CHICAGO — Back on May 3, Chicago police issued an alert warning the public about a robbery trap.
In the previous two months, eight men had been robbed and sometimes tied up by men who lured them to the 1800 block of South Springfield via a dating app. A ninth man was similarly attacked in the 1900 block of South Spaulding, police said.
Since then, at least seven more men have been robbed in the 1800 block of South Springfield, most recently on Sunday.
Police said a 26-year-old man went there around 2:33 a.m. to meet a man he connected with on a dating app or website. Once he arrived, two men displayed guns and robbed him.
He complied, but the men weren’t done. They struck him in the head with a gun and then stole his car.
As with most of the victims, his rendezvous went south after he entered an abandoned home, police reports show.
In CPD’s alert on May 3, police detailed some of the robberies that had been reported. They all involved two or three attackers.
During one confrontation, the robbers displayed a gun and tied the victim up with duct tape, police said. The offenders forced him to surrender his banking and credit card information.
On April 2, a victim was held at gunpoint and tied down while one of the offenders went to an ATM to clean out the victim’s bank accounts, police said.
Police described the suspects as Black men between 25 and 29 years old who stood 5’9″ to 5’11” tall.
CPD’s alert in May said incidents occurred in the 1800 block of South Springfield on
- March 6 at 10 p.m. and again at 11:30 p.m.
- March 8 at 11:47 p.m.
- March 17 at 1:50 a.m.
- March 31 at 12:05 p.m.
- April 2 at 9:30 p.m.
- April 11 at 11 p.m.
- April 22 at 11 p.m.
The Spaulding incident occurred at 12:20 p.m. on April 28.
Since the alert, even more cases have been reported on Springfield, including the one on Sunday:
- May 9 at 2:50 a.m.
- May 12 at 3 a.m.
- May 21 at 3 a.m.
- July 3 at 9:30 p.m.
- July 4 at 3 p.m.
- July 13 at midnight
Cops suspect more men have been victimized but have not reported the crimes. No arrests have been made.
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