Duped on dates: Two men victimized at gunpoint; one robbed of $200K in jewelry

The excitement and heart-beating anticipation of an encounter with an enticing female — or two — likely turns to gut-wrenching disappointment and anger after love becomes larceny.

It happens with regularity around South Florida and recently cost a Miami man hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry, while in Broward, two men meeting up with their “date” were jumped and paraded to various ATMs and forced — at gunpoint — to make withdrawals.

The Broward cases happened separately in early August in Deerfield Beach and Pompano Beach.

In both instances the men used the MeetMe app to arrange a rendezvous with a woman who used the name Emily Perez and identified herself as a 21-year-old woman from Pompano Beach, the Broward Sheriff ’s Office said.

But Emily Perez was as fake as the dates would turn out to be.

Perez was actually a 17-year-old girl, with a different name, who the Sun Sentinel is not identifying because she’s a minor.

However, she would accompany two alleged accomplices who concealed their faces while forcing the men to make ATM withdrawals.

“The victims are released under the threat that if they contact law enforcement they’ll get in trouble because [Perez] is a teenager and not an adult as she claimed on the app,” said sheriff’s office spokeswoman Joy Oglesby.

Two alleged accomplices of the girl, Peterson Joachim, 22, and Shnyder Dumas, 19, were arrested late last month and are charged with armed robbery, kidnapping and carjacking.

The Miami crime unfolded on Sept. 14 at about 4 a.m. after the man met two women while out and then had them accompany him to this 18th-floor condo near downtown “to continue enjoying the night,” Miami Police Officer Kenia Fallat said.

Security surveillance video just released by police shows the two women — one dark-haired, the other platinum blonde — and both in tight-fitting short black skirts walking with the sneaker-wearing man across the condo lobby and entering an elevator.

“Once inside his home, the two suspects prepared alcoholic beverages, walked into the victim’s bedroom and, at gunpoint, forced the victim to drink a cocktail, causing him to feel drowsy and fall fast asleep.” Fallat said.

When the man woke up the two women were gone — as was jewelry valued at about $200,000, police said.

And as if to add insult to injury, “The gun they pulled on him was his very own handgun,” Fallat told WSVN-Ch. 7.

The two women remain at large and are being sought by police.

In Broward, the sheriff’s office is encouraging anyone who has been victimized by a love scam to report the incident.

“BSO detectives are focused on identifying other victims and not pursuing charges against anyone who was duped,” Oglesby said.