{"id":2406,"date":"2026-07-08T10:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2406"},"modified":"2026-07-08T10:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T10:08:17","slug":"chinese-men-in-germany-used-telegram-groups-to-share-rape-videos-and-drugging-tips-prosecutors-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2406","title":{"rendered":"Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

BERLIN \u2014 They called themselves the \u201cGerman driving school for experts,\u201d but prosecutors say the true purpose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.<\/p>\n

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In posts that sometimes included photos and videos of their attacks on unconscious victims, they referred to women as \u201ccars,\u201d sedatives as \u201cfuel\u201d and rape as \u201cdriving,\u201d according to court documents. They called their victims \u201cdead pigs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Investigators have been poring through several years\u2019 worth of posts in roughly two dozen group chats on the popular messaging app that authorities believe served an online predator network of mainly Chinese men targeting mostly Chinese women in Germany. Their investigation has led to the convictions of three alleged inner circle members on rape and other charges, and the ongoing trial of a fourth man in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe perpetrators were characterized by a particular ruthlessness, an objectification of the victims, and the perfidious planning of their crimes,\u201d Frankfurt chief prosecutor Dominik Mies told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Major details of the investigation remain unknown, at least to the public, including how many attacks and perpetrators have been linked to the German Telegram chats and how the chats, some of which reportedly had tens of thousands of members, could have operated for so long. It\u2019s also unclear whether the chats are linked to a ballooning investigation in Europe and the Americas into drug-facilitated sexual assaults by misogynist online communities.<\/p>\n

Under German privacy laws, prosecutors are limited in what they can say outside the courtroom, documents are restricted and, in the ongoing case in Berlin, members of the public have been forced to leave the courtroom during parts of the trial.<\/p>\n

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This may be why the investigation into the Telegram group has garnered less attention in Germany than might be expected. But members of the country\u2019s Chinese community, mostly women, have been attending court proceedings to show support for the victims even if they don\u2019t know them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat makes one really angry is to see that such groups hate women, they have no respect,\u201d said Fu Xiao, who traveled about 300 miles to Berlin last week to attend the trial. \u201cWomen aren\u2019t seen as people.\u201d<\/p>\n

In China, state media has covered the cases comprehensively, but wider discussion about the prosecutions on Chinese-language social media like RedNote has been partially censored. Certain tags have been more likely to get a post deleted or banned on RedNote, screenshots and searches show. But posts using less direct language have survived the censors, including ones that refer to \u201cdate rape\u201d or the euphemistic \u201cstudents studying abroad in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s Ministry of Public Security and RedNote did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

The German cases have drawn comparisons to the attacks on Gis\u00e8le Pelicot, a French woman who, over the course of nearly a decade, was repeatedly drugged and raped by her then-husband and strangers he invited to their home. The trial \u2014 and Pelicot\u2019s decision to waive her anonymity \u2014 prompted a reckoning over rape culture in France and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cPelicot is not an isolated case,\u201d Judge Markus Koppenleitner said during a hearing in Munich for one of the Chinese men convicted in the German investigation. \u201cThis is not a Chinese or French phenomenon, but one that also exists in Germany and, ultimately, worldwide.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Similar cases to the \u201cGerman driving school\u201d investigation have been popping up around the globe. Although authorities have not publicly linked them to the German prosecutions, some investigators have cited tips from German authorities and journalists as crucial to their progress.<\/p>\n

In Los Angeles, German investigators last year reached out to police about a potential suspect in drug-facilitated sexual assaults. The defendant, a graduate student from China, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women in LA after he allegedly procured the drugs from a Chinese national in Germany.<\/p>\n

In the Netherlands last month, police arrested four men suspected of drugging and sexually abusing women after hearing from authorities in Germany and the U.K. Dutch police said the alleged perpetrators used social media chat groups to disseminate videos showing the abuse and discuss how to drug victims.<\/p>\n

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And Europol, the European Union\u2019s police agency, last week announced \u201cProject Medusa,\u201d an international operation designed to dismantle online networks that promote drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Law enforcement from Germany and the U.K. are leading the operation, which has already netted 57 arrests.<\/p>\n

The German predator network managed to thrive despite clear violations of Telegram\u2019s terms of service, again raising questions about how the platform has been used for criminal activity.<\/p>\n

In 2024, the app\u2019s founder was arrested in Paris over allegations that the platform was being used for illicit activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of child sexual abuse images. He denied wrongdoing, blaming surging numbers of Telegram users that he said \u201ccaused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.\u201d The investigation is ongoing.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\u201cSexual violence is explicitly forbidden by Telegram\u2019s terms of service and such content is routinely removed,\u201d the company said in a statement. \u201cTelegram fulfils all of its legal obligations in relation to such harmful content, including everything set out by\u201d the European Union\u2019s Digital Services Act.<\/p>\n

The company did not respond to questions about the German cases, including how photos, videos and comments about sexual crimes were posted for years in the app, whether Telegram was aware of the activity and what, if anything, it did to alert the authorities.<\/p>\n

Some of the German Telegram chats date back to at least 2020, court documents show. Attorney Magdalena Gebhard, who represented a victim in a previous Berlin trial that led to a conviction, said there was an inner circle of eight perpetrators but that some of the chat groups had up to 50,000 members.<\/p>\n

Police only became aware of the network in 2024 after a man in Frankfurt, referred to by German courts as Dapeng Z., changed his tactics from drugging and sexually abusing female acquaintances to targeting strangers he met online, according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n

German police arrested Dapeng Z., whom German and Chinese media have reported is the group\u2019s ringleader, in 2024 in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, according to the Chinese consulate in Frankfurt and the Beijing News, a state-run media outlet.<\/p>\n

He was sentenced in February to 14 years in prison for aggravated rape, attempted murder and other offenses, though he has appealed. His attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Although authorities have not publicly said how many women were victimized by the \u201cdriving school\u201d network, they have said their investigation is ongoing, meaning there could be further arrests and additional victims. Gebhard\u2019s client, for example, only learned she had been sexually assaulted after investigators discovered video footage.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, defendant Zhiting S. is set to receive his verdict and potential sentence in Berlin. He is believed to be part of the group\u2019s inner circle, German and Chinese state media reported. He was charged with sexual assault, possessing child sexual abuse images, and other counts.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say he provided instructions, using previous medical training, to a Telegram group about which drugs could be used to sedate women before sexually assaulting them. They say at least one person followed his advice before an attack in Frankfurt.<\/p>\n

Zhiting S., whose attorney did not respond to questions from the AP, was also accused by German authorities of repeatedly sexually abusing a woman in China and sharing images of the assault online. Defendants are not required to formally enter pleas in Germany.<\/p>\n

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They called themselves the \u201cGerman driving school for experts,\u201d but prosecutors say the true purpose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia"],"yoast_head":"\nChinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say - Trusted Moving Group<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trustedmovinggroups.com\/?p=2406\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say - 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