UNITED KINGDOM — The National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified more than 270 individuals linked to an online forum and its successors since beginning an investigation in October 2023. The agency has disseminated more than 210 intelligence packages relating to suspects and potential victims to law enforcement partners in the UK and overseas.

Nigel Leary, the NCA's deputy director, said, "We believe we have uncovered a truly international network with group members identified in dozens of countries spanning every continent." Leary stated, "We've seen users actively engaging with other like-minded individuals discussing in graphic detail how they want to drug their victims to commit the most heinous sexual abuse." He added that discussions include inviting other people to take part in the sexual assaults, seeking advice on the best drugs or sedatives to use and how to administer them, asking for specific abuse to be conducted and filmed, and also coordinating offending, arranging to rape and abuse victims, sharing methodologies and developing tactics to avoid detection. Leary noted, "In many of the cases we've seen so far, individuals have become victims of sexual assault crimes while sedated."

More than 90% of the intelligence packages were sent to law enforcement partners abroad. Domestically, these packages resulted in at least 14 separate investigations and eight victim-survivors being safeguarded. Helen Millichap, Director of the National Centre for Violence Against Women and Girls and Public Protection, said, "Organised drug-facilitated sexual assault represents a serious and evolving threat." Millichap added, "The offending was rooted in domestic abuse, controlling and coercive behaviour and sexual offending."

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is dealing with a small number of cases of this nature and working with policing partners to build cases. Siobhan Blake, Rape and serious sexual offences lead for the CPS, said, "What had been uncovered was some of the most abhorrent offending that I've seen in my 25 years as a prosecutor, involving the most gross abuse of trust of victim survivors by those who should have been the very first to care and support them." Blake stated, "We are using every tool at our disposal to stay ahead of the evolving nature of this type of sexual offending and build the strongest cases to take to court."