Two men have been jailed in the United Kingdom after they conducted a series of burglaries and fraud offences where they used the dating app Grindr to gain access to people’s homes.
Rahmat Khan Mohammadi, 22, and Mohammed Bilal Hotak, 21, were sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court after being found guilty of burglary, fraud and theft. They were found guilty of the offences in November and an update on their sentences was issued this week.
The pair ere part of a larger group of men that were responsible for a string of offences between October 2024 and March 2025. Over that period they were linked to 35 offences that targeted 22 people.
Both Mohammadi and Hotak are Afghani nationals currently living in the United Kingdom. Both men were sentenced at the same court on Monday, 22 December, with Mohammadi handed a five-year prison term, while Hotak will serve three-and-a-half years behind bars.
Superintendent Owen Renowden, the Met’s hate crime lead who oversaw the investigation, said they were callous in their offending.
“Mohammadi and Hotak carried out a series of callous, calculated, pre-planned crimes across London, targeting men and stealing high-value items and money.
“Their actions had a devastating impact on their victims. Nobody should be made to feel unsafe in their own homes and they will have to live with the trauma these men have caused them.
“I hope today’s outcome provides some comfort that these criminals have been taken off the streets, and this is down to the great strength they have shown throughout our investigation.
“I’d also like to thank the Met’s LGBT+ Advisory Group and the LGBT+ anti-abuse charity, GALOP, whose guidance and support ensured we were able to conduct our work with sensitivity and care.
“The Met is fully committed to ensuring all communities in London feel safe, as well as continuing to enhance the trust and confidence LGBT+ people place in us. Organised crime has a devastating impact on society and will not be tolerated.”
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.
Detective Inspector Mark Gavin, from the Metropolitan Police’s Specialist Crime Command, said officers were able to tackle the crime by working closely with the LGBTIQA+ community.
“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.” Detective Inspector Gavin said.
Police recognised that there was a growing number of burglary offences where Grindr was a common feature and 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.
