Criminals in Denmark may be operating under a new – and unusual – MO.

DR reports that last year, a group of criminals used boyfriend.dk, a Danish dating website for homosexual men, to set up meetings with individuals they later assaulted and robbed.

Missed connections
A 23-year-old man, who was among those charged, provided details of the assaults at Frederiksberg Court on Monday.

“[After both myself and the victim had undressed] I called the others in and they entered with masks on [with a dummy gun and knife],” he said, adding that they taped the victim to a chair before escaping.

Later that night, they assaulted two other men in a similar fashion in Nørrebro.

Coerced
The 23-year-old maintains he was coerced by the other men.

“[They told me] I needed to make a fake profile and agree to have sexual intercourse with anyone who asked. They threatened to tell my dad that I was gay, so I had no choice,” he said.

While the 23-year-old has admitted to home invasion robbery (a charge that carries a maximum sentence of five years), the other two members have refused to plead guilty, instead claiming they should be charged with the lesser crime of simple robbery instead.