Disclaimer: The following blog is designed to share my story of meeting Australian serial Grindr swindler Dongqiao Li. The intention is also to warn others in case the person that I believe defrauded me and others contacts them. The blog is also written with the intention of encouraging anyone who believes they have been a victim of his to contact their local police station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 with any relevant information. I have attached details in this blog of who to contact and you are welcome to contact me for guidance. I utterly condemn any form of harassment of the individual in question. I also condemn and will not tolerate any xenophobia or racism in the comments or in any messages sent.
Again, if you have concerns, please reach out to me or contact your local police force or Crime Stoppers. He is also wanted on outstanding warrants for fraud-related offences in NSW and South Australia, so I encourage you to contact local police or Crime Stoppers if you see him and know of his wherabouts in either state. To find out a bit more about me and this blog please read the ‘About’ section.
3 October 2025 Update: This blog is finally back after a break of several months following the arrest of Dongqiao Li on fraud related charges in Sydney in January 2025. I have updated and republished this blog following Li’s guilty verdict in NSW and custodial sentence in Victoria. Please note that Dongqiao Li is still wanted on arrest warrants in both NSW and South Australia.
Have I got a story and a half to share with you! But first let’s cut to the chase. Meet convicted fraudster Dongqiao Li (sometimes spelt as Dong Qiao Li) who according to court documents was born in July 1993. He is known to friends as Tony Lee, and I understand that according to victims he has used the names Anton, Tony and Anthony. I believe I was one of those victims and he referred to himself as Anton to me. For the purpose of this blog I will refer to him as Donqiao Li or Li and at other times (when relevant) as Tony or Anton.
Dongqiao Li has been in and out of the courts in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne on fraud charges since at least 2014. He has multiple fraud-related convictions, community corrections orders, conditional release orders and one 12 month suspended prison sentence. None of these seem to have acted as a deterrent. It has also been revealed that he has previous convictions for shoplifting and for possessing child pornography.
Li was arrested in January 2025 at a five-star hotel in Sydney by NSW Police and was found guilty in his absence of all fraud-related charges in March 2025 after absconding and missing a court appearance at Sydney’s Downing Centre. He was then arrested the following week in Melbourne by Victoria Police and charged with various fraud-related crimes there. In a dramatic turnaround of events following the intervention of the media Li was given a three-month custodial sentence by a magistrate In Melbourne in September 2025 which she said would have likely been 12 months if not for letters from mental health specialists.
This was the first blog/website to write about Dongqiao Li in 2024, but the media has played a crucial role in exposing Li since for which I am grateful and thankful. Channel 7 journalist James King first broke the story in the media of Li’s criminal history and January 2025 arrest at a five-star Sydney Hotel here. You can also read more from James here.
Ben Grubb of Gay Sydney News has also played an invaluable role in not only reporting on Li’s recent court cases in Sydney and Melbourne but also for providing information on his criminal history to the magistrate in Melbourne and also playing an important role in challenging a suppression order that prevented Li being named and details of the case being published in the media. You can read Ben’s reporting of the dramatic turnaround in Li’s case in Melbourne in August 2025 here. You can also read about Li being finally sentenced to jail here.
I am thankful to all those journalists who have written stories about Li but in particular James and Ben. I have linked all the media stories about Li in one of the blog posts here News Coverage of Dongqiao Li – The Grindr Swindler
Dongqiao Li has been using Grindr for at least five or six years to lure victims though his fraud-related crimes go back much further. For most of that time his profile picture consisted of the same torso which you can see below. The guy in the photo was holding a mobile phone in his long-standing profile pic. You could not see the person’s face.
However, the guy in the profile photo was not Dongqiao Li but a photo taken from a porn site. He would also send photos to his victims in the chat of a shirtless guy who he claimed was him but again it was not. I have since located this guy to China and have established his identity. I believe he is an innocent party and have therefore chosen not to reveal his identity.
In late April 2024 his Grindr profile was deactivated. I have no idea whether Li or Grindr deactivated it or why. I believe he was in Adelaide at the time staying at the Playford Hotel.
However, Li appears to have resurfaced as another alleged victim contacted me in July 2024. He claimed he met Li at a five-star hotel in Sydney in late June. He also sent me screenshots of what appears to be Li’s then Grindr profile.
