When Veronica* found out that an Australian man had been posting images of his “conquests” in Mexico on the internet, her alarm bells went off.
She had felt uneasy after dating a man with a similar description.
But her instinct had not prepared her for the moment when she saw her own photos posted on one of the man's sites, under the heading "Mexico”.
I was in shock!
“I can't explain to you how angry I felt,” Veronica says. She still feels resentful for what she went through.
The Feed: 
Verónica had met Bradley Tavis Fiddler on Bumble, a popular online dating app in Mexico. She never imagined that she had in fact come across a "pickup artist", or PUA.
Bradley Fiddler or Brad Hunter.
Fiddler, an Australian man from Adelaide, travels the world collecting photos and videos of women of various nationalities whom he meets through apps like Tinder, Bumble, and Instagram.
He then uses the images as part of a series of 'seduction courses' that he sells online for up to $500, using phrases such as:
BRADICUS 600+ lays in 45+ countries.
“A comprehensive course with world-class teachers. More than 50 hours of content."
"Online seduction is our BRAND NEW online dating / social media course that will teach you how to have HOT GIRLS delivered to your door daily."
"You will learn how to get thousands of women showing you interest on dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble, or on social media apps like Instagram!"
The strategy
Fiddler’s strategy is simple. He creates different profiles on various dating apps using several names. Reportedly, his most used aliases are Brad, Brad Hunter, Bradley, Tim or Erick, among others.
Once a woman “matches” with one of the profiles, he then floods her with kind, loving messages, and compliments, until he manages to capture her attention.
Several women have described that once Fiddler gets their phone number, the message flow escalates. Many point out that sometimes he even sends messages from different numbers and does not stop until he manages to set a date to meet in person.
Highlights:
- A Mexican legislator called on women claiming they had been attacked online to report Bradley Tavis Fiddler for harassment.
- Veronica, a Mexican woman who had an encounter with the Australian, says she was verbally abused by him. She claims to have seen a photo of herself on one of the pages linked to Fiddler's 'seduction courses'.
- Fiddler denies all accusations against him and says that there are no nude or semi-nude photos or videos on his sites.
A flood of messages
Veronica, who lives in Mexico City, "matched" with one of Fiddler’s profiles last July.
She says that after a few days of exchanging messages with him, Fiddler told her that he was going to delete the app. He asked for her phone number, so they could continue chatting on an instant messaging app.
“We kept in touch via WhatsApp. He insisted a lot that we had to 'get to know each other',” she says.
Veronica says that they messaged each other for two days until they decided to meet at the Australian's apartment.
At the time, most of Mexico City was in lockdown, so Veronica thought Fiddler's suggestion to meet at his apartment wasn't unreasonable.
She says there were other people there. She assumed they were his housemates. Each person seemed to be minding their own business.
After a short chat, Veronica and Fiddler went up to the terrace of the apartment.
“We were up there, everything was normal. He told me that I looked super pretty and that I was very pretty. He took some very simple photos of me. I was leaning against the wall and I'm holding my hair,” she recalls.
Veronica says that they kissed on the terrace and when they went down to the apartment again, she assures that she saw one of Fiddler’s housemates there, although she says she didn't notice when or how that person had gotten there.
Veronica later went to Fiddler’s room to watch a movie. They began to make out, and although Veronica says there was resistance on her part, they ended up having consensual sex.
'I was shocked when I saw my photo on his page'
Veronica says she felt uneasy after the date, as she felt the Australian was too pushy.
She decided she didn't want to see him again. But Fiddler kept sending her messages, inviting her to travel together around the country.
“After we saw each other, he began to send me messages saying that we should see each other again, to accompany him, to go with him. I flatly didn't want to answer him anymore because he was too insistent, it was too much. He wrote to me all day and I didn't answer him. Until I told him the truth was that I didn't even have a good time and I didn't want to go with him. After that, everything blew up”.
Veronica says her rejection led to harassment. She claims he began to send her constant hurtful messages to her phone and on her social networks.
“He sent me a message saying that I was a bitch, that I was a whore, and that I was a slut for agreeing to be with him. After that, I blocked him from WhatsApp,” she recalls angrily.
“Then he sent me a message on Instagram, and he sent me audio that I never opened. Never ... And he also sent me a message to my work account.”
What had started as a flood of compliments turned into a torrent of insults.
[He sent me] another message with a sad face and saying: 'you are a whore'… I blocked it again. And I changed my network setings to private again.
Veronica told her friends about what was going on, and one of them sent her a link to a Facebook post where another girl described that she had had a similar experience with an Australian man.
"The post said that they had not met, but that he insisted a lot on meeting each other. When she refused, he was rude to her," Veronica explains.
The young woman who wrote the post on Facebook had investigated Fiddler and found out what he really did. The post included links that led to the Australian's alleged "marketing" business.
When Veronica opened the link, she couldn't believe her eyes.
"I went to see. I read the whole thing and saw the sites. I was kind of in shock."
"What made me the angriest was that the photo he took of me on the terrace was on the site."
Veronica and the other girl behind the Facebook post weren't the only ones who were claiming to have been repeatedly harassed and abused by Fiddler via text messages and on social media. SBS Spanish understands many other girls assert to have been duped after meeting or dating Fiddler.
Being white and a foreigner in Mexico
Mariana* is another of the girls who claims to have met Fiddler through dating apps. She says that the Australian is very confident that being a foreigner gives him a better chance of scoring a romantic date.
"He knows that being white and blonde, redhead or whatever [provides an advantage]," Mariana says.
He knows perfectly well that in countries like Mexico, like Vietnam, all those countries he goes to, he has a lot of allure for being a foreigner.
In one of his online videos, Fiddler himself boasts that girls in Mexico give him 'good sex', 'buy him drinks' and even 'clean his apartment'.
Social psychologist, Emma Hernandez Rodriguez, believes that the image of Latina women portrayed by media as 'hot', 'fiery', and 'accommodating' makes men like Fiddler flock to these countries.
"The stereotype of Mexican women, or Latina women, is hypersexualized," Hernandez explains.
“We are thought to be more submissive, so foreigners take advantage of this possibility to come and 'be white' here."
In 2020, Fiddler visited several Latin American countries, but it was in Mexico where his activities were openly recriminated.
Once his activities became known, warnings and complaints against the Australian PUA immediately flooded social media networks. Dozens of women denounced him for harassment and digital violence.
Mexican legislator, Alessandra Rojo de la Vega, heard about the case and took to Twitter to reveal the Australian's real name, as he had only been known by his aliases until then.
Rojo de la Vega accused Bradley Tavis Fiddler and his associates of "harassing women around the world through dating apps" in a viral video where she did not spare words of condemnation.
"According to the bastard, he is an international conqueror and boasts about the number of women he has sexual encounters with every day," she emphasized.
He and his friends are violent… do you know what his real 'achievement' is? Deceiving women, seducing them, recording and spreading the product of their garbage!
Rojo de la Vega started an online petition calling on Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to expel Bradley Tavis Fiddler from the country.
The petition on the change.org site collected more than 10,000 signatures and was taken to Congress.
The Congress of Mexico City approved the petition to expel Fiddler from the country and the Attorney General's Office in Mexico City opened an investigation against him.
Online petition to expel Bradley Tavis Fiddler from Mexico. Source: Change.org
In Mexico, recording, disseminating, transmitting, exchanging, marketing, sharing or extorting videos, audios, photographs or any other digital material with intimate content obtained with or without consent is a crime punishable by up to eight years in prison, depending on the state where the offense is committed.
Rojo de la Vega called on the victims to report Fiddler to the authorities. Veronica and other girls did.
After the scandal, Fiddler and his friends left Mexico for an unknown destination.
His YouTube channels have been blocked. Some of their profiles on dating apps have been banned, and much of their content has been removed from various platforms.
However, his internet pages are still active, and his 'seduction courses' are still available.
Fiddler boasts about these bans as a badge of honour, adding captions like these to his pages:
"I got banned from YouTube and Instagram for being too SEXUAL and CONTROVERSIAL."
"These are videos that got over a MILLION VIEWS and literally GOT ME BANNED FROM COUNTRIES."
“Death threats, mass reports, ban after ban. There is a reason why millions of people hate us. We give results.”
SBS Spanish requested an interview with Bradley Tavis Fiddler. Fiddler replied denying the accusations against him.
Fiddler boasts about been banned from several platforms.
He stated: "There are absolutely NO naked or semi-naked photos or videos of anybody inside my content on any platforms, and I DO NOT promote acts of gender violence. These are made up allegations that prove to not be true."
"Whenever filming videos and content, I let everyone around me know that I film videos for online content or other forms of content. For example, these videos are always filmed in a public setting and with permission of the individuals that appear," Fiddler added.
The women SBS Spanish interviewed, beg to differ.
*Real names have been changed.
