In Germany, gay men are lured to fake dates and beaten. The attackers call themselves “pedophile hunters”

Young men in Germany are creating fake profiles on queer dating apps, arranging dates with gay men, and then attacking them in groups, humiliating them, and filming the abuse. Some members of these groups call themselves “Pedo-Hunters.”

This is according to an investigation by the German project team.recherche, published on August 18 Tagesschau and Saarländischer Rundfunk. The journalists identified more than 70 reported cases of such attacks across Germany over the past ten years. In 2025 alone, they were able to verify 34 cases. The actual number may be significantly higher: according to a survey by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, only about one in ten victims reports such crimes to the police.

He showed up for a date—and several people were already waiting for him

One of the victims, whom the journalists call Lukas, arranged to meet an adult man in a parking lot. Instead of a date, a group of young men showed up. According to Lukas, they dragged him out of his car, filmed him, and humiliated him. They forced him to dance and say on camera that he wanted to have sex with minors. Lukas maintains that he had arranged to meet an adult. The attackers called themselves “Pedo-Hunters.”

What does pedophilia have to do with any of this?

For several weeks, the journalists monitored a Discord server with around 1,500 members, where users discussed attacks and shared videos and violent fantasies.

Officially, members of the community claimed that they were fighting people they considered pedophiles. But homophobic remarks regularly appeared in the chats, and homosexuality was explicitly conflated with pedophilia. One user, for example, described attacking his uncle while calling him both gay and a pedophile.

Baden-Württemberg’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution confirmed to the journalists that in this kind of propaganda, the supposed “protection of children” is indeed used as a pretext for hostility toward queer people. In other words, the old “gay = pedophile” trope has not really gone anywhere. It has simply been equipped with Discord, a phone camera, and the ability to find victims through dating apps.

Right-wing extremist content was also found in the chats

Members of the server described their movement as “apolitical,” but journalists found antisemitic posts, far-right symbols, and messages including calls to “fight LGBTQ” and expressions of support for the “German Reich.”

The Hesse State Office for the Protection of the Constitution considers so-called Pedo Huntings a potential tool for radicalizing young people within the far-right scene.

According to the agency, extremists may exploit the issue of child protection to mobilize supporters, deliberately conflating pedophilia with homosexuality.

Lucas's attackers were convicted

Those involved in the attack on Lucas were later convicted. He says he will continue using queer dating apps. Meanwhile, Sophie Koch, the German federal government's commissioner for queer affairs, called for a nationwide system to record such attacks.

The federal government is not currently planning such a system. The Interior Ministry has prepared guidelines for the police that are intended to help ensure queerphobic hate crimes are recorded consistently. It seems that dating apps now require yet another check before meeting someone: not only “is the person in the photo real?” but also whether a group of people with a camera and a very particular understanding of child protection is waiting behind that photo.