POSTING on an accommodation forum, Zhenhao Zou had two demands – an “outgoing, extroverted” housemate and “good sound insulation” to mask his noisy house parties.
The 2022 advert may have seemed a request from any normal, fun-loving university student but for the Chinese PhD pupil, now 29, it betrayed a far darker motive.
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Two years later, Zou was unmasked as “one of the most prolific predators” police had “ever seen” and was described as “every woman’s nightmare” in court.
The “charming” student, who claimed to come from a wealthy family and wore high-end designer clothes, raped at least 10 women after intoxicating them with boozy cocktails and stupifying drugs.
At his £4,000-a-month ‘soundproof’ luxury apartment in Elephant and Castle and other pads around London – chillingly some of his victims’ screams were muted by the thick walls.
Zou even boasted about that feature to one woman while she tried to fight him off, telling her: “Don’t push me, it’s pointless…the sound insulation here is very good.”
Worryingly, when he received a life sentence in March 2025, the Metropolitan Police revealed there could be as many as 60 more victims. At least 23 women have spoken to them.
And now, cops have sent a file containing new allegations of sexual crimes to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), who will decide whether to bring further charges against Zou.
Now The Sun can reveal more concerning claims about Zou including his student accommodation request, boasts of having slept with 100 women on dates and allegations of multiple near-misses with the prolific predator.
London-based Kris Cheng, 36, spent three months sifting through Chinese language apps and forums and spoke to 14 associates, including women, who alleged worrying encounters.
One student spoke of being invited to have dinner with Zou in 2021. She thought it was to “talk about studies” but he had an ulterior motive.
Kris tells us: “Zou asked about her dating life and showed her photos of all the girls he claimed to have had sex. He said he gave them expensive gifts.
“He claimed to have slept with 100 girls. The photos were of beautiful models in revealing outfits. She believed some were sex workers and online influencers.
“He also showed photos of ‘previous girlfriends’ but it’s believed they were just women he took out for dinner or pictures he downloaded from the internet.”
The boasts made the student feel “very uncomfortable” and after dinner, he tried to kiss her in an alleyway. She pushed him off and refused to return to his flat for a drink.
Another student alleged Zou tried to rape her at his plush apartment in China, back in Septemeber 2022, after they shared a meal.
She said: “We had some drinks and he almost raped me. I screamed immediately [after Zou exposed himself]. He was afraid that neighbours may hear so he let me go.”
The student “ran as fast as she could” after leaving the apartment. It’s not believed she was drugged due to clearly detailing the alleged attack.
After leaving his hometown of Dongguan in 2017, Zou lived between Belfast and London, where he targeted Chinese women on dating apps and student forums.
His current incarceration, after being found guilty of raping 10 women and other charges, followed a brave victim speaking to police in November 2023. It would end his four-year reign of terror.
Two months later, when Zou was arrested, police made chilling finds inside his flat, including a yellow Fendi “trophy box” containing 21 “souvenirs” from his suspected victims.
The grim collection included a red lipstick, a Christmas polar bear sock, earrings, bracelet charms, four hairbands, a black hair extension piece, a Seville fridge magnet and house keys.
Cops also found hidden cameras, MDMA, ketamine, Viagra, Xanax tablets and two 500ml bottle of clear liquid, labelled 1,4-Butanediol – known, when ingested, to become date-rape drug GHB.
More than 1,277 disturbing videos were discovered on Zou’s electronic devices, including at least nine that showed him raping unconscious women.
Some were recorded in China and at least two at a flat he rented in Bloomsbury, London.
Police have struggled to ascertain how many of the videos showed Zou’s and how many were downloaded or sent by others.
What’s known is that Zou’s attacks were “highly planned”, even down to his choice of flat as revealed in a December 2022 rental site post obtained by The Sun.
He described himself as being “outgoing” and into “mixology / bartending”. He was known for mixing and forcing women to drink high-strength cocktails, sometimes as part of a ‘game’.
Zou wrote: “The apartment must have good sound insulation because of social needs (plans to host house parties), and hopes the roommate also enjoys socializing.”