I have established that the profile appears to have belonged to Dongqiao Li. The profile photo is different from the previous profile, but it is in fact of the same guy in China whose photos he had been sending victims in the chat using his previous Grindr profile. In the chat with this new victim, he was still sending the same photos of the guy in China that he had sent using his old profile and whose photo was on his new profile.
The details in that new profile set up by Li such as age and height were also the same as they were in his old profile. His modus operandi was also the same.
In November 2024 yet another victim got in touch who had met him in Melbourne at another luxury hotel. He had another main profile pic but again same age and similar or same details. The profile pic is again of the same guy in China. He also sent out the same photos he had sent me and other victims in the chat of the guy in China. Again, same modus operandi. You can see a screenshot below of his profile from November 2024. Around the same time another victim came forward to say that he believed that he had been defrauded in Melbourne by Li. Again, same methods and same description.
He was using the above Grindr profile when he was arrested in Sydney by NSW Police in early January 2025.
However, it does not end there. In late January 2025 I was contacted by a guy on Grindr in Melbourne. The profile picture was of the same guy in China, the opening message was identical to the one sent to me and other victims previously and the penis photos were exactly the same ones I had been sent by Li a couple of years earlier. I believe it is clear that he had set up a new profile within a couple of weeks of his arrest in Sydney. That new profile was deactivated in mid-February 2025. You can see that profile below.
Dongqiao Li’s Grindr profile from January/February 2025
So, what is Dongqiao Li’s modus operandi? His tactics have slightly changed over the years but have remained similar. These days it seems he travels around Australia staying in top five-star hotels. He contacts his victims on Grindr, though I have been informed that he has also used Tinder and Hinge in the past. He tells them that he is from Melbourne and often adds that he is in town for work or on business trip. When he is in Melbourne he has been reported as telling victims he is from Sydney or lives in Sydney and is originally from Melbourne. He then invites his victims to his hotel. Some victims have reported that he has kept them waiting for some time in the hotel lobby before meeting them.
He takes them to his hotel room which is often one of the best in the hotel. They typically engage in sexual activities. At some point he commonly either urges or asks them to take a shower. It is thought that while they are in the shower he accesses their wallet and takes photos of their credit cards, debit cards and ID before putting them back in the wallet in the hope his victim will not notice anything missing or untoward.
Once the victim has left his hotel, he will use their card details to defraud them. Tony will spend his latest victim’s money on restaurants, luxury hotels, flights and other goodies such as skin care and other beauty products. He often buys vouchers first to purchase items. Typically, he will spend between $1,500 to $3000 of his latest victim’s money before moving on to his next victim.
What is Dongqiao Li like as a person? It seems he was once part of or connected to a close friendship circle in Melbourne and Sydney. One member of his former friendship group described him and others in a photograph posted on social media in 2018 as extended family. I believe he was first brought into this friendship circle several years ago through a man he was dating who now has a high-profile job in one of Australia’s major cities. I am aware of the identity of this person and know of people who have reached out to him including victims and journalists but so far messages have gone unanswered. People connected to the friendship group say he refuses to discuss Li. It should be noted that in no way am I suggesting or do I believe he is in any way implicated in the crimes of Li.
Dongqiao Li (or Tony Lee as he was known to his friends) was cut off from this friendship group around 2021 when his friends discovered his double life. They felt disgusted and betrayed and insist they knew nothing of his fraudulent activities. He even persuaded one close friend to provide his bail in a 2021 court case in Sydney.
The friend believed he was due in court because of covid travel breaches. He soon found out this was not the case and that it was fraud related. He was understandably horrified. Li put this friend’s family through a lot and especially caused stress to this friend’s elderly parents. It is still difficult for this former close friend of Li to discuss him or the events leading to the end of their once cherished friendship. Some readers of this blog might well argue that if you can lie to your closest friends it should come as no surprise that you can lie to strangers that you contact online and then meet in person.
To make matters worse a previous alleged victim of Li had got hold of the court documents for the above case which were shared with other victims. The documents contained the address for the friend as he had provided Li’s bail, and he was staying with him. Victims and others assumed that this was Li’s home address, and his now former friend received a barrage of correspondence from angry and upset victims and their supporters.
