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At least five have been killed since March, and many more have been victims of armed robberies.
The LGBTQ+ community in Brazil has been shaken by a series of murders and armed robberies of gay men who met their assailants through dating apps.
At least five have been killed since March, and dozens more have reported being victims of armed robberies, according to Reuters.
One of the latest murder victims was Leo Nunes, a 24-year-old who had been exchanging messages with a man he met on the dating app Hornet. They arranged to meet in person in São Paulo June 12, which is Lover’s Day in Brazil.
But “a security camera captured the moment that two men on a motorcycle showed up in the alley where [Nunes] was waiting, grabbed his phone and shot him dead,” Reuters reports. One suspect has been arrested, Nunes’s family said.
Brazil has a large and active LGBTQ+ population, but many fear mistreatment by police, making them targets for criminals. “Because of structural homophobia, criminals know that LGBT people are vulnerable. They know they will be more easily intimidated,” lawyer Wanderley Montanholi told Reuters.
Montanholi is representing the family of Heleno Veggi Dumba, a gay doctor killed in April in São Paulo. He had arranged a meeting with a man through a dating app but instead encountered a group of criminals who attempted to rob him and shot him in the head. Three people have been arrested, police said.
One man identified only as Gabriel told the news service he had set up a date in March near where Nunes was later killed. There he too met with several assailants. “One man put a gun to my stomach and asked me the password of my phone,” Gabriel said. His attackers used the information to drain his bank account and max out his credit card.
Numerous other men have reported similar crimes arranged through the same fake profile on Hornet, he said. The profile stayed on the site for several weeks after he let Hornet know, he added, although Reuters could not verify this independently.
“An investigation could have happened before Leo’s case. It didn’t have to get here,” Gabriel said.
Officials with Hornet said staffers review all reports of misuse, and the company has added to the team that has this duty. A spokesman for Grindr said the app includes security features and that the company works with law enforcement to fight abuse.
Nunes’s parents called his murder an antigay hate crime, but while Brazilian law recognizes such crimes, police and judges often avoid labeling these incidents as homophobic. That and societal homophobia in general make survivors of these crimes reluctant to report them, lawyers said.
“There is a lot of fear to report, for how it might hinder their lives,” lawyer Vanessa Vieira told Reuters.
