A Victorian inquiry into hate crimes has heard that international students from countries where homosexuality is illegal are being lured into meetings via gay dating apps, then assaulted and extorted with threats of being outed to family members overseas.
Police identify 95 attacks, but true number believed higher
Since June 2024, police have identified 95 attacks targeting gay and bisexual men across Victoria, resulting in 42 arrests, Thorne Harbour Health’s chief executive, Chad Hughes, told the inquiry on Wednesday. However, Hughes said he believed the “true number” was far higher, as many victims were reluctant to come forward due to mistrust of police.
According to Switchboard Victoria’s chief executive, Jenna Tuke, some victims were scared of their sexuality being shared with family overseas and were extorted as a result. “We’ve heard a lot of stories of people who’ve been … contacted after the offence and asked to deposit tens of thousands of dollars in an account – ‘otherwise, this video will be shared with everyone in your contacts,’” Tuke told the hearing.
Pattern of targeting overseas students
Tuke said there was a clear pattern of overseas students being targeted, particularly those from countries where homosexuality is illegal. “The family implications for those people are absolutely massive,” she said. One caller to her support service said: “I’ve got until 10pm, and if I don’t give them this money, they’ve said they’re going to release this to everyone in my contacts, including family overseas.”
“We’re hearing those types of stories quite frequently,” she told the hearing. “It does appear that they may be targeting people who they think are not ‘out’, and for whom the consequences of being outed as gay or queer will be greater.”
Recurring patterns in attacks
Tuke said while each case was different, there were recurring patterns. Victims were typically instructed to meet in a public place before being subjected to physical violence, filmed, and in many cases, extorted. Most cases of app-based violence were occurring in Melbourne’s outer northern and south-eastern suburbs, although there had also been a “cluster” in Fitzroy.
At just one recent community forum convened by Thorne Harbour, Hughes said 12 men disclosed being attacked after arranging meetings through dating apps. Only two reported them to police, “and one of them regretted that”.
Footage shared in the ‘manosphere’
“The attacks are deliberate and humiliating. The victims are forced to recite slurs on camera and footage is shared online to give the perpetrators status with their target audiences: others in the manosphere,” Hughes told the inquiry. “Some offenders are as young as 13. These victims were not chosen at random. They were specifically targeted because they were perceived to be gay or bisexual. These are hate crimes.”
Another witness, David Brown, told the inquiry that he had been speaking with a person on a dating app “on and off” for about a month before agreeing to meet “in broad daylight” in August 2024. When he arrived, he was set upon by two teenagers. “This isn’t something that happened to me in a place that’s dark and secluded,” he said. “They turned up to a park with a knife bigger than any of you have in your kitchen and held it to me … it was just pure hatred.”
Victims see little justice
Brown said while he “can’t fault” the police handling of his case, he didn’t see “any justice” because one of the teens was found guilty without recording a conviction, while the other wasn’t charged. He said they were only arrested after three separate attacks “on the same street in broad daylight once again”.
Heather Corkhill, legal director at Equality Australia, told the inquiry that similar attacks had occurred in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. “I’ve even spoken to someone in Lebanon who described exactly the same type of attack occurring there,” she said.
Dating apps enable offenders
Corkhill told the inquiry that dating apps had allowed offenders to identify and reach potential victims with unprecedented ease. Equality Australia pointed to data from New South Wales, where a dedicated hate crime unit recorded 197 incidents of LGBTQA+ hate-related violence between January 2023 and October 2025. About 64% of those offences were committed by young people.
Dr Josh Roose, an expert in extremism from Deakin University, told the inquiry some of the NSW attacks could be described as “Islamic State-inspired”. He said Australia “should not wait for mass casualty attack” before it takes such hate crime seriously.
