Antwerp Rape Probe Finds Thousands of Drugging Videos
A judicial investigation in the Belgian city of Antwerp has uncovered thousands of images and videos showing women being drugged and sexually assaulted while unconscious, prompting prosecutors and local media to draw direct comparisons with the Gisèle Pélicot rape trial in France.
Three men — aged 41, 37 and 50 — were arrested on 23 September 2026, and two were later placed in pre-trial detention. The case, which authorities say remains active, has shocked Belgium and renewed urgent questions about the prosecution of sexual violence and so-called chemical submission.
How the case unfolded
The investigation began in May 2026, after a 50-year-old woman filed a complaint against her ex-partner, a 41-year-old man, alleging she had been sexually assaulted and filmed without her knowledge, according to RTBF.
Police arrested the man on 8 May and placed him under electronic surveillance. He was suspected of rape, voyeurism and intentional assault and battery, and was later released under conditions during the summer.
As investigators seized and analysed his computer equipment, the case expanded dramatically. According to La Libre Belgique, police discovered thousands of images of women victims of sexual assault on the main suspect’s computer — women who, in the words of Gazet van Antwerpen, were often “completely groggy.”
Two additional victims were subsequently identified, both former partners of the 41-year-old suspect. Prosecutors say they were allegedly drugged and assaulted in the past, and they have since filed complaints.
An echo of the Mazan trial
The method described by investigators — drugging a woman and assaulting her while she is unconscious — has drawn explicit parallels with the Mazan rape trial that captivated France and the world in 2024.
In that case, Gisèle Pélicot was repeatedly raped over years by her then-husband, Dominique Pélicot, and dozens of men he recruited online while she was drugged and unconscious at their home in Mazan. Fifty-one men were tried; Dominique Pélicot was sentenced to 20 years, and most co-defendants were convicted.
The comparison is one Belgian prosecutors have not discouraged. “During these additional investigations, other serious sexual assaults were brought to light,” Kato Belmans of the Antwerp prosecutor’s office told VTM, as reported by RTL Info.
“There would be other victims,” Belmans added. “Two other women who were allegedly drugged and sexually abused by a man. The latter had already been arrested before. New suspects, two men, have also come into the police’s crosshairs.”
Two more suspects, older recordings
The probe widened further when investigators identified two additional suspects — men aged 37 and 50 — who appear on older recordings found in the seized material.
According to La DH/Les Sports+, the deepest analysis of the digital files uncovered recordings dating back to 2008. Some of the material is recent; other segments date from the 2008–2011 period, meaning investigators are now examining alleged crimes that may span nearly two decades.
Faced with the new evidence, police re-arrested the main suspect on 23 September. The two other men were apprehended at the same time. All three were placed under arrest warrants at the end of September.
The Antwerp council chamber confirmed the pre-trial detention of two of the suspects and was expected to rule on the third on Monday. The information was first revealed by Gazet van Antwerpen and confirmed by the Antwerp prosecutor’s office.
A legal battle over time
The main suspect denies drugging the women and claims the sexual relations were consensual. But the case is already heading toward a contested legal battleground over the statute of limitations.
Me Ergün Top, a lawyer for one of the other defendants, is contesting the detention of his client by invoking prescription, arguing that the oldest facts are now time-barred for adult victims. “For adults, the facts dating from that period are now prescribed,” he said, as cited by La DH.
That argument echoes a broader debate across Europe about whether limitation periods prevent the prosecution of historical sexual abuse — and whether legal frameworks are equipped to handle cases in which victims were drugged and left unable to recall, let alone report, what happened to them.
The Belgian case also puts a spotlight on “chemical submission” — the administration of a psychoactive substance to a person without their knowledge, often to facilitate assault. The practice became a major focus of public debate in France after the Pélicot case, fuelling documentaries, parliamentary discussions and victim-support initiatives.
What to watch
The judicial investigation remains open and active. Prosecutors say their aims now are to establish the precise total number of victims and to determine whether other people participated in the assaults — meaning the known figures of at least three victims and three suspects may still grow.
Several questions remain unanswered. The suspects’ identities and nationalities have not been released. The exact charges as formally filed have not been detailed beyond rape, sexual assault, voyeurism and assault. And the outcome of the council chamber’s ruling on the third suspect was not yet known as of the story date.
What is clear is the scale of what investigators say they found — and the uncomfortable resonance with a French case that changed how Europe talks about sexual violence. How Belgium’s justice system handles the Antwerp investigation, and whether it can overcome the barrier of prescription, may shape that conversation further.