A man has bravely spoken out after police swooped on two migrants who prowled the capital.
Moment Rahmat Khan Mohammadi and Mohammed Bilal Hotak were arrested (Image: Met Police )
A man who unsuspectingly invited two “shy” Afghan migrants into his home after meeting them on a dating app has revealed the moment he realised they were “not the same people” as a profile photo suggested. The professional, from London, had innocently agreed to meet a man who “looked like a white guy in the profile picture” after messaging on the Grindr app in November last year.
The 47-year-old said the person he messaged asked if he could bring a friend to their meeting, which had been arranged at the victim’s home in West London. But when the pair arrived, it took only “half a second” for the man to realise neither of the two strangers looked like the person in the picture on the app. \
Despite initial concerns, the man, who thought the pair were from “Afghanistan or Pakistan”, said he believed they may have been “shy, inexperienced or embarrassed as some people can be discreet, especially from certain cultures”.
Mohammed Bilal Hotak was jailed for three-and-a-half years (Image: Met Police )
Speaking to the Daily Mail, he said: “I gave them the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t strike me that they might be criminals. I’m not on Grindr that much anyway really so I thought maybe it was inexperience on my part.”
But what the man did not know was that the two men he had invited into his home were in fact serial fraudsters Rahmat Khan Mohammadi, 22, and Bilal Hotak, 21. The pair were jailed in December after carrying out 35 burglaries and 20 related scams, seizing phones, watches, passports and withdrawing money from bank accounts in a spree worth £68,000 in six months.
Mohammadi and Hotak used dating apps as a tactic to trick their victims into meeting them in their homes before carrying out the thefts.
Speaking after the duo were caged, the man said in his own case he was asked to go to the bathroom. He left his phone behind as it was playing music. He added: “They took it and left. The front door was open and they had gone.
“I was shocked and distressed. It’s very violating having someone in your place and then disappearing a minute later.”
Met Police officers later tracked down Mohammadi and Hotak, both Afghan nationals, and the pair were found guilty of burglary, fraud and theft at Isleworth Crown Court on Tuesday, November 4.
Both men were sentenced at the same court on Monday, December 22, with Mohammadi handed a five-year prison term, while Hotak will serve three-and-a-half years behind bars.
Rahmad Khan Mohammadi was jailed for five years (Image: Met Police )
The Metropolitan Police said Mohammadi and Hotak would identify their victims and initiate contact via the dating app Grindr, and after exchanging messages online, would arrange to meet them at their homes. Once inside, the pair would use a range of distraction tactics to obtain mobile phone passwords before stealing their handsets and making a quick exit from the property, often using a getaway vehicle waiting nearby.
Mohammadi and Hotak would then access the victim’s personal data to make payments, withdraw money or transfer funds to other accounts. In some cases, they would steal other high-value items such as wallets, passports and watches.
The Met’s Specialist Crime Team were alerted by officers across several London boroughs following a number of reported thefts in which Grindr was a common feature. This led to them identifying 32 offences that had taken place over a two-week period and re-opening a number of historic thefts where all possible lines of enquiry had previously been explored.
Officers trawled through hundreds of hours of CCTV footage, ANPR data to identify vehicles, thousands of phone records and text messages, which not only enabled them to link Mohammadi and Hotak to each other, but also to their offending.
Detective Inspector Mark Gavin, from the Met’s Specialist Crime Command, said: “We know that trust and confidence in the Met police is lower among the LGBT+ community than most groups, so ensuring victims felt heard, believed and taken seriously was a key focus for us throughout this investigation.
“We deployed specialist LGBT+ community liaison officers to review these crimes and worked closely with each victim to offer them support and advice daily, and this proved crucial in giving them the confidence to speak to us and provide information.
“This approach also provided the catalyst for harsher sentences for Hotak and Mohammadi, as we were able to present stronger evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service to escalate these offences from thefts to burglaries and frauds.
“And involving key community groups in tailored meetings where we could share investigative updates meant they felt confident we were progressing our enquiries and taking these crimes extremely seriously, while giving them the chance to ask questions and help shape our decision making.”