Another former friend from that same friendship group recently got in touch with me who wrote that their friendship group misjudged Li and also insisted the group did not know anything about this sinister side of him before it was revealed to them thanks to the Sydney court case in 2021. He says that during their friendship Li had been invited to social events and that he had even visited this friend’s own home on occasion. He adds he knows of other victims and will try and encourage them to go to the police as some have not been willing to report it previously. He feels sickened that Li hung around the friendship group for so long.
Former friends describe Li as someone who was shy and socially awkward and was not known for being a ‘conversation starter’. Indeed, in group photos Tony is often at the side or the back. Some victims tell me they believe he probably lives quite an isolated and lonely existence spending most of his time in hotel rooms when not flying between cities.
One person who says he was a victim of Li’s wrote, “I never see him on the streets of Melbourne or at clubs or events. So pretty sure he stays in a hotel most of the time now. He is like Gollum. So now he just goes from hotel-to-hotel luring people to his room before he moves hotels. When I met him in 2021, he didn’t even want to go out for dinner and was constantly paranoid about being seen and wanted to go back to the hotel ASAP. He sleeps with anything to get another card for another few days. He is like a low-grade prostitute.”
While there is certainly nothing wrong with consensual sex work it is clear that Li appears to have been living a rather pathetic, desperate and secretive life living in the shadows… albeit those of airports, hookup sites such as Grindr and five-star hotels.
Friends with whom he used to be close also describe him as someone who acted rich and would spend big. This was certainly the experience of his victims who have met him at luxury five-star hotels. He is a man of expensive tastes. However, it begs the question as to where the money comes from for him to afford such opulence. Court documents from January 2025 show that police believe he likely afforded this lifestyle through defrauding men he met through dating apps. In the documents police also claim Li had not held down a steady job for almost ten years. We know from the recent 2025 Melbourne court hearing that he was unemployed and on welfare.
Former Sydney friends have expressed surprise that he was until recently at least coming to the city regularly. One wrote, “He still visits Sydney? Well, he knows to steer clear of my friends as we all know what he’s done.”
I believe I was a victim of Li’s in 2022. I have been in touch or been contacted by other alleged or established victims who all have had similar stories to tell. At first there was uncertainty about his background, but recent details were revealed during his recent Melbourne court case; the same court case which resulted in a three-month custodial sentence. It seems Li was born in China and moved to Perth in Western Australia at a young age. He later moved to Victoria. I believe he moved to a suburb of Ballarat or at least that is where his mother is currently living as revealed during his recent court hearings in Melbourne.
As part of his bail conditions, Li had to live with his mother at this address, and he also had to report weekly to a police station in Ballarat. I am aware of the exact suburb but will not reveal it here as I believe it would be unfair to his mother and any other family members. I also condemn any harassment of Li or his family. It is also up to the police to investigate and for the courts to administer justice. We can however provide information to them should we have it.
Again, there is no suggestion that Li’s mother or any other family member is implicated or had any knowledge of his crimes. Indeed, I have much empathy and sympathy for Li’s mother as the revelations about his double life must be difficult and at times painful for her. I hope that she has a good support network around her.
At some point it has been claimed that Li was involved in a serious car accident that killed his stepfather and gravely injured his mother. That is a tragedy that I would not wish on anyone. However, it does not excuse or justify the crimes of Li which he has repeated numerous times for many years.
Mental health experts claim that Li’s experience of this tragic accident likely led to PTSD. Thankfully the magistrate in Melbourne wisely and sensibly noted that mental health and PTSD were no excuses for his crimes which she described as ‘cold and calculated’ and ‘carefully planned’. She felt she had no choice but to give him a custodial sentence and gave him one of three months which would have been 12 months had it not been for letters from mental health experts.
The New South Wales Police Force recently reopened and resurfaced my case in July 2024 when I established that I believed Dongqiao Li was the person who defrauded me, and I provided other information. It has since become clear that Li was well known to NSW Police.
In fact, I understand that he was still on two NSW community correction orders when he defrauded me.
Even though Li often tells victims he is from Melbourne it is thought he also has connections to Adelaide. Based on information that I have been given I believe he probably lived there circa 2014 to 2016 and may have been a student at the University of Adelaide or had connections there. His early fraud trials going back to 2014 were in Adelaide and one alleged victim has reported they believe he was thrown out of student accommodation in Adelaide for stealing credit card details at a party.
