The defendants, Demalji Hadza, Abubaker Alezawy, Ali Hassan, Wasim Omar and Mohammed Sharif undertook the campaign of robberies across Derby and Birmingham between April 2023 and February 2024.

The majority of the victims had been targeted on the gay dating app ‘Grindr’ and encouraged to meet with what they believed was a genuine user of the app. Having been lured to a specific location they were attacked by the men who would hold them at the location while using their victim’s mobile telephone banking apps to drain their bank accounts.

Other victims were targeted in or outside of nightclubs and lured to the site of the attack by one of the defendant’s pretending to be injured or with offers of a lift home. The longest attack lasted in excess of 8 hours.

Victims sustained injuries including a broken eye socket, dislocated shoulder and a broken nose.

The defendants obtained nearly £100,000.00 in stolen money and cryptocurrency from their victims’ online accounts as well as physical belongings including a watch, a van and wallets. Money would then be transferred to other accounts, other cryptocurrency wallets or withdrawn at cashpoints. Some of the victims bank accounts were used to buy items directly online including ‘uber cash’ and gift vouchers.

The defendants were sentenced by HHJ Buckingham on 13th January 2025 who recognised the offences as having been hate crimes, their cruelty and the prolonged detention of the victims in her remarks observing that this was a ‘toxic group’ who fed off of each other and were motivated by greed.

She passed the following sentences:

Demalji Hadza – 16 years and 2 months

Abubaker Alezawy – 16 years 5 months

Ali Hassan – 16 years 9 months

Wasim Omar – 17 years 3 months

Mohammed Sharif – 12 years

Gang jailed after using Grindr dating app in Midlands to assault and rob victims – Support the Guardians 

Armed gang who used Grindr to rob victims jailed – BBC News