Phone chats used by men to share rape videos and tips for getting drunk, German prosecutors say

They called themselves a “professional German driving school,” but prosecutors said the real purpose of their Telegram conversations was to brag about the women they were raping and share tips on how to get them drunk.

In the posts, which sometimes included photos and videos of their assaults on unconscious victims, they referred to women as “cars,” narcotics as “oil” and rape as “driving,” according to court documents. They call their victims “dead pigs.”

Investigators have been examining posts spanning several years in about a dozen group chats on a popular messaging app that authorities believe serves as a network of Chinese men and mainly Chinese women in Germany. Their investigation has led to the conviction of three suspects accused of rape and other crimes, and the ongoing trial of a fourth man in Berlin.

“The perpetrators were characterized by brutality, undermining the victims, and structuring their crimes unfairly,” Frankfurt’s chief prosecutor Dominik Mies told the Associated Press.

Major details of the investigation remain unknown, at least to the public, including how many attacks and perpetrators have been linked to Germany’s Telegram chats and whether the chats, some of which reportedly have tens of thousands of members, may have been active for so long. It is unclear whether the talks are linked to ballooning investigations in Europe and the US into sexual assaults facilitated by misogynistic online communities.

The Chinese community is rallying to support the victims

Under German secrecy laws, prosecutors are restricted in what they can say outside of court, documents are restricted and, in the ongoing trial in Berlin, members of the public have been forced to leave the courtroom during certain parts of the trial.

This may be the reason why the investigation into the Telegram group received less attention in Germany than expected. But members of the Chinese community, most of whom are women, attended court cases to show support for the victims even if they didn’t know them.

“What makes one angry is to see that such groups hate women, they don’t respect them,” said Fu Xiao, who traveled nearly 500 kilometers to Berlin last week to attend the case. “Women are not seen as human beings.”

In China, state media have covered the cases in full, but the wider discussion about the persecution on Chinese-language social media platforms such as Rednote has received little scrutiny. Certain tags are more likely to have posts removed or banned from Rednote, screenshots and searches are shown. But posts that used less specific language survived scrutiny, including those that referred to “date rape” or “students studying abroad in Germany.”

China’s Ministry of Public Security and Rednote did not respond to requests for comment.

The cases are similar to the historic French trial

The German charges have drawn comparisons to the attack on Gisèle Pelicot, a French woman who, over the course of nearly ten years, was repeatedly raped by her then-husband and by strangers who invited them over. The trial – and Pelicot’s decision to waive his anonymity – sparked talk of rape culture in France and beyond.

“Pelicot is not an independent case,” said Judge Markus Koppenleitner during the hearing of one of the Chinese men convicted in the German investigation in Munich. “This is not a Chinese or French thing, but also in Germany and, ultimately, worldwide.”

Cases similar to the “German driving school” investigation have been popping up around the world. Although authorities have not publicly linked them to the German prosecution, some investigators have cited tips from German authorities and journalists as crucial to their case.

In Los Angeles, German investigators last year reached out to police about a possible suspect in a drug-fueled sexual assault. The defendant, a Chinese graduate student, is accused of drugging and sexually assaulting three women in LA after allegedly buying the drugs from a Chinese in Germany.

In the Netherlands last month, police arrested four men accused of drugging and sexually abusing women after hearing authorities in Germany and Dutch police in the UK said the suspects used social media chat groups to share videos of abuse and discuss how they were drug victims.

And Europol, the European Union’s police agency, last week announced “Project Medusa,” an international operation designed to dismantle online networks that promote drug-fueled sexual abuse. Law enforcement officers from Germany and the UK are leading the operation, which has resulted in 57 arrests.

The charges raise questions about Telegram

The German predator network has been able to thrive despite clear violations of Telegram’s terms of service, and raises questions about how the platform has been used for criminal activities.

In 2024, the founder of the application was arrested in Paris due to allegations that the platform was used for illegal activity, including drug trafficking and the distribution of images of child sexual abuse. He denied wrongdoing, blaming the growing numbers of Telegram users he said “caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform.” The investigation is ongoing.

“Sexual violence is expressly prohibited by Telegram’s terms of service and such content is routinely removed,” the company said in a statement. “Telegram fulfills all its legal obligations in relation to such harmful content, including everything set forth by the “European Union’s Digital Services Act.

The company did not respond to questions about the German cases, including how photos, videos and comments about sex crimes were sent to the app for years, or whether Telegram was aware of the activity and what, if anything, it did to alert authorities.

Some of the German Telegram conversations go back at least to 2020, court documents show. Lawyer Magdalena Gebhard, who represented the victim in the previous Berlin case that led to the conviction, said there were eight criminals but some of the chats had up to 50,000 members.

Police became aware of the network in 2024 after a man from Frankfurt, German courts say Dapeng Z., changed his tactics from using drugs and sexually assaulting women he knew to targeting strangers he met online, according to prosecutors.

German police arrested Dapeng Z., who is reported by German and Chinese media to be the leader of the group, in 2024 in cooperation with Chinese law enforcement, according to the Chinese embassy in Frankfurt and the Beijing News, which is a state-run media outlet.

In February, he was sentenced to 14 years in prison for rape, attempted murder and other charges, although he appealed the case. His lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.

Although the authorities have not publicly said how many women have been victimized by the “driving school” network, they have said that their investigation is ongoing, meaning that more victims may be arrested. Gebhard’s client, for example, only found out she had been sexually assaulted after investigators found the video footage.

Another defendant was convicted

On Wednesday, Zhiting S., a 32-year-old qualified doctor, was convicted of complicity in rape, among other charges, and sentenced to five years in prison. The defense plans to appeal the decision.

The Berlin district court found that in interviews, Zhiting S. had pointed to a sedative before the attack by the man convicted in Frankfurt, although he was not alone in giving such advice.

Zhiting S. was also convicted of three counts of forced sex related to allegedly abusing his partner in China. The video recording led investigators to those crimes.

Defense lawyer Ehssan Khazaeli said earlier that his client admitted that he was part of the negotiations but did not give important advice.