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It was June 12, Valentine’s Day. Leo Nunes, 24, had spent a few days talking to someone he met on Hornet, a popular gay dating app, before arranging their first date in São Paulo’s Sacomã neighborhood.
Surveillance cameras captured the moment two men on a motorcycle appeared where he was waiting, snatched his phone and shot him dead.
Nunes’ family shared details of the investigation with Reuters, saying a suspect had been arrested. Sao Paulo police said they were investigating the attack as a robbery but did not provide further information or confirm whether an arrest had been made.
Nunes is one of at least five gay men killed in Brazil since March 2024 after planning dates through dating apps, according to news reports. Dozens of other victims have described on social media that they were robbed after being lured by fake profiles on gay dating apps.
Police also warned of “romance scams” involving heterosexual men being abducted, but did not provide specific figures.
The string of murders and attacks has shaken Brazil’s gay community, which is large and vibrant but often distrusts the police. Three people who said they were attacked and LGBT advocates said that reluctance made them targets for criminals.
“They know that LGBT people are a vulnerable group because of structural homophobia. So they know they can intimidate better,” said Wanderley Montanholi, a lawyer for the family of Heleno Veggi Dumba, a gay doctor who was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head in Sao Paulo in April. Montanholi said Dunbar was killed during a robbery after criminals lured him into an ambush through a dating app.
Sao Paulo police said they had arrested three suspects in connection with Dunbar’s death and that they remain in police custody awaiting trial. They declined to provide further details.
Montahouli said the crimes repeated a pattern where criminals targeted gay men through dating apps and groomed them for days with fake profiles on different social media platforms.
Police declined to comment on whether they had seen a broader pattern of murders and robberies linked to gay dating apps, saying only that investigators in Sao Paulo had solved four cases involving “love scams.”
Gabriel, a gay man who declined to give his last name for privacy reasons, said in late March that he had arranged to meet on the same street where Sacoman Nunez was shot and killed. He later learned that he had been attracted to the same dating profile as several other victims.
“He put a gun to my stomach and told me to give him the password to my phone,” Gabriel said. As a result, the criminals accessed their bank accounts, stole money and maxed out their credit cards. Gabriel said a group of women who offered him comfort after the incident had witnessed an almost identical incident the night before.
He detailed the attack in a police report and in a group chat seen by Reuters in which six men said they had reported to law enforcement authorities that they had been subjected to the same violent attack. Police have declined to comment on the cases.
Gabriel said he and others had also reported an incident involving the same fake profile to Bumblebee. He said the fake profile remained online for weeks after he reported it, which Reuters could not independently verify.
“The investigation could have been done before Leo’s case happened. The investigation didn’t need to come here,” Gabriel said.
Gerry Monaghan, Bumblebee’s chief operating officer, said: “All reports are analysed and reviewed by Bumblebee.”
After Nunes was murdered in June, he said the company added staff, created a team to respond to user reports 24 hours a day, and changed its global reporting system to prioritize more serious issues, but gave no details.
A spokesperson for Grindr, another gay dating app, said the company was “aware that digital platforms like ours are occasionally misused to target LGBTQ+ people in Brazil.”
He added that the app includes safety advice and features and that the company works closely with law enforcement.
Fear and shame
Like many young LGBT Brazilians, Nunes left her small hometown of Cambuquira in Minas Gerais state for the more liberal metropolis of São Paulo, four hours away.
He planned to become a psychotherapist to help people struggling with homelessness and addiction, his mother, Adriana Rodriguez, recalled, and she felt comfortable with the “LGBT family” that welcomed him to the big city.
Although Sao Paulo has a lively gay scene and the world’s largest LGBT Pride parade, Nunes’ friends say they often talk about issues of homophobia and transphobia.
“We all have stories,” said one friend, Vinicius Reis, who remembered Núñez’s support for vulnerable members of the LGBT community, including some who had been forced from their homes.
Nunes came out with the support of her parents, who believe her death was a hate crime.
“Criminals know their victims won’t go to the police,” his father, Aurelio Nunes, said in an interview, holding his wife’s hand. “Sometimes they don’t even tell their families because of shame.”
The Brazilian Forum for Public Security, a civil society organization that monitors public security issues, recorded 214 murders motivated by homophobia and transphobia last year, a 42% increase from 2022, while suggesting that these crimes may be underestimated.
The federal Supreme Court criminalized homophobia in 2019, but three lawyers said in interviews that police and judges often avoid using the label, preferring to classify it as a broader category such as assault or robbery.
Vanessa Vieira, a public defender working with the LGBT community in Sao Paulo state, said she had seen “resistance from the public ministry, the police, the judiciary and the whole institution to characterize these situations as LGBTphobic.”
Vanessa Vieira added that this suspicion prevents LGBT victims from reporting crimes.
“So we realize that there’s often a fear that people will report more because of fear of retaliation, because of fear of how it will affect their lives,” she said.
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