23 more women come forward with allegations against serial rapist, London police say

Boston Globe

02-04-2025

Zou was a doctoral student at University College London between 2019 and 2024. During his weekslong trial earlier this year in London, the court heard that he would lure women to his apartments in the city and in China, and rape them.
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Zou met the women on dating apps like Bumble and on online platforms, including the Chinese social media apps WeChat and Little Red Book, according to police. He targeted Chinese students living in London, officers said, whom he may also have met at parties and student gatherings.
On March 5, a jury found Zou guilty of 11 counts of rape, as well as of charges related to the possession of drugs intended for use in a sexual assault, voyeurism, and the possession of extreme pornography, prosecutors said.
Two women testified against Zou in court, but eight others remain unidentified, police said. Because the women were drugged, police believe that some may not know what happened to them. With the conviction secured, police issued a public appeal for more victims to come forward.
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After arresting Zou in January 2024, investigators uncovered hundreds of videos on his devices, which appeared to depict him raping and sexually assaulting multiple women. Officers also trawled through thousands of gigabytes of data that traced a pattern of Zou's crimes.
Once the women were in his apartment, police said, he would offer them a drink laced with a substance that investigators believe was butanediol, a chemical that converts to GHB, a notorious date rape drug that depresses the central nervous system. When the women were unconscious, he raped and sexually assaulted them while filming himself, police said.
The women's faces were often hidden or obscured, making it difficult for investigators to identify them. But police said Zou often kept souvenirs of his victims, and officers found items of jewelry and clothing in his apartment.
Police believe that Zou, who is originally from Dongguan in China's Guangdong province, followed the same tactics when he was in China, with video evidence indicating that some of the attacks took place there during the COVID-19 pandemic. British police worked with their counterparts in China to find one of the women who testified against him.
Since his conviction, two other women have come forward in China, according to the BBC World Service. One woman said he attacked her at one of his family's villas after they went on a date. Fearing reprisal in her small home city of Dongguan, she stayed quiet until she recognized her attacker in news reports following his conviction.
The other woman, who is also Chinese, said Zou had attacked her while she was a student in London in 2021.
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Before moving to London, Zou studied at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Police first started investigating Zou in 2023, after one of his victims, a Chinese national who was also studying in London, posted about her attack on social media to warn other women. She included references to his Guangdong accent and the fact that he wore a Rolex submariner watch.
That's when another woman recognized Zou as the man who had assaulted her after a night out in 2021, the BBC reported. The two women encouraged each other to go to the police.
'Zhenhao Zou is a dangerous and prolific sexual predator, who manipulated and drugged women in order to prey on them in the most cowardly way,' Kevin Southworth, a commander in the Metropolitan Police, said in a statement.
Police said that as part of their update Wednesday, they were also appealing again for any women who think they may have been attacked by Zou to come forward. 'Officers believe that there are still more victim-survivors to be traced,' the statement said.
A judge will sentence Zou on June 19.