He described wanting his flatmate to be “outgoing and extroverted”. Zou moved into the Elephant and Castle flat shortly after in 2023.
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Recalling the discovery of the advert, Kris says: “It was horrific. It proves his attacks were not spontaneous, they were all planned.
“He had planned this for a long time – including the place he chose to rent, which played a major part in his plan.”
One student recalled being invited to that apartment for one of Zou’s house parties in 2023 and noticed how inebriated his all-female guests were.
Kris says: “She thought there would be other boys at the party but it was just Zou and five girls. He was making heavy cocktails and the other girls were quite drunk.
“When she left, there was a pretty girl, who was very drunk, so drunk that she couldn’t move or leave. The lady I spoke to left and she never knew what happened to that woman.
“There’s a clear pattern. Zou invites women to parties, gives them heavy drinks – we didn’t know if all are spiked – and then something terrible happens.”
One classmate also alleged that Zou contacted a doctor friend to ask for sleeping pills after being denied by an NHS doctor. It’s known he suffered from insomnia.
Kris added: “I was told he even asked for the contact details of patients so that he could buy sleeping pills from them too.
“He was trying to get a lot of sleeping pills, if they weren’t for him then what were they being used for?”
Kris explains that the 14 Zou associates spoke out, albeit anonymously, because “they hated and really despised him”.
“No one had a good word to say about him,” Kris said. “But they were really horrified by the level of his attacks. It really shocked them.”
Zou is known to have had a Bumble dating app profile, where he shared multiple topless gym selfies and wrote: “Let’s go drinking and have fun.”
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One photo showed him holding a cocktail and flashing a Rolex watch. He tried to portray a highly glamorous lifestyle but pals say that was far from the truth.
Kris says: “Even though Zou was sort of rich, he wasn’t generous and wouldn’t spend money on friends. He wouldn’t even pay for his share of takeaways.”
The friends believed his Gucci bags, Rolex watch and designer clothes were all fake and his supposed wealth “an act”. In court, he was described as “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
Kris adds: “His family must have had money to have supported his studies in Belfast and then London. I guess a lot of it was spent on cosmetic surgery and hooking up with girls.
In court, Zou admitted to having multiple hair transplants, eyelid surgery, chin reshaping through fat injections and “adjustments” to his teeth.
Kris said the majority of Zou’s associates wanted the rapist to receive a whole life order – meaning he would never be released from prison.
It emerged in court that Zou had even offered to be chemically castrated, meaning he could no longer have sex, in the hope of receiving a lighter sentence.
His ‘offer’ was treated cynically due to his lack of remorse for victims. Sickeningly, during the trial, he claimed the women consented and were fulfilling his ‘rape fantasies’.
In June 2025, sentencing judge Rosina Cottage KC said that Zou had “no understanding of the meaning of consent” and his victims were “pieces in an elaborate game”.
“You told [your victims] that resistance was futile,” she added.
“Sometimes you would be begged to stop. You sought power over them – these women you treated callously – and used them as sex toys for your pleasure.”
Met Detective Inspector Richard Mackenzie describes Zou as “one of the most prolific predators we have ever seen”.
Since Zou’s incarceration, German police have uncovered a Telegram group used by Chinese men, typically students, to discuss drugging and raping women.
It has chilling echoes of Zou’s crimes, though he has not been named as a suspect.
In the group, titled ‘German Driving School’, members referred to sedatives as “fuel” and targets as “cars”.
They shared footage of their assaults and celebrated each other’s crimes. Three of the 10 men involved have since been convicted.
“This is a really extreme and scaled-up operation, it could have happened to a lot of people,” Kris says.
It has parallels to the “online rape academies” discovered after French sex abuse survivor Gisele Pelicot bravely waived her anonymity to expose her monstrous attackers including her husband Dominique.
She was raped at least 92 times by 72 different men. Police believed more than 200 assaults took place over a 10 year period.
The discovery of yet another online rape forum and charges being considered by the CPS raises questions about whether Zou was in contact with other deadly predators.
Soon questions about whether his depravity ran far deeper than previously known will be answered.