melbourne<\/a> teenagers allegedly bashed, robbed and sexually assaulted unsuspecting men after using dating apps to lure them to meetings, police say.<\/p>\n

The five males \u2013 aged between 16 and 18 \u2013 were arrested last week after 11 incidents were reported to Victoria<\/a> police.<\/p>\n

The teens, all from the Greater Dandenong area in Melbourne\u2019s outer south-east, face an array of charges including armed robbery and intentionally cause injury.<\/p>\n

Three were charged with sexual assault offences, while one was charged with kidnapping, police said.<\/p>\n

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Speaking more broadly, Victoria police said they have been investigating 113 \u201cconcerning attacks\u201d on men, involving dating apps, across the state since January 2024.<\/p>\n

To date, 47 people have been arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice allege groups of offenders have been posing as legitimate users of the platforms to lure men into meeting them,\u201d police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe victims are then allegedly assaulted, robbed, threatened, and subjected to homophobic comments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Acting Insp Jarrod Dwyer described the behaviour as concerning.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no place for it in our society and it will not be tolerated by police,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would have no doubt been a distressing situation for the victims involved \u2013 and these arrests show just how serious we are in holding offenders to account.<\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryone has a right to go about their lives, meet new people and start a relationship in safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police said they were working with \u201cselected dating apps\u201d as part of their investigations, including to publish proactive safety messaging on the platforms with reporting options and support services.<\/p>\n

But they also said people should report such incidents to police, not just to dating apps.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe take any report of the crime extremely seriously and urge anyone who has experienced this behaviour to come forward and make a report to police so we can investigate,\u201d police said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is never too late to make a report \u2013 so when you\u2019re ready, please speak to us. The more we know, the more we can do something about it and keep victims safe.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group of Melbourne teenagers allegedly bashed, robbed and sexually assaulted unsuspecting men after using dating apps to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":851182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-851181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/851182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}