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The UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) said on Thursday that eight people had been arrested as part of a probe into an international network of men drugging and sexually abusing women they know.
The NCA, which looks into international crime, said it had uncovered a global network of predominantly men suspected of offences, known as organised drug-facilitated sexual assault, after a 2025 tip-off by German journalists about a platform used to facilitate them.
The crime agency found “a truly international network with group members identified in dozens of countries spanning every continent,” said NCA deputy director Nigel Leary.
As a result of the NCA probe into the online platform, which was not named, eight people in the UK have been arrested. There are a total of 14 separate investigations ongoing in the UK and abroad.
The NCA said it had identified over 270 individuals linked to the forum and its offshoots.
“Drug-facilitated sexual assault is no longer isolated behaviour, but increasingly organised,” said Leary, adding that it was being enabled by digital platforms.
‘Deeply concerning’
“The scale of what we have seen so far is deeply concerning,” Leary told journalists at a briefing, adding that such crimes are often “under-detected and under-reported” because the victim may not remember the abuse as a result of being sedated.
It’s a “serious and evolving threat, rooted in domestic abuse,” said Helen Millichap, director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection.
The online and connected nature of the abuse means the “dimensions are changing,” Millichap added.
Multiple investigations into such organised drugging and sexual offences are under way in the UK.
In Stockport, Manchester in the northwest, the husband of a woman who was allegedly drugged and sexually assault is set to stand trial in September alongside 12 other men accused of taking part in the sexual abuse.
Last week, investigators from Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, the United States and Europol met in London to share information on possible cases, said the NCA.
As part of a separate operation into such offences, EU law enforcement agency Europol said the group of countries had identified 156 victims and perpetrators of drug-facilitated sexual assaults (DFSA).
“The operation focused on DFSA primarily in intimate-partner settings, particularly in the context of misogynist online communities,” Europol said in a statement about its Project Medusa probe.
The global operation has found four new “misogynist online communities,” Europol said.
The alleged offences in the UK are reminiscent of the high-profile case of French woman Gisèle Pelicot, who was drugged and raped by her then-husband and by strangers for nearly a decade.
Since the 2025 trial and conviction of her ex-husband Dominique Pelicot, similar cases have come to light across Europe, from Germany to the Netherlands.
Additional sources • AFP