Vast underground network teaching men how to drug and rape their wives exposed in CNN investigation

Editor's note: Due to a scheduling change, this story did not air on April 27, 2026, as planned. 

This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual assault.

Over a period of nine years, Gisèle Pelicot was repeatedly drugged and raped by her then-husband, Dominique, who invited 70 other men to do the same.

At the 2024 mass rape and drugging trial of Dominique Pelicot and 50 of his co-conspirators, the world was introduced to an internet-fueled subculture that reaches far beyond the Pelicots' home in southeastern France. Dominique Pelicot is now serving a 20-year prison sentence, but his crimes are just the tip of a vast iceberg.

Here & Now's Scott Tong speaks with CNN Paris correspondent Saskya Vandoorne, whose team investigated the "Zzz" internet chat group hosted by the messaging app Telegram, where men exchange photos of their wives and advice on how to drug them.

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