Austrian police have uncovered a network of neo-Nazis using fake dating profiles to ambush gay men.

Men and women have been arrested in raids across the country after victims were lured to remote locations and assaulted by masked men.

The perpetrators filmed the attacks before sharing the footage on messaging services such as Telegram.

Michael Lohnegger, head of the police department in the city of Graz, said: “The perpetrators were extremely brutal, they wanted to humiliate their victims.

“One victim was forced to dance for them. Videos of this scene were uploaded to social media or group chats.”

Seventeen assaults have been uncovered so far, but Austrian authorities believe the true number is far higher with many victims not reporting the crimes because of the shame of what happened to them.

Over time the attacks became ever more violent, police said. One incident is being treated as attempted murder.

None were known paedophiles

Self-described “paedo hunters” the group, aged 14 to 26, claimed to be carrying out vigilante justice against paedophiles.

However, the victims believed they were about to engage in legal sexual intercourse. None of them were known paedophiles, the police said.

Police raids in seven Austrian districts over the past week at addresses linked to suspects uncovered Nazi memorabilia and weapons.

Gay rights organisations have linked the crimes to the rise of the Freedom Party, a hard-Right political group that won the most votes at a national election in 2024.

“Hate is becoming more socially acceptable and in my opinion that has something to do with the Freedom Party,” Joe Niedermayer, head of LGBT group RosaLila, told the Der Standard newspaper.

“When politicians say things publicly, people who have hate inside them feel emboldened to say something in public,” he added.

The Freedom Party rejects same-sex marriage and its politicians regularly cause controversy by making negative remarks about the LGBT community.