Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say
BERLIN (AP) — They called themselves a “German driving school for experts,” but prosecutors say its real purpose Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips on how to drug them.
The posts, which sometimes included photos and videos of attacks on unconscious victims, referred to women as “cars,” tranquilizers as “fuel” and rape as “driving,” according to court documents. They called their victims “dead pigs”.
Investigators have been examining several years of posts in nearly two dozen group chats on the popular messaging app that authorities believe mostly serve a network of online predators. chinese men mostly targets Chinese women Germany. Their investigation led to the conviction of three alleged members of the inner circle on rape and other charges and the ongoing trial of a fourth man in Berlin.
___
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story contains discussion of sexual violence. If you or someone you know needs assistance, please call 1-800-656-4673 in the US, 116 016 in Germany, or 15117905157 in China.
___
“The perpetrators were characterized by a certain brutality, objectification of the victims and treacherous planning of their crimes,” Frankfurt chief prosecutor Dominik Mies told the Associated Press.
Crucial details of the investigation, including how many attacks and perpetrators were linked to Germans, remain unknown, at least to the public. Telegram chats and how chats, some with reportedly tens of thousands of members, can continue for so long. It’s also unclear whether the chats are linked to a ballooning investigation into drug-facilitated sexual assaults by misogynistic online communities in Europe and America.
Chinese community rallies in support of victims
Under German privacy laws, prosecutors are limited in what they can say outside the courtroom, documents are restricted, and the public was forced to leave the courtroom for parts of the trial in the ongoing trial in Berlin.
This may be why the investigation into the Telegram group received less attention than expected in Germany. But members of the country’s Chinese community, mostly women, attend court hearings to show their support even if they do not know the victims.
“What really makes people angry is to see that such groups hate women, that they have no respect for women,” said Fu Xiao, who traveled nearly 500 kilometers (310 miles) to Berlin last week to attend the hearing. “Women are not seen as human beings.”
In China, state media covered the cases extensively, but there was a broader discussion of the prosecutions on Chinese-language social media such as Rednote. partially censored. Screenshots and searches show that some tags are more likely to cause a post to be deleted or banned on Rednote. But posts that use less direct language survived censorshipIncluding those that refer to “date rape” or euphemistically “students studying abroad in Germany.”
China’s Ministry of Public Security and Rednote did not respond to requests for comment.
Cases recall a landmark French case
Cases in Germany compared to attacks Gisele PelicotA French woman, for almost ten years, was drugged and raped repeatedly her then-husband and invited strangers to their home. The trial and Pelicot’s decision to waive her anonymity led to a reckoning on rape culture in France and beyond.
“Pelicot is not an isolated case,” Judge Markus Koppenleitner said at the Munich trial of one of the Chinese men convicted in the German investigation. “This is not a phenomenon specific to China or France, but is also present in Germany and eventually worldwide.”
Cases similar to the “German driving school” investigation are emerging around the world. Although officials have not publicly linked themselves to the German investigations, some researchers say the advice of German officials and journalists is crucial to progress.
In Los Angeles, German investigators reached police about a potential suspect in drug-facilitated sexual assaults last year. The defendant, a graduate student from China, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women in Los Angeles after allegedly obtaining the drugs from a Chinese citizen in Germany.
in the Netherlands Last month, police arrested four men suspected of drugging and sexually abusing women following a tip-off from authorities in Germany, and UK Dutch police said the alleged perpetrators used social media chat groups to spread videos showing the abuse and discuss how to drug victims.
Europol, the European Union’s police agency, last week announced “Project Medusa,” an international operation designed to dismantle online networks that promote drug-facilitated sexual assaults. Law enforcement forces from Germany and the UK are leading the operation, in which 57 people have already been arrested.
Cases raise questions about Telegram
The German hunter network has managed to grow despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, which has once again raised questions about what the platform is being used for. criminal activity.
Founder of the app in 2024 arrested in paris Following allegations that the platform was used for illegal activities, including drug trafficking and distribution of child sexual abuse images. He denied any wrongdoing and blamed the growing number of Telegram users for “causing increasing pain that makes it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.” The investigation continues.
“Sexual violence is expressly prohibited in Telegram’s terms of service, and such content is routinely removed,” the company said in a statement. Telegram fulfills all its legal obligations regarding such harmful content, including those set out in the European Union Digital Services Act.
The company did not respond to questions about the German cases, including how photos, videos and comments related to sexual crimes were posted on the app for years, whether Telegram was aware of this activity and what, if anything, it did to alert authorities.
Some of the German Telegram chats date back to at least 2020, according to court documents. Lawyer Magdalena Gebhard, who previously represented a victim at a trial in Berlin that resulted in a conviction, said there was an inner circle of eight perpetrators but some chat groups had up to 50,000 members.
According to prosecutors, police became aware of the network in 2024 when a Frankfurt man, referred to by German courts as Dapeng Z., changed his tactic of targeting strangers he met online instead of drugging and sexually assaulting his female acquaintances.
German police, in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, arrested Dapeng Z., who German and Chinese media reported was the ringleader of the group, in 2024, according to the Chinese Consulate in Frankfurt and Beijing News, a state-run media outlet.
He was sentenced to 14 years in prison in February for aggravated rape, attempted murder and other crimes, but appealed. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Although authorities have not publicly disclosed how many women were victimized by the “driving school” network, they said the investigation is ongoing, meaning there may be further arrests and additional victims. For example, Gebhard’s client only learned he had been sexually assaulted after investigators discovered the video footage.
Another decision is awaited
On Wednesday, the defendant Zhiting S. will receive his verdict and possible sentence in Berlin. He is believed to be part of the group’s inner circle, according to reports in German and Chinese state media. He was charged with sexual assault, possession of child sexual abuse images and other charges.
Prosecutors say he used his previous medical training to post instructions in a Telegram group about what drugs could be used to sedate women before sexually assaulting them. At least one person is said to have followed his advice before the attack in Frankfurt.
Zhiting S., whose lawyer did not respond to AP’s questions, was also accused by German authorities of repeatedly sexually harassing a woman in China and sharing images of the attack on the internet. Defendants are not required to formally defend themselves in Germany.
___
Wu reported from Bangkok. Associated Press reporters Geir Moulson and Fanny Brodersen in Berlin; Molly Quell and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands; Jamie Ding in Los Angeles; and Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.
