Inside the Telegram ‘drug rape’ chat group that shocked Germany

The men, who drugged and secretly filmed their victims, were members of an online gang targeting mainly women of Chinese heritage Early last year, Ivy*, a Chinese student living in Germany, got a phone call from the police. At first, she thought it was a scam. An officer said they needed her help with an investigation involving someone she once knew. What followed turned her world upside down. The police told her that her former boyfriend, identified in court documents as Tong Z, had been investigated for sexual assault and covert photography. Then came the tougher blow: police showed her a number of nude photos Tong Z had secretly taken of her while she was asleep. Ivy, now 27, recognised herself, though she had no memory of the moment. “When I saw that, I was speechless … I felt like I couldn’t breathe any more,” she says. “In the photos, I looked like a ‘prey’.” Ivy had briefly dated Tong Z, a fellow Chinese student in Germany. She is one of 11 women the 26-year-old sexually assaulted, according to German court documents. Between 2019 and 2024, Tong Z covertly took intimate photos or videos of multiple women from his social circle when they were asleep, showering