Three Gay Men Robbed After Night at NYC's The Eagle
Criminals are continuing to target NYC's gay community, and three gay men have found that out the hard way after a night out at The Eagle bar.
As reported by NBC, the men, in their late 30s and 40s, reportedly visited the Chelsea gay leather bar on separate occasions this fall and were robbed of thousands of dollars.
According to investigating police, the men were lured away from the club and then robbed of thousands of dollars by accessing the facial recognition feature on their phones.
The investigation is still ongoing and no arrests have been made, according to police.
"What we think is happening with this scheme is they're being lured away from the club, maybe to say, 'Hey, you wanna come with me? I got some good drugs,' or something like that,'" said Capt. Robert Gault of the city's 10th Precinct, who spoke about the incidents at a police community council meeting last week.
He added, "And then, once they get into a car to do whatever it is that they're going to do, at some point or another, they don't know what happened when they wake up."
In a separate incident, a 19-year-old female and a 42-year-old male visiting another non-LGBTQ bar were reportedly robbed in November and December using a similar tactic by the same criminals, a police spokesperson said.
Authorities said the robbery cases have the same MO, and they the spokesperson added, and they were able to locate the license plate of vehicles of interest and connect the suspects to other incidents.
The robberies harken back to the November deaths of Julio Ramirez, 25, a social worker, and John Umberger, 33, a political consultant.
On separate evenings, the men were seen leaving New York City gay bars with groups of men before they were found bed and their bank accounts drained of thousands using facial recognition.
At the time, the NYPD said that it was investigating "several incidents where individuals have been victims to either robberies or assault."