I cannt confirm the incident but I can confirm that photographs that I have seen of Li on social media from around 2014 and 2015 show him as being in Adelaide. At least one shows him with other students at the University of Adelaide’s student accomodation.
One of the problems that police have is that it is thought that many victims do not come forward. I know of victims who have not reported the crime though they have contacted me. This may be because of several reasons such as shame, embarrassment, being in the closet, being in a monogamous relationship, concerns about visa issues, mistrust of the police or people are just relieved to be reimbursed by the bank and are happy to move on. Some victims may be unaware he defrauded them. Other victims tell me they feel that too much time has passed since they were defrauded by him. I can assure you that I believe that Li plays on this and uses it to his advantage.
My own belief is that many people are capable of change and should be given second chances. However, Li is a repeat offender who has been given numerous chances to change his ways and turn over a new leaf. He has a string of fraud-related convictions, community corrections orders, conditional release orders and one 12 month suspended sentence. Sadly, none of these appear to have acted as a deterrent. Until September 2025 Li seems to have escaped a custodial sentence each time he has appeared in court. It appeared that he was once again about to be given yet another Community Corrections Order until journalists intervened as the magistrate, the prosector and even Li’s defense lawyer appeared to be largely unware of his long criminal history.
I and other victims believe Li has potentially defrauded hundreds of people out of hundreds of thousands or even millions of Australian dollars. We know from his recent court hearing in Melbourne that he has defrauded people of around $120,000 over many hears. We suspect the figure, given many people have not gone to the police or their reports have apparently not been followed up, is much higher. Li often takes a couple of thousand dollars from each victim before moving on to the next victim, relatively small amounts as far as the banks and police are concerned but of course it all adds up.
Police investigators have asked me to urge all victims of Li or anyone who has any knowledge of Li’s crimes to please report it to police or Crime Stoppers. If you feel comfortable doing so, please do reach out to me and I can help and guide you in the right direction. Please do not hesitate.
It is crucial Li is held legally accountable, and any illegal behaviour on his part is reported. You can contact your local police station or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 if you think Dongqiao Li (Tony Lee) was the person who may have defrauded you or if you have any information on him that might prove useful. The more people that come forward with information, the better.
Please do not hesitate to contact me for support, reassurance and guidance if you wish and feel comfortable doing so. It is crucial Li is stopped as he has been doing this for so long. I also hope that Li’s first custodial sentence will allow him to reflect on his crimes, the effect they have had on his victims and turn over a new leaf. This is not a victimless crime.
To Dongqiao Li’s victims… it does not matter how long ago you believe you were defrauded by him or if the bank refunded you or stopped his fraudulent payments…please come forward. You have nothing to feel ashamed of and have done nothing wrong.
Li has also had a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram, but I have chosen not to reveal his accounts as I do not wish him to be harassed. This is relevant as he has been known to give victims his Instagram as a means of staying in touch. It appears that as of September 2025 his Facebook has been deactivated but he still has his Instagram account.
I am glad and relieved that Li has been serving a three-month custodial sentence in Victoria – his first. The magistrate said that she believed he would find it ‘very difficult’ in prison. We hope that this has been the case as it may be the shock that Li needed to change his ways. Constantly living out of a suitcase, living an isolated and lonely existence in hotel rooms and constantly looking over your shoulder for law enforcement cannot be any fun. Being cut off and disowned by your former friends and knowing they are disgusted and ashamed of your behaviour must be a heavy burden to carry.
I also understand that Li was worried about his family finding out about his crimes. News reports show that in Melbourne in 2025 his lawyer, on behalf of her client, wanted the reporting of his name and details of the case suppressed. Thankfully, journalists successfully challenged attempts to silence them, and the media suppression order was lifted. I agree with the magistrate and journalists that the reporting of Li’s case and lengthy criminal history is certainly in the public interest. Li may not be violent, and Li may not use sextortion tactics, to the best of my knowledge, but he is a predator preying on members of an often vulnerable and marginalised group of which I understand he is part. It is important that such behaviour is challenged and held to account.
Here is my story. Brace yourselves…
The Grindr Swindler 
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