Police expose international online rape ring

An international police operation spanning seven countries has uncovered highly organised networks of offenders who drug and rape their partners and use online chat groups to aid and encourage their “horrifying” assaults, authorities said on Thursday.

According to CNN, the victims are women who are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted, Europol and Britain’s National Crime Agency said.

The online groups provide a haven for predominantly male perpetrators to coordinate assaults, share information as well as post videos and photos of the abuse, they said.

German and British crime agencies, with the help of law enforcement from the United States, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain, have launched a joint operation to tackle the “evolving threat,” Britain’s NCA said in a statement on Thursday.

The police found out that the victims have no idea they have been sexually assaulted until they are contacted by the authorities, and the abuse is committed by “someone they know and trust, and in some cases by multiple connected offenders,” the agency said.

The investigations come after the high-profile case of Gisele Pelicot in France, whose husband solicited dozens of strangers to rape her while she was unconscious, in a case that shocked the world and sparked a cultural reckoning on gender-based violence and misogyny in the country.

Since launching the cross-border police collaboration, dubbed Project Medusa, in April, European investigators say they have identified more than 150 offenders and victims, and opened more than 270 new leads.

But the true scale of these crimes and number of victims is unknown and “almost certainly underreported,” according to Britain’s NCA.

“Drug-facilitated sexual assault is no longer isolated behaviour, but increasingly organised, conducted via coordinated networks and enabled by digital platforms, requiring a more sophisticated operational response,” said Nigel Leary, deputy director at the NCA.

Perpetrators seek to “objectify and dehumanise” their victims and in some cases the abuse takes place over decades, said Europol, which is coordinating the operation.

“They use encrypted messaging services, forums, and closed chat groups to exchange experiences, normalise abusive behaviour, facilitate the illegal trade in prescription medications and narcotics, and coordinate criminal acts,” it added.

In these online groups, offenders share information about which drugs to use, how to administer them, how to avoid detection, and request and share videos and photos of the abuse.

Siobhan Blake, the rape and serious sexual offences lead for the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service, said the abuse “is some of the most horrifying I have seen in my career.”

“Victims are being subject to horrendous sexual offending in their own homes in an ultimate breach of trust,” she said.

Police warn that victims can be any age, social background or ability, and have encouraged anyone who suspects they have been a victim of drug-facilitated sexual assault to come forward.

Across Europe there have been several arrests and convictions in recent years of men who have been accused or found guilty of drugging and raping their unconscious partners.

Dominique Pelicot was handed a 20-year prison sentence in 2024 for organising the drugging and rape of his then-wife Gisèle. Fifty others were also convicted.

Last year, German national Fernando P. was found guilty of drugging and raping his unconscious wife for years and sharing video of his crimes online, and sentenced to 8 years and 6 months in prison

Also in 2025, Zhenhao Zou was convicted of raping 10 women in the UK and China and jailed for life with a minimum term of 24 years. Police and prosecutors said Zou contacted students of Chinese heritage on WeChat and dating apps, and lured them to his apartments to drug and assault them.