Thugs and gangs of teenagers are using dating apps to target gay tourists across Spain.
The criminals are using apps like Grindr, Scruff, Wapo and others to meet with men under the guise of casual sex or a date, before assaulting, drugging and robbing them and leaving them for dead.
According to court documents, they have a preference for holidaymakers as they are less likely to report the crime or stick around to seek justice – with US, French and Australian men among the victims.
The modus operandi first gained nationwide attention following the arrest of Nelson David Moreno in 2022.
The Colombian national, dubbed the Grindr Killer of Bilbao, is accused of killing up to eight men in the Basque city and elsewhere in Spain.
Latest arrests in Catalonia
In the latest reported case, the Mossos d’Esquadra in Catalonia have arrested 10 minors and an 18-year-old accused of targeting gay men through dating apps and assaulting them during arranged meetings.
According to investigators, the group used the platforms to set up late-night encounters in isolated locations, where they would arrive together to intimidate and attack the victims before stealing mobile phones and bank cards.
Police said on Tuesday that the suspects are currently linked to nine attacks, three of which were never reported because victims feared reprisals. Officers also believe the group may be responsible for at least three additional assaults.
Sources close to the case told EFE that prosecutors are applying an aggravating factor of hate and discrimination, as the victims were selected because of their sexual orientation and the context in which the attacks were carried out.
The investigation began in March after two similar complaints were filed in Santa Coloma de Gramenet. From those reports, officers identified a recurring pattern connected to meetings arranged through dating apps, which led them to link the incidents to earlier cases in Badalona.
With authorisation from the juvenile prosecutor’s office, police carried out surveillance that confirmed the suspects were acting in a coordinated manner as a criminal group, repeatedly using the same method.
The alleged offences include assault, robbery with violence and intimidation, threats, coercion, extortion and fraud, all carried out using social networks and dating applications.
Investigators say the group’s violence escalated over time. After the assaults, the suspects allegedly forced victims to hand over PINs and security codes, allowing them to fraudulently use stolen phones and bank cards. The devices were later resold.
Three alleged members of the group were already arrested in May. In the final phase of the operation, police made a further 11 arrests, including those believed to have carried out the assaults and several minors accused of using the stolen cards in shops and selling on the stolen property.
Madrid gangs
In central Madrid, members of another gang are facing serious jail time following a years-long investigation and court process.
Police in the capital raised the alarm after the murder of businessman Jose Ismael Rosado at the Hotel Palace on the night of October 29, 2021.
Investigators soon realised it was not an isolated incident, and that the same gang had already drugged and robbed at least eight other men in near-identical attacks in Chueca nightspots, six of them in just two months. Two victims came close to dying.
Officers uncovered a pattern of chemical submission attacks targeting mostly gay men, many of them foreign visitors.
The group befriended victims in LGBTQ+ bars and clubs, spiked their drinks with hard-to-detect substances – including methamphetamine, scopolamine, benzodiazepines, ketamine and liquid ecstasy (GHB) – then robbed them and abandoned them unconscious, sometimes while they were suffering heart attacks, in hotels or on the street.
Most victims remembered almost nothing afterwards.
Police identified five suspects who had allegedly teamed up to commit repeated violent robberies using drugs.
Two of them, Mihail V.P. and Mohamed C., were convicted over the Hotel Palace killing and sentenced to 14 and 15 and a half years in prison.
Three others – Remus T., Fernando T. and Marian T. – now face up to 17 years in jail for allegedly drugging a US national and stealing more than €30,000 from him at the Hotel Eurobuilding in November 2021.
Investigators believe the gang deliberately targeted foreigners, assuming they were less likely to report the crimes or return to Spain to testify.
Police link the group to at least seven further assaults, almost all involving tourists or men living abroad.
Several cases narrowly avoided ending in death. On the same night Rosado was killed, two gang members allegedly drugged a 68-year-old Puerto Rican tourist in Chueca, dragged him into a quiet area near the Ministry of Culture and robbed him as he convulsed and foamed at the mouth.
They left him unconscious; he was found four hours later and had to be resuscitated after a cardiac arrest.
In December 2021, a 43-year-old Andalucian man working in the US woke up three days after a night out in Chueca, intubated in a Madrid hospital.
Tests showed he had been drugged with benzodiazepines. CCTV later captured his attacker rifling through his pockets as he suffered convulsions on the street.
Other victims included a French tourist, a Venezuelan man left in a metabolic coma and reported missing by his family, and a Honduran national drugged with GHB and robbed in a dark street near Plaza del Rey.
Police also linked one suspect, Fernando T., to similar attacks dating back to 2019, including cases involving Chilean and Australian tourists.
The investigation exposed a sustained campaign of predatory violence in Madrid’s nightlife, with police warning that the ease with which victims were incapacitated – and left for dead – made the crimes especially dangerous.
Last year, another gang of four in Madrid with a very similar MO was brought down.
Their victims included a 22-year-old erasmus student and other men aged up to 55.
Nelson David Moreno aka the Grindr Killer of Bilbao
It follows the case of Nelson David Moreno, dubbed by Spanish media as the Grindr killer of Bilbao, which has become one of the most disturbing crime investigations in recent years, not only for the number of victims involved but for what it revealed about vulnerabilities within the online dating world.
Moreno, a 25-year-old Colombian national, was investigated for the deaths of at least four men – and possibly as many as eight – in Bilbao and elsewhere in the Basque Country between 2021 and 2022.
Operating under the alias ‘Carlos’, he presented himself as friendly and trustworthy, arranging private encounters that appeared consensual and low-risk. This approach allowed him to bypass suspicion and gain access to victims’ homes without force.
Once inside, Moreno allegedly followed a consistent and chilling modus operandi. Police believe he drugged his victims with GHB (éxtasis líquido), a substance that can cause rapid loss of consciousness and severe respiratory depression.
With the men incapacitated, he is accused of robbing cash, bank cards and other valuables. In several cases, the victims never regained consciousness.
What raised alarm bells for the authorities was the striking similarity between the deaths. Several men were found lifeless in their homes with no signs of forced entry or struggle, and toxicology reports revealed the presence of substances commonly associated with chemical submission.
The pattern suggested not isolated incidents, but a serial offender exploiting a specific method and target profile.
Movements on victims’ bank accounts proved crucial, as withdrawals and purchases were traced to the same individual across different cases. This financial trail helped link Moreno to multiple deaths that had initially been treated as unexplained or accidental.
Moreno’s arrest came after what investigators describe as a failed murder attempt.
In that incident, the victim survived and alerted the authorities, while Moreno fled the scene in haste, leaving behind a critical piece of evidence: his passport.
Faced with mounting evidence and intense police pressure, Moreno surrendered himself to police in May 2022. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison earlier this year.
The Bilbao investigation has since been compared to other high-profile cases in Spain involving dating apps, including that of Julian Ovejero in Madrid.
Ovejero was sentenced in 2023 to 20 years in prison for murdering a man he met through a dating application in 2018, after being extradited from Argentina.
