How the 27-year-old GR got the photos of the young woman is not yet clear. The teacher has not yet filed a complaint. GR was placed under arrest warrant in early October but released under conditions a few days later.
At the beginning of September, explicit nude images of three male BVs were circulated, mainly via WhatsApp but also via other social media such as TikTok. These are Stan Van Samang, Peter Van de Veire and Sean Dhondt. Stan Van Samang filed a civil party claim, after which the Brussels public prosecutor’s office opened a judicial investigation. At the beginning of October, two suspects were arrested, the 27-year-old GR and a 22-year-old friend from Antwerp. They made confessions, after which the investigating judge placed GR under an arrest warrant and released the second suspect under conditions. A few days later GR was also released under conditions.
The main suspect GR is alleged to have obtained the photos of the BVs via ‘catfishing’, a technique in which people are approached via a false social media profile to obtain information. In this case GR would have posed as a young woman, “Eveline”. That ‘Eveline’ approached three BVs via the Instagram chat and said they had already met each other in a disco. Afterwards, the young lady started flirting with the three men and suggested that we leave the Instagram chat and switch to another platform, the chat app ‘Kik’, to have more privacy. There, ‘Eveline’ and her victims initially exchanged relatively innocent photos, but later the images became more explicit.
Profile abused
To approach the BVs, GR used photos of a 24-year-old schoolteacher. At least one BV recognized the photos of the young lady, report Het Nieuwsblad and De Standaard. Belga was also confirmed that information from a judicial source.
“This young lady is indeed a bigger victim than the BVs”, it sounds. “It is still unclear exactly how that happened, but the young lady herself did not know that her photos and profile were being misused.”
The court is now investigating whether GR only used innocent photos of the teacher, or whether he could somehow get hold of some nude photos that she had on her computer, and also exchanged them.
More victims
In the meantime it has also come to light that not only Stan Van Samang, Sean Dhondt and Peter Van de Veire were victims of GR. Various media have already reported that several, possibly even dozens of people would have experienced the same and are considering filing a complaint, and more than a year ago BV already filed a complaint with the Antwerp public prosecutor for similar facts. These too would be the work of GR. The Antwerp public prosecutor’s office recently transferred that file to the Brussels public prosecutor’s office, according to Het Nieuwsblad and De Standaard.
At the public prosecutor’s office Halle-Vilvoorde is also an investigation into nude photos of a BV that surfaced more than a year ago via Grindr, a Tinder variant for gays. That investigation is still ongoing and now the Halle-Vilvoorde public prosecutor’s office is examining whether there are any links with the Brussels file.
The lawyers of both suspects do not comment on the case.
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