Israel Police revealed on Tuesday that 36 of the hundreds of women raped in Israel in 2023 were attacked by catfishers they met online.
Catfishers are people who catfish others, meaning they impersonate someone they are not on the Internet. This is often done in the context of online dating and results in the defrauding and even sexual assault of the victims.
The police revealed this startling statistic at a special meeting of the Committee for the Advancement of Women on the subject of serial catfishers. The conversation came as a response to Haim Etgar’s successful television show The Imposters, which exposes catfishers through the testimony of victims.
Etgar, speaking at the Knesset committee meeting, revealed that he receives hundreds of complaints and reports a day from victims of catfishing, and even if he “had 72 hours in a day and four times’ the team,” they still would not be able to meet the demand.
Israel Police says worrying data 'does not reflect broad phenomenon'
Israel Police Supt. Meital Graff, however, said that the data received by the police does not reflect such a broad phenomenon.
“We only looked at the offense of Section 345 regarding having sexual intercourse in deception, and we saw that the trend [of taking action] is surprisingly positive when, in 2022, only eight cases were opened, while in 2023, 36 cases were opened,” she said.
MK and former minister of Immigrant Absorption Pnina Tamano-Shata (National Unity) quickly responded, “This is rape. If we as professionals don’t understand this, we have a serious problem.”
Graff quickly agreed, saying, “36 women reported that they were raped by catfishers.”
However, many women who have complained about catfishing claim that their files are closed by the police.
Meital Yaakobi, for example, was the victim of a catfisher and sought justice but did not find that the police were effective in helping her case.
She had been texting with a guy who “introduced himself as Gilbert Forrester.” He was kind and respectful, and she ultimately became pregnant from him.
“While we were staying at a hotel, I wanted to put a love letter in his bag, and I saw his ID, from which I understood that he was a resident of Abu Ghosh,” she said. “At that moment, I fell to my knees. He does not pay child support and is fighting me legally. I came forward because I didn’t want what happened to me to happen to other women.
“When I asked the catfisher why he did this to me, he said, ‘You should see it as a compliment that a guy like me has to make up a persona to be with you.’”
She complained to the police, and they transferred her complaint to the prosecutor’s office, where the file was closed due to “lack of evidence.”
Lilach Kush received similar treatment. She was tricked into dating a man who introduced himself as Neve and claimed to be a therapist after he came to her house and seemingly drugged her.
“A case was opened, and no indictment was filed because the case was eventually closed,” she said.
MK Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit) explained during the meeting that the law “rules for a non-mitigating punishment that creates deterrence” in such cases.
“This law is not enforced,” Etgar replied.
Gaff told the committee, “The women who spoke here, we look at [them] and say, ‘This could’ve been us.’”
Ultimately, the goal of making online dating a safe space for all is being seen as an uphill battle, because of the drastic increase in reports of rape by catfishers. Tamano-Shata highlighted the importance of making online dating safe while ridding the country of a victim-blaming mentality.