The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has sentenced a 30-year-old Venezuelan who used a dating app to lure and kidnap three American citizens to 25 years in prison. Deivy Jose Rodriguez Delgado and an accomplice abducted 3 men between July 5 and July 30, 2022, in the Dominican Republic.
After connecting with victims on an online dating Platform, Delgado would pick them up in his vehicle for a date and then let his accomplice into the vehicle to conduct the crime. The two restrained the victim, held them at knifepoint, and demanded that they call their family and friends to pay a ransom through virtual banking accounts.
Following a trial that lasted nearly 2 weeks, Delgado was convicted of three counts of hostage-taking and a single count of conspiracy to commit hostage-taking by a jury on December 11, 2023. On top of his 25-year prison sentence, Delgado is to serve 5 years of supervised release, as per U.S. District Court Chief Judge James E. Boasberg’s ruling. The Venezuelan will go through deportation proceedings once his sentence is complete.
Also referred to as Sebastian in official government evidence, Delgado held each of the three victims in captivity at knifepoint alongside his accomplice for up to 60 minutes and forced them to call their loved ones for ransom. Once Delgado was under the impression that each victim’s ransom was paid, he took all their personal belongings and left them stranded in the Dominican Republic.
Local law enforcement in the Dominican Republic launched an investigation in August 2022 after receiving several reports from the victims. They traced one of the vehicles used in the abduction to Delgado and the Venezuelan was arrested on September 14, 2022. A police search of the vehicle revealed two serrated knives similar to the ones Delgado and his accomplice used.
The FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case alongside the Dominican Republic’s Division Especial de Investigacion de Crimen Organizado Internacional (DECROI) and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jolie Zimmerman and John Korba from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia prosecuted the case with paralegal Michael Watts offering assistance.
Delgado’s case is emblematic of the insecurity that has seeped into the online dating world over the past several years. A growing number of criminals are now using online dating platforms to target victims for various types of financial scams. In extreme cases, these criminals have abducted or even trafficked their victims.
This case is a stark reminder to companies like Momo Inc. (NASDAQ: MOMO) and other players in the online dating field to constantly improve their mechanisms for detecting illicit activities on their platforms so that genuine users aren’t deterred from engaging in online dating.
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