A British court on Wednesday found Chinese student Zhenhao Zou guilty of spiking and raping 10 women in Britain and China, with police suspecting he could have attacked more than 50 others.
Zou, 28, of south London, enticed women on dating sites and apps and invited them to his residence for socialization or studying, all under deception. There, he drugged them and sexually assaulted them on video while they were unconscious. He also stole their clothes and jewelry as trophies.
After a trial at Inner London Crown Court, Zou was convicted of 28 offenses, 11 of which were rape. But detectives were only able to name two of his 10 known victims.
“Zou is a serial rapist and a risk to women,” Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service’s Saira Pike said. “We are still committed to pursuing justice for the identified and unidentified victims.”
From Dongguan in Guangdong Province originally, Zou came to the UK in 2017 and started his PhD at University College London in 2019. His offenses were revealed when a woman complained to the police, and a raid on his flat found officers hiding cameras, drugs, and scores of incriminating videos. His devices held millions of messages and records of crimes committed in Britain as well as China.
British officials worked with the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and estimate that most of the victims are still unaware of what occurred. Detectives are especially trying to get information from the Chinese student population in Britain.
“We estimate that there could be more than 50 other women who were victims but have not yet been identified,” the Metropolitan Police said. Zou is to be sentenced on June 19.
