A Chinese PhD student convicted of drugging and raping 10 women in London and China is feared to have targeted more than 50 more potential victims.
Zhenhao Zou, 28, was convicted of the harrowing attacks involving two women who have been identified and another eight who have yet to be traced.
He filmed nine of the attacks as “souvenirs”, and kept a trophy box of women’s belongings, jurors in his trial at Inner London Crown Court were told.
Police believe more than 50 other women may have fallen prey to the engineering student, which would make him one of the worst sex offenders the UK has seen.
They found hundreds of hours of disturbing videos and photos that he kept, around half of which are thought to have been filmed in the UK and half in China.
A camera police say was used by Zhenhao Zou (Metropolitan Police/PA)
After a month-long trial, Zou, who was most recently living in Elephant and Castle, south-east London, was found guilty of raping three women in London and another seven in China between September 2019 and May 2023.
He was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offences relating to one victim.
Zou was also convicted of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment and three of possession of a controlled drug with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.
He was cleared of two further counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, and five counts of possession of controlled drugs to commit a sexual offence, namely one count involving MDMA, three involving ketamine, and one of alprazolam.
Prosecutors said Zou appears to be “a smart and charming young man” but is in fact “a persistent sexual predator, a voyeur and a rapist”.
He comes from a wealthy family, and had enough money to afford a Rolex, a wardrobe full of designer clothes, and cosmetic procedures including a hair transplant and facial surgery, while paying thousands a month in rent.
Senior Crown prosecutor Saira Pike said Zou is a danger to women, and praised the two victims who gave evidence for their courage in coming forward.
Another potential victim has contacted police following the publicity around Zou’s criminal trial.
Jurors had to watch footage of nine of the rapes during court proceedings, appearing visibly upset and being given regular breaks as the troubling material was shown.
Zou, who also used the name Pakho online, befriended fellow Chinese students on WeChat and dating apps, before inviting them for drinks and drugging them at his flats in London or an unknown location in China.
The case was being heard at Inner London Crown Court (John Stilwell/PA)
The student first moved to Belfast in 2017 to study mechanical engineering at Queen’s University before heading to London in 2019 to do a master’s degree and then a PhD at UCL.
Investigators first charged Zou in January 2024, but waited for more than a year until he had been convicted before making public appeals for further victims to come forward.
The full raft of 35 charges was laid against him in August last year.
His crimes began to be uncovered in November 2023, when a woman went to police to allege that she had been attacked by Zou.
There was not enough evidence to bring a criminal charge over her claim, but when Zou’s phone was seized officers found disturbing videos of him raping unconscious women, and pipettes and sedating drugs in his flat.
One of the two victims who has been identified by police told the jury she was raped after Zou pushed her to drink excessive amounts of alcohol and would not let her leave his flat in Elephant and Castle in May 2023.
The second, who is now living in China, said she was also raped by Zou, in his student flat near Russell Square in October 2021, when she was unconscious.
Jurors rejected Zou’s claims that the sexual interactions were consensual, that drugs and alcohol were consumed by the women voluntarily, and that some of the footage captured involved role playing.
He told jurors that he was in the habit of taking photos and videos of sexual activity, and liked pornography where it appears that a woman is asleep or unconscious.
Among the disturbing videos shown in court was footage of an attack on a woman identified only as female A, that is also believed to have taken place at Zou’s student flat in Woburn Place near Russell Square.
In it the woman is heard telling Zou to stop while struggling to stay awake. At one point he tells her “the sound insulation here is very good”.
Zou was also convicted of rapes believed to have taken place in his native China, because foreign nationals who are living in the UK can be charged with offences committed abroad if the crime is also illegal in the country where it took place.
The case has chilling parallels with Reynhard Sinaga, 41, who jailed for life in January 2020 at Manchester Crown Court after being found guilty of 159 counts of sexual offences against 48 different men.
He also befriended his victims and invited them back to his flat, before drugging and sexually assaulting them.
There was also the case of serial killer Stephen Port, who received a whole life term after raping and murdering four men with overdoses of the sedative drug GHB, and drugging and sexually assaulting seven others who survived.
UK detectives have said the Chinese authorities were “responsive and helpful” over the investigation into Zou, although no properties where he lived in China have been searched even though many of his crimes took place on Chinese soil.
They are in discussions with China about whether social media appeals to potential victims can be made on WeChat and Little Red Book, that are more commonly used in the country.