The meeting was arranged via a dating app, but instead of intimacy, there were punches and kicks: four young men are said to have lured a 57-year-old to Jungfernheide train station in Berlin in order to rob him. They are then said to have pushed him into the Landwehr Canal, from which he was only able to escape with his last bit of strength. The suspected perpetrators are now in custody, the public prosecutor’s office and the police announced.
A judge issued an arrest warrant last Friday for gang robbery and dangerous bodily harm. Investigators believe that the men, aged between 18 and 20, arranged to meet homosexual men on a dating platform in order to rob them. They suspect that the quartet committed further crimes in the same pattern.
The men are said to have stolen the 57-year-old’s wallet, cell phone and watch on August 29. After the victim had made it to the shore, the police began searching for the perpetrators. With the help of video recordings from the Berlin transport company, the suspects were arrested, according to a spokesman for the public prosecutor’s office.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240903-930-221871/1
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