A business owner in London on Friday admitted to dozens of sexual offenses against at least 12 women after drugging, raping and filming them using hidden cameras.
Judge Simon Stirling ordered the man, Xu Chao, 33, be kept in custody until his sentencing in November, when, the judge said, he would face a “lengthy” prison term.
Though Mr. Xu admitted to 24 offenses over three years, the Metropolitan Police said they believed his crimes were even “more widespread.” They issued a public appeal for other potential victims to come forward after his guilty pleas on Friday.
During the hearing in Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London, Mr. Xu appeared with a Mandarin interpreter. He admitted to four counts of rape, eight counts of assault by penetration, four counts of sexual assault, four counts of voyeurism, two counts of administering a substance with intent and two counts of “upskirting” — filming beneath women’s clothing without their consent — between February 2022 and June this year.
Only three of the 12 victims tied to the charges have been identified, prosecutors said. Another three women were assigned code numbers in the indictment, and others were listed as “unknown persons.”
The police said detectives were still examining hundreds of explicitimages and videos discovered on Mr. Xu’s phone and computers, which officers believe were obtained without the women’s consent.
Mr. Xu, who the police say is originally from China, is believed to have moved to Britain in 2013. He was a postgraduate student at the University of Greenwich between 2015 and 2016, and later began running his own recruitment business.
A woman who attended a networking event at Mr. Xu’s home in Greenwich, in southeast London, first reported him to the police in June. After she began feeling unwell at the event, she told the authorities, he said she could sleep in his home to recover. He then raped her multiple times, she said.
During the investigation, officers discovered that Mr. Xu had administered drugs that cause “drowsiness and incapacitation,” the police said. Searches of his home discovered hidden camera devices in multiple locations, including inside an air freshener and in bathrooms, the police said.
Detective Chief Inspector Lewis Sanderson, who is leading the investigation, called Mr. Xu a “calculated, prolific sex offender” who had “preyed on unsuspecting women using cowardly methods.”
The methods used bear a striking resemblance to those deployed by Zou Zhenhao, a student living in London who received a life sentence in June after he was convicted of drugging and raping women, and filming the abuse.
Mr. Zou, 28, was convicted of attacking 10 women in England and China between 2019 and 2023. But investigators said they had identified 50 more victims in videos he had recorded using hidden cameras in his homes.
The Metropolitan Police said that although no links had been found between the cases involving the two men, they were keeping an “open mind.”
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