For those who attended parties at his luxury flat in Elephant and Castle, Zhenhao Zou appeared to be popular, charming and a model student.
With a view over south London and costing thousands of pounds per month in rent, his apartment in the Uncle building showcased a wardrobe filled with designer clothes, a Fendi bag and a Rolex watch, with plenty of alcohol to share around.
Yet when it was searched by the Metropolitan Police, the horrors he inflicted upon women soon became clear when officers found secret cameras with recordings of serial rapes, and a twisted trophy box full of his victims’ possessions.
Among the stashed belongings were a red lipstick, earrings, hair ties and clip-on hair extensions.
Behind the facade, the 28-year-old was a serial sexual predator, targeting fellow Chinese students before drugging them and raping them while they lay unconscious.
After being convicted of 11 rapes against 10 women, he has now been jailed for life, with a minimum term of 24 years, as one of the UK’s worst sex offenders.
Following an international appeal, a further 24 women have come forward, suspecting that they too have been raped or assaulted by Zou.
The Chinese national, who was studying for a PhD in engineering at UCL, had previously enjoyed a busy social life while living in London and was described by police as seeming very self-assured.
Born in China’s Guangdong Province, his father works in what was described as a state-owned enterprise, and his mother is a teacher, his trial was told.
Zou studied in the UK for several years and could afford to pay thousands per month in rent. He had also undergone facial surgery and had a hair transplant.
Zou first came to the UK to study in Belfast in 2017, before moving to London two years later, where he was known to enjoy trips to Soho, and nightclubs around the city.
While in the capital, and during trips to his native China, he would contact women mainly on social media apps such as WeChat, before inviting them back to his flat for drinks or to study.
There, he spiked their drinks and raped them, often filming the attack on hidden or handheld cameras to keep as a souvenir of his depravity.
Police studied the footage to work out whether the attacks had taken place in his London flat or during his trips back to China.
They found sedatives in his flat as well as the drug MDMA. Zou told investigators he brought some drugs back from China, while others he bought in nightclubs in London.
His crimes were finally uncovered in November 2023, when a woman told police she had been attacked by Zou and he was questioned by police.
Although he had studied in the UK for several years in English, he refused to speak English during his trial at Inner London Crown Court, and used an interpreter during his police interview.
After a month-long trial, Zou, 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.
Detective Superintendent Vanessa Britton said that on the surface, Zou was “a model student” with an active social life.
“He came across in interview as really self-assured,” she said. “I think the interviewers described him as charming.
“Clearly, the evidence and the videos show him in a completely different light.”
