The victim had met the young man through Grindr and invited him to his hotel room. The smartphone stayed switched on, and its location led police patrol cars straight to the suspect
One hundred euros to get his phone back. That, according to police reconstruction, was the demand a young Nigerian man made to another man following a meeting arranged overnight through Grindr. The incident took place in the early hours of Tuesday, 1 September, at a hotel on viale Cirene in Rimini, and ended with the young man’s arrest for theft in a private dwelling and attempted extortion. It all began around 1:40 a.m., when the victim connected with the man on the app and invited him to his room for a meeting. Once inside the hotel, however, the young man allegedly demanded €100 and, after being refused, is said to have started rummaging through the personal belongings in the room before grabbing the man’s smartphone and leaving. The victim called 112 with the help of a friend and, using a second device, contacted the young man again through the same app to ask for the phone back. According to police, the reply was unambiguous: the phone would only be returned once the €100 had been paid. The two then agreed to meet again outside the hotel, but in the meantime three police patrol cars arrived on the scene. The stolen smartphone itself proved decisive in the search: it was still switched on, allowing the victim to track its movements in real time. Officers headed to the location shown and shortly afterwards spotted a man who was identified by the victim. During the check, the young man voluntarily handed over the phone he had in his pocket. He was taken to police headquarters, identified, and subsequently arrested and brought before a judge for a fast-track trial. He remains presumed innocent pending any final verdict.
