A 19-year-old Victorian man has been sentenced to community service after pleading guilting to two vigilante attacks that lured victims via the dating app Grindr.
Christian Keryakus pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary, common assault and recklessly causing injury after two attacks on men last June in Victoria according to The Guardian.
He told police that he’d been inspired by vigilante videos he’d seen on TikTok and YouTube which reportedly used dating apps to expose pedophiles.
According to court documents Keryakus began chatting to his first victim on Grindr, before the conversation moved to Snapchat – which allowed him to see the victim’s location. After engaging in a conversation that was sexual in nature, Keryakus sent the man a photograph of a 15-year-old boy.
The man did not agree to meet Keryakus, but he worked out where he lived from the app, and arrived at his house with three other men. They entered the property, falsely accused the man of being a pedophile, and demanded he pay $20,000.
One of the men who has not been identified punched the victim in the face, and his wallet and a Nintendo Switch were stolen.
The same night Keryakus chatted on Grindr to another man and arranged to meet him in a field in Cragieburn. When the man arrived he was falsely accused of messaging an underage male and Keryakus demanded the man hand over his mobile phone.
When he refused and he was assaulted by five men who surrounded him, kicking him and hitting him with a baseball bat.
Police were able to trace Keryakus via his use of Snapchat, and when arrested they found video on his phone of him filming the second attack. He later told a covert operative placed in his cell that he’d been inspired by a videos he’d seen on TikTok.
Keryakus later told police that Russian YouTuber and prankster Vitaly Zdorovetskiy has been his inspiration. Zdorovetskiy, who has often been arrested over his stunts, is currently being held in The Philippines where he is facing charges over harassment of local people.
Keryakus was sentenced to a community corrections order of two and a half years, including 250 hours of unpaid community work.
