Inside the "Driving School": How a Telegram Network Enabled Years of Drug-Facilitated Rape in Germany

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A Chat Group Built on Code Words

German investigators have spent more than a year working through years of messages in roughly two dozen Telegram group chats. Prosecutors say the chats formed the backbone of an online predator network of mainly Chinese men who targeted mostly Chinese women living in Germany.

Members disguised their crimes behind driving metaphors. Women were called "cars," sedatives were "fuel," and rape was "driving." Victims who had been drugged unconscious were referred to as "dead pigs." The language was not just cruelty — investigators believe it also helped the group dodge keyword filters on the platform.

The core group, prosecutors say, had about eight members. Surrounding chats reportedly grew far larger, with some group chats numbering in the thousands and, according to separate reporting by the German public broadcaster NDR, some open channels reaching tens of thousands of members.

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Four Convictions, One Network

The investigation has already produced multiple prison sentences:

• Dapeng Z., described by prosecutors as the group's ringleader, was sentenced in February 2026 by a court in Frankfurt to 14 years in prison for aggravated rape, attempted murder and related offenses, with preventive detention ordered on top of the sentence. He has appealed.
• Zhongyi J., a Chinese student, was convicted in Munich in April 2026 of multiple counts of aggravated rape and attempted murder against a woman he had drugged repeatedly over months. He received just over 11 years.
• Tong Z. was sentenced in Berlin to nearly six years after admitting to charges connected to the group.
• Zhiting S., a Berlin-based medical professional, is accused of using his medical training to advise other members on which sedatives to use and how to dose them. Prosecutors say his advice was directly used before at least one attack in Frankfurt. He also faces separate charges of possessing child sexual abuse images. His trial opened in Berlin earlier this year, with a verdict expected soon.

German judges overseeing the cases have been blunt in their assessments. One judge, sentencing a defendant in Munich, said the crimes reflected "contempt for humanity and for women on a truly monstrous scale," and stressed the pattern was not confined to any one nationality: "This is not a Chinese or French phenomenon, but one that also exists in Germany and, ultimately, worldwide."

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Victims Who Didn't Know They Had Been Attacked

Because of German privacy law, prosecutors can say only so much publicly, and parts of the ongoing Berlin trial have been closed to the public. But the outlines that have emerged are stark: several victims only learned they had been assaulted after police, working through seized phones and hard drives, found photos and videos of the attacks and contacted them directly.

Most identified victims were Chinese women living in Germany — partners, colleagues, friends, neighbors or acquaintances of the accused. Investigators say some suspects also posed as women on Chinese social platforms to lure victims under pretenses such as apartment viewings.

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A Community Watches, and China's Censors React

Even though the case has drawn less mainstream German media attention than comparable trials elsewhere, courtroom galleries in Berlin have regularly filled with Chinese women who say they came to show solidarity with the victims, even without knowing them personally. One woman who traveled hundreds of kilometers to attend a hearing said the case exposed a culture of contempt: "Women aren't seen as people."

In China, state media have covered the prosecutions in detail. But discussion on Chinese social media platforms such as Rednote (Xiaohongshu) has been inconsistent, with some direct search terms reportedly blocked or removed while posts using euphemisms — such as references to "students studying abroad in Germany" — have circulated more freely. Neither China's Ministry of Public Security nor Rednote has responded publicly to requests for comment on the moderation pattern.

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Echoes of the Pelicot Case — and a Wider Pattern

German courts and commentators have repeatedly compared the case to that of Gisèle Pelicot, the French woman whose decision to waive anonymity in 2024 forced a public reckoning over drug-facilitated rape in France. Judges in the German proceedings have made similar comparisons, framing the crimes as part of a global problem rather than one tied to a single country or culture.

Related cases have surfaced elsewhere. In London, a Chinese PhD student was convicted last year on multiple counts including rape and voyeurism and later received a life sentence, in a case investigators say followed a similar method: contacting women through social or dating platforms, inviting them to a private residence, and filming the assault. Courts have not formally linked that case to the German network, though British and German investigations reportedly moved through overlapping online circles.

In the United States, German investigators passed a tip to police in Los Angeles that led to charges against a Chinese graduate student accused of drugging and assaulting three women, allegedly after obtaining drugs from a contact in Germany. Dutch police, working from tips supplied by German and British authorities, arrested four men earlier this year on suspicion of drugging and abusing women and distributing footage of the assaults. Europol has since launched an international operation, coordinated with UK and German law enforcement, aimed at dismantling online networks built around drug-facilitated sexual assault; more than 50 arrests have followed so far.

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The Telegram Question

The case has again put a spotlight on encrypted messaging platforms and how criminal networks use them. Telegram's founder was arrested in France in 2024 amid a broader investigation into alleged misuse of the platform for illegal activity, including drug trafficking and child sexual abuse material; he has denied wrongdoing and pointed to the platform's rapid growth as a factor that made abuse harder to police. That investigation is ongoing.

Telegram has said sexual violence content is explicitly barred under its terms of service and is removed when identified, and that it complies with its legal obligations, including under the European Union's Digital Services Act. The company has not detailed publicly how the "Driving School" chats operated for years without detection, or what steps, if any, it took once informed of the network by investigators. Experts who work with victims of sexualized violence note that closed, encrypted chat groups can make it easier for harmful communities to form and persist without outside scrutiny — a dynamic not unique to any single app, but one that has repeatedly surfaced in this and comparable cases across several countries.

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What Comes Next

Investigators say their work is not finished. Additional suspects tied to the network have reportedly been identified but not yet publicly charged, and officials have not ruled out further victims coming forward. For many of the women affected, the fact that they did not know they had been attacked until contacted by police adds a particularly disorienting dimension to the case — one that has made the network's exposure as much a story about digital anonymity and cross-border policing as about the crimes themselves.

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Sources

1. Associated Press (AP): "Chinese men in Germany used Telegram groups to share rape videos and drugging tips, prosecutors say" — https://apnews.com/article/germany-china-telegram-sexual-violence-women-6279c80947f419ee178707f111487193
2. Agence France-Presse (AFP), via Hong Kong Free Press: "Chinese women throng Germany trials of 'Driving School' rape network" — https://hongkongfp.com/2026/07/04/this-could-have-been-me-chinese-women-throng-germany-trials-of-driving-school-rape-network/
3. Deutsche Welle (DW): "Germany: Man found guilty in Pelicot-style rape case" — https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/webdunia+english-epaper-webeng/germany+man+found+guilty+in+pelicotstyle+rape+case+sedated+women+referred+as+dead+pigs+in+telegram+rape+chat+group-newsid-n708444354

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