The Illawarra Mercury has reported that a NSW man, Jayson Hastie, has been sent to prison over a scam which saw him contact a victim via the dating app Grindr.

The newspaper says the 25 year old contacted his victim using the alias Alex. After exchange sexually explicit messages and phone calls they arranged a meet up on 21 March, but Hastie did not show. They then met up two days later with one of Hastie’s friends greeting the victim. Hastie then joined the victim in the back of the victim’s car introducing himself as ‘Alex’.

Hastie told the victim that he was an undercover police office and said to the man “You’ve just been pinged.” Telling the victim that a disc he was holding was a tracker that would bring other police officers to their location.

The victim agreed to take Hastie to an ATM where he paid him $2,000, and then agreed to make regular weekly payments to him. The two men then searched the victims car before departing.

Hastie pleaded guilty to demanding money with menace and impersonating a police officer. In return for his guilty plea police agreed to drop the more serious charge of kidnapping.

He was sentenced to 20 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of nine months.

OIP Staff