An unnamed head of the Swedish gay pride movement was allegedly caught sending sexually explicit messages to the social media account of a 14-year-old boy who was actually two undercover Swedish journalists.
The two journalists, Negra Efendić and Adrian Sadikovic of Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, posed as a 14-year-old named David on the gay hookup app Grindr along with the web forum Qruiser. Despite stating the age of ‘David’, more than a hundred men continued to pursue him for sex, Swedish newspaper Expressen reports.
Several of the men in contact with ‘David’ agreed to meet the boy for sex, including the Pride Movement head who had previously asked for explicit images and videos of the boy. When confronted, the man admitted to sending the messages but claimed he had never met an underage boy for sex in the past, the report states.
A senior figure in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs also spoke to the journalists for six days before arranging a meeting but claimed he only wanted to talk to the boy about coming out as gay.
While the Ministry of Foreign Affairs refused to comment on the allegations, the Pride organisation, Stockholm Pride, put out a press release saying that the allegations constitute grooming and are a criminal offence.
“Should it prove to be a person working within our organisation, we will take powerful action immediately. We are now investigating the issue further internally,” they added.
In December 2017, another leading member of Stockholm Pride was fired after revelations emerged that he had been involved with the rape of a 13-year-old boy in 2011.
The cases come just under two years after a manager at Sweden’s public broadcaster SVT was caught attempting to buy the virginity of a 14-year-old girl who turned out to be Expressen journalist Lisah Silfwer.
The man offered the ‘girl’ 9,000 Swedish kronor (£840) to take her virginity when she turned 15 but later when confronted by the journalist, claimed: “It was never a matter of buying sex.”