Zhenhao Zou: More than 20 new potential victims come forward after ‘prolific’ rapist jailed for assaulting 10 women | UK News

Another 23 female potential victims reported that they may have been raped by Zhenhao Zou -the Chinese PhD students who are one of the country’s most productive sex offenders.

Metropolitan police launched an international appeal after Zou, 28, was convicted of drugs and rape of ten women after a trial at the Inner London Crown Court last month.

Detectives have not yet confirmed whether the 23 people who have emerged contribute their estimates that more than 50 other women worldwide have been targeted by University College London student.

Metropolitan Police Commander Kevin Southworth said: ‘We have victims who reach out to us from different parts of the world.

“Right now, the primary places we believe in this time have seemed to be both in England, here in London and China.”

Zou lived in a student apartment in Woburn Place, near Russell Square in Central London, and later in an apartment in the Uncle Building in Churchyard Row in Elephant and Castle, South London.

Read more: How a student was described as ‘smart and charming’ is unmasked as a productive sexual predator

He was also a student at Queen’s University Belfast, where he studied mechanical engineering from 2017 to 2019. Police said they had no reports of Belfast yet, but added that they were “open -minded”.

“Given how active and productive Zou apparently with his horrible offense, there is every prospect that he could have offended anywhere in the world,” Mr. Southworth said.

“We don’t want anyone to have written off the fact that they were a victim of his behavior, simply because you are of a certain place.

“The most important point is, if you think you may have been affected by Zhenhao Zou or someone you know, please do not hold back. Please make contact with us. ‘

Zou used hidden or hand cameras to record his attacks, and kept the footage and often the women’s possessions as souvenirs.

He targeted young, Chinese women and invited them to his apartment for drinks or to study before he had drug and assaulted.

Zou was convicted of 11 counts of rape, with two of the offenses related to one victim, as well as three counts of voyeurism, ten charges of an extreme pornographic image, one score of false imprisonment and three charges of a controlled drug with the intent to commit a sexual offense, namely butanediol.

Mr. Southworth said: “Of the ten victims, several were not identified because we could be sure exactly where they were in the world, but their cases were sufficient to see convictions at the court.

‘At that time, there were also 50 videos identified of further potential female victims of Zhenhao Zou’s horrible crimes.

‘We are still working to identify all the women in those videos.

“Now, fortunately, we have brought out 23 survivors of the victim through the appeal we have done, some of whom are identical to some of the women we saw in the videos, some of whom even appear to be of the original matters.”

Mr. Southworth added: “In the end, it is now the task of the investigative team to choose ourselves through the individual evidence, the stories of those individual victims, to see if we can identify who was a victim, when and where, so that we can bring Zou ready for the full extent of his crimes.”

Mr. Southworth said that more resources in the investigation will take place, and that detectives are looking for ‘what can have happened without reviewing the trauma, but in a way that makes it possible [the potential victims] to give evidence in the best way. ‘

The Metropolitan Police are calling on everyone who thinks they have been targeted by Zou to contact the power by either by e -mail to survivors@met.police.uk, or via the major incident portion on the Force’s website, e -mail.