German prosecutors have revealed a disturbing network of Telegram chats where men allegedly shared videos and photos of their attacks on unconscious victims, alongside tips on how to drug women. According to court documents, participants in these chats used coded language, referring to women as “cars,” sedatives as “fuel,” and rape as “driving,” while their victims were chillingly called “dead pigs.”
Frankfurt chief prosecutor Dominik Mies described the perpetrators as exhibiting “particular ruthlessness, an objectification of the victims, and the perfidious planning of their crimes.” While major details of the investigation, including the exact number of attacks and perpetrators linked to the German Telegram chats, remain undisclosed to the public, some chat groups reportedly boasted tens of thousands of members and operated for years.
German privacy laws restrict what prosecutors can publicly disclose, and court documents are often limited, leading to less public attention in Germany than might be expected. However, members of the country’s Chinese community, predominantly women, have been actively attending court proceedings in Berlin to support the victims. Fu Xiao, who traveled approximately 500 kilometers (310 miles) to Berlin, expressed her outrage, stating, “What makes one really angry is to see that such groups hate women, they have no respect. Women aren’t seen as people.”
In China, state media has extensively covered these cases, but discussions on Chinese-language social media platforms like Rednote have faced partial censorship. Screenshots and searches indicate that certain tags are more likely to result in a post being deleted or banned, though posts using less direct language, such as “date rape” or “students studying abroad in Germany,” have managed to circumvent the censors. China’s Ministry of Public Security and Rednote did not respond to requests for comment.
The German cases have drawn parallels to the ordeal of Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who was repeatedly drugged and raped over nearly a decade by her then-husband and strangers. Her decision to waive anonymity and the subsequent trial sparked a reckoning over rape culture. Judge Markus Koppenleitner, during a hearing in Munich for one of the Chinese men convicted in the German investigation, emphasized, “Pelicot is not an isolated case. This is not a Chinese or French phenomenon, but one that also exists in Germany and, ultimately, worldwide.”
Similar investigations, sometimes referred to as the “German driving school” network, are emerging globally. While authorities haven’t publicly linked them to the German prosecutions, some investigators credit tips from German authorities and journalists as crucial to their progress.
Last year, German investigators contacted Los Angeles police regarding a potential suspect in drug-facilitated sexual assaults. The defendant, a Chinese graduate student, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women in LA, allegedly procuring the drugs from a Chinese national in Germany. In the Netherlands last month, police arrested four men suspected of drugging and sexually abusing women after receiving information from German and U.K. authorities. Dutch police stated that the alleged perpetrators utilized social media chat groups to share videos of the abuse and discuss drugging methods.
Further underscoring the international scope, Europol, the European Union’s police agency, recently announced “Project Medusa,” an international operation aimed at dismantling online networks promoting drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Law enforcement agencies from Germany and the U.K. are leading this operation, which has already resulted in 57 arrests.
The German predator network flourished despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, raising persistent questions about the platform’s use for criminal activities. In 2024, the app’s founder was arrested in Paris over allegations that the platform facilitated illicit activities, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images. He denied wrongdoing, attributing the issue to a surge in users that made it easier for criminals to exploit the platform. The investigation into the founder is ongoing.
Telegram stated that “Sexual violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram’s terms of service and such content is routinely removed,” adding that the company “fulfils all of its legal obligations in relation to such harmful content, including everything set out by” the European Union’s Digital Services Act. However, the company did not respond to inquiries about the specific German cases, including how photos, videos, and comments about sexual crimes were posted for years, whether Telegram was aware of the activity, or what actions, if any, were taken to alert authorities.
Court documents reveal that some of the German Telegram chats date back to at least 2020. Attorney Magdalena Gebhard, who represented a victim in a previous Berlin trial that led to a conviction, noted that while there was an inner circle of eight perpetrators, some chat groups had as many as 50,000 members.
Police only became aware of the network in 2024 after a man in Frankfurt, identified in German courts as Dapeng Z., shifted his tactics from sexually abusing female acquaintances to targeting strangers met online, according to prosecutors. German police, in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, arrested Dapeng Z. in 2024. German and Chinese media have identified him as the group’s ringleader. He was sentenced in February to 14 years in prison for aggravated rape, attempted murder, and other offenses, though he has appealed the verdict. His attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
On Wednesday, defendant Zhiting S. is scheduled to receive his verdict and potential sentence in Berlin. Believed to be part of the group’s inner circle, Zhiting S. was charged with sexual assault and other counts. Prosecutors allege he used his previous medical training to provide instructions within a Telegram group on which drugs could be used to sedate women before sexual assault, with at least one person reportedly following his advice before an attack in Frankfurt. German authorities also accused Zhiting S. of repeatedly sexually abusing a woman in China and sharing images of the assault online.
Although authorities have not publicly disclosed the total number of women victimized by the “driving school” network, they confirm the investigation is ongoing, suggesting the possibility of further arrests and additional victims. For instance, Gebhard’s client only discovered she had been sexually assaulted after investigators uncovered video footage.
