The Chinese PhD student with dark desire to drug and rape

At first glance, it appears to be a typical student advert.

‘I want an apartment with good soundproofing, because I have social needs and would like to have a party,' Zhenhao Zou wrote.

But in reality, the UCL student's desire for ‘good soundproofing' had a darker significance.

For behind the wealthy and charming façade, lay a predatory rapist described in court as ‘every woman's nightmare' and ‘a wolf in sheep's clothing' who was prepared to take every step to silence his victims' screams.

Today he was convicted of 11 rapes against ten women, but police fear he may have attacked a further 50 - with around half this number in London and the other half in his native China.

He was also found guilty of three counts of voyeurism, 10 of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one of false imprisonment, three counts of possession of drugs with intent to commit a sexual offence, namely butanediol.

He was cleared of two counts of possession of an extreme pornographic image, one count of possession of MDMA with intent to commit a sexual offence and four counts of possession of ketamine with intent to commit a sexual offence.

The extent of Zou's depravity was only revealed by sick ‘souvenir' videos he filmed of his stupefied victims after luring them back to his plush apartments and plying them with drink and drugs, before raping them. 





Zou - who is the son of a wealthy Chinese Communist Party member - raped women while recording footage on a hidden camera. Pictured is his Bumble dating profile 





A photo shared on WeChat where Zou shows himself posing with a luxury watch  

In one video, which reduced jurors to tears, a semi-conscious woman begged him to stop, but he chillingly sneered: ‘Don't push me, it's pointless…the sound insulation here is very good'.

The identity of many of the women in the footage is unknown, with police having so far identified just two of the 10 victims included in his trial.

Police say a third woman recently contacted them having read reports about the case.

In addition, the Mail has spoken to two women who claim Zou tried to attack them in Britain and China.

But astonishingly - despite so much of his offending feared to have taken place in China - investigators have never been granted permission to raid the home of the sexual deviant, whose father is a Chinese Communist Party officer and wealthy industrialist and whose mother is a schoolteacher.

Nor have any charges been brought in his homeland, where Zou bragged of his sexual prowess, once boasting that he had slept with over 100 women in a year and proudly appearing on an online dating show with influencers.

Raised in the city of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, southern China, Zou and his younger brother enjoyed a privileged upbringing thanks to his influential father, who was the director of a state-owned business in Songshan Lake, a leading science and innovation zone in the city known as the ‘factory of the world' due to its booming manufacturing industry.

His family live in the picturesque Songshan Lake Park area and have multiple homes in China, including a detached property Zou stayed in alone during the pandemic.





He described himself as a 28-year-old PhD researcher who 'works out often' - a fact he was keen to flaunt with topless mirror selfies





Zou boasted of his sexual prowess and appeared on a dating show in China 

Zou attended the Guangdong University of Technology (GDUT), a specialist engineering university described by one source as an international school for ‘rich kids'.

He completed his mechanical design and manufacturing course in 2015, before moving to Belfast two years later to study an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Queen's University.

In 2019, Zou - who went by the nickname ‘Pakho' - moved to University College London, (UCL) where he obtained a master's degree before beginning a PhD in 2021.

But Zou appears to have had little interest in his studies and spent more time obsessing over his looks and status, showing off his Rolex watches, which a classmate believes were fake.

He set up a series of online dating profiles under different names, describing himself as a 28-year-old PhD researcher who ‘works out often' - a fact he was keen to flaunt with topless mirror 처방전 필요없는 비아그라 selfies.

However, Zou's physical transformation wasn't solely achieved in the gym.

Hooked on plastic surgery, he admitted in court to having a hair transplant, surgery on his eyelids, fat injections under his chin and ‘adjustments' on his teeth and wearing make-up ‘to look better'.

On his Bumble profile, Zou told potential dates: ‘Let's go drinking and have fun'.




A Tinder profile where the student appears under a different name 





Zou appears to have had little interest in his studies and spent more time obsessing over his looks and flaunting his wealth

The reality was far more sinister.

Some students became concerned about his behaviour towards women, with one classmate revealing to the Mail that he and others had to intervene when Zou tried to get girls on their own.

The classmate, who did not want to be named, said Zou was a regular at student drinking sessions: ‘When he was at karaoke, he would try to take our [female] classmate outside. We would stop him, worried that something may happen.'

Another classmate said he met Zou at drinking events at a UCL student function room, where he made ‘disrespectful' jokes about women.

He said Zou would ‘force girls to drink' if they lost in a game, and that he was