Russia forces adult content creator & hook-up app user to help entrap gay men

Authorities in the Russian Republic of Dagestan have reportedly either forced or attempted to bribe at least two men into cooperating with them in an entrapment scheme targeting gay men in the region.

Last month, Latvia-based independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that Moscow-based gay adult content creator Matvey Volodin had been lured to Dagestan in May by Russian police officers posing as fans of his online. When he arrived, he was detained, beaten, and had his phone confiscated.

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But people still worry that the Kremlin is monitoring the app.

Volodin’s lawyer later told the LGBTQ+ crisis organization North Caucasus SOS that police forced Volodin to help them entrap other gay men online. Using his social media and dating app accounts, police invited at least five other men to an apartment where they allegedly filmed Volodin’s sexual encounters with them.

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One gay couple were lured to Volodin’s apartment via the Hornet gay men’s social app. Police filmed their encounter with Volodin and later arrested them. One of the men was charged with distributing pornography last week, after officers found a video he sent to his partner.

According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, after “involuntarily collaborating” with police for several days, Volodin was arrested for petty hooliganism. He was set to be released on June 5, but was immediately arrested again as he left a detention center in Dagestan. He was later charged with producing and distributing pornography and placed in pretrial detention. Parni+, a Russian LGBTQ+ sexual health website, said in June that Volodin, who is reportedly HIV+, was being denied his medication.

Earlier this week, Novaya Gazeta Europe reported that another gay man, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym Yusuf, was also detained on June 5, after police claimed that his contact info was found on a phone belonging to one of the men they had lured to Volodin’s apartment.

Yusuf claims never to have heard of Volodin or USSRBoy, the handle under which Volodin posts adult content online.

Yusuf further claims that while in detention, police officers offered to pay him to cooperate in an entrapment scheme similar to the one they reportedly forced Volodin into. He said they conditioned his release upon his agreeing to the deal on camera.

After being released, Yusuf was able to contact North Caucasus SOS’s SOS Crisis Group, which helped him flee the country.

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