telegram: Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips: Prosecutors
The posts, which sometimes include photos and videos of attacks on unconscious victims, refer 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 posts made over several years in nearly two dozen group chats on the popular messaging app that authorities believe serve a network of online predators made up mostly of Chinese men, targeting mostly Chinese women in 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.
Key details of the investigation remain unknown, at least publicly, including how many attacks and perpetrators were linked to German Telegram chats and how the chats, some of which reportedly had tens of thousands of members, were able to operate 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 broader discussions of the prosecutions on Chinese-language social media such as Rednote were 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 using less direct language escaped censors, including those that referred 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
The cases in Germany have been compared to attacks on French woman Gisele Pelicot, who was repeatedly drugged and raped for nearly a decade by her then-husband and strangers he invited into 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 hearing in Munich for a Chinese man convicted in the German investigation. “This is not a Chinese or French phenomenon, but one that also exists in Germany and ultimately around the world.”
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.
Last month, police in the Netherlands arrested four men suspected of drugging and sexually assaulting 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 the 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 predator network has managed to thrive despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, which has once again raised questions about how the platform is being used for criminal activities.
In 2024, the app’s founder was arrested in Paris over allegations that the platform was being 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. he said. “Telegram complies with all its legal obligations regarding such harmful content, including anything set out by 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 harassing his female acquaintances.
According to the Chinese Consulate in Frankfurt and Beijing News, a state-run media outlet, German police arrested Dapeng Z., who German and Chinese media reported was the ringleader of the group, in 2024, in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement.
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 have been victimized by the “driving school” network, they have 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.
