A German court has convicted three men for operating a Telegram chat group where they drugged, raped and secretly filmed women, primarily of Chinese heritage. The group, called "German Driving School," used coded terms like "fuel" for sedatives and "car" for victims.
Sentences handed down
Dapeng Z, a 44-year-old IT engineer and group admin, received 14 years for aggravated rape and attempted murder. Zhongyi J, a 28-year-old student, got more than 11 years for similar charges. Tong Z, 26, was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months for aggravated rape, dangerous bodily harm and privacy violations.
According to court documents, Dapeng Z and Zhongyi J knowingly administered life-threatening drug doses to victims. Tong Z admitted all charges, expressing "immense shame" in a personal statement.
Victims and crimes
Ivy, a 27-year-old Chinese student, learned her ex-boyfriend Tong Z had secretly photographed her nude while she slept. She is one of 11 women he assaulted between 2019 and 2024. Tong Z also used a spare key to enter a neighbor's Berlin home and install a hidden camera in her bathroom. In 2024, he raped a woman with disabilities after drugging her drink.
Police found over 2TB of footage on Tong Z's hard drives, with folders for each victim. The court cited "dehumanising misogyny" as his motive.
Global context
The case echoes that of Zhenhao Zou, 29, a Chinese student jailed for life in 2025 for drugging and raping 10 women in the UK and China. Dr. Juliane Kloess, a forensic psychology lecturer at the University of Glasgow, said online rape communities are a global problem, noting that internet anonymity "allowed people to detach from how they would normally behave."
Tong Z described his isolation in Germany, arriving at 15 for boarding school and struggling to form relationships. "I became absorbed in digital images, videos and fantasies, without recognising that doing so could hurt real people," he said.
Impact on victims
Ivy, now in therapy for depression and PTSD, struggles to reconcile Tong Z's public persona—"God by day, devil by night" on Telegram—with his crimes. "Was he cooking for me so he could drug me?" she asked. "How did I end up dating someone this terrible?"
The case has shocked the Chinese diaspora, as most victims were women of Chinese heritage in Europe.
