CNN: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An international police operation spanning seven countries has uncovered highly organized networks of offenders who drug and rape their partners and use online chat groups to aid and encourage their \u201chorrifying\u201d assaults, authorities said on Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In most cases, the victims are women who are sedated before being raped and sexually assaulted, Europol and Britain\u2019s National Crime Agency (NCA) said. The online groups provide a haven for predominantly male perpetrators to coordinate assaults, share information as well as post videos and photos of the abuse, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
German and British crime agencies, with the help of law enforcement from the United States, Brazil, Canada, France, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Spain, have launched a joint operation to tackle the \u201cevolving threat,\u201d Britain\u2019s NCA said in a statement Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often, the victims have no idea they have been sexually assaulted until they are contacted by police, and the abuse is committed by \u201csomeone they know and trust, and in some cases by multiple connected offenders,\u201d the agency said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The investigations come after the high-profile case<\/a> of Gisele Pelicot in France, whose husband solicited dozens of strangers<\/a> to rape her while she was unconscious, in a case that shocked the world and sparked a cultural reckoning on gender-based violence and misogyny in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n