A Berlin man has been charged with nearly two dozen counts of raping unconscious women and filming the acts, while investigators believe based on video evidence that the suspect may have attacked up to 60 victims.
In the latest of a series of high-profile cases involving the serial rape of unwitting targets on camera, Berlin prosecutors said they have indicted the 68-year-old German national on 22 counts of sexual assault of 14 women. The man, an electrician, has been in police custody since March.
Because the suspect, who has not been named, is believed to have recorded each of the rapes “all the offences are alleged to have been committed in conjunction with an infringement of the right to one’s own image”, the Berlin public prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
The ongoing investigation “revealed numerous alleged offences committed against a total of 58 women”, they said, adding that 10 of the women have not yet been identified.
“The accused is alleged to have sedated the women using various sleeping tablets in combination with alcohol and subsequently raped them,” prosecutors said, adding that the suspect lured the women beforehand on online dating platforms.
Those believed to have been attacked who have already spoken to investigators said they could not recall the alleged assaults and “only learned of them after the videos of the offences were discovered”.
Prosecutors said the suspect had not yet responded to the charges against him.
The cases came to light after a tip from police in another state, Lower Saxony, who in early 2025 were investigating similar allegations against a man who has since died. He is believed to have been in contact with the Berlin suspect through online chats.
The tip prompted a search of the man’s flat in the Friedrichsfelde suburb of the German capital during which police unearthed a cache of digital files. In 2026, an investigator found several videos of sexual assaults in which the suspect is believed to be the assailant.
Police raided his home again in March of this year and detained him. The allegations recall similar cases this year in Berlin and Munich involving the serial sexual assault of drugged women captured on camera.
German media drew parallels to the case of French woman Gisèle Pelicot whose then husband was convicted of drugging and abusing her and offering her unconscious to dozens of strangers to be raped over nearly a decade, in a trial that made global headlines.
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“Pelicot is not an isolated case,” said judge Markus Koppenleitner in Munich in April when sentencing a student from China to 11 years’ imprisonment for repeatedly giving his girlfriend an anaesthetic, raping her and filming the acts.
The convicted man is believed to be part of a ring of abusers in a Telegram group called “German Driving School”, which targeted women of Chinese heritage living in Europe. “This is not a Chinese or French phenomenon, but one that also occurs in Germany and, ultimately, worldwide,” Koppenleitner said.
Investigators in the UK said this month they had uncovered a “truly international network” of organised drug-facilitated sexual attacks in which victims are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted.