Planned sexual violence against one’s wives or partners, after having stunned them with drugs or substances. They then planned sexual assaults, often reporting or documenting them in online groups. A chilling reality that seems to have emerged from a nightmare, but which instead emerged from a vast international operation coordinated by Europol.
57 people have been arrested in seven European countries as part of Operation Medusa, led by the authorities of Germany and the United Kingdom. Investigators uncovered a network of men who frequented digital communities characterized by misogynistic content and a culture of violence against women, where abuse was not only encouraged, but also organized.
The operation, coordinated by Europol, has once again turned the spotlight on a phenomenon that is as widespread as it is too often invisible: the sexual violence committed within emotional relationships and favored by digital environments which fuel hatred and oppression towards women.
Planned online violence and DFSA
According to investigators, the suspects frequented forums and private chats in which they shared detailed instructions on how to administer substances to their partners to make them unable to react. In some cases, the attacks were even filmed and spread within the communities themselves. Behind these exchanges there was, and still is, a real culture of violence: the online environments involved in fact promoted a openly misogynistic visionnormalizing control, coercion and sexual abuse within the couple.
The investigations focused on the so-called DFSA (Drug-Facilitated Sexual Assault), or sexual assaults facilitated by the use of drugs or medications. This is a particularly insidious form of violence because victims are often not immediately aware of what has happened and may have difficulty remembering events or gathering evidence.
Experts have long highlighted how these crimes are vastly underreported. Shame, fear, economic or emotional dependence on the partner and difficulty in proving the administration of substances contribute to keeping the phenomenon hidden.
The operation led to the identification of 156 people including victims and perpetrators of crimes and the safety of 158 women considered at risk.
@Europol
The investigation is part of the broader Medusa Project, launched by Europol last April to combat the digital networks that facilitate sexual violence through the use of substances. Since its launch, 113 investigations have already been opened in the countries involved, a figure that highlights the extent of a phenomenon that is anything but marginal.
What emerged is not just a case of crime news, but the signal of a threat that is also fueled online, where extremist and misogynistic communities find space to strengthen themselves and recruit new followers. A phenomenon that requires deep reflection on the relationship between gender violence, digital radicalization and protection of victims.
The story inevitably brings to mind the case of Gisele Pelicotthe French woman who became a symbol of the fight against sexual violence after discovering that her husband had drugged her for years to allow dozens of men to abuse her while she was unconscious. A process that shocked France and the whole of Europe, showing with brutal clarity how the violence can take place within the home and how the internet can become a tool for organize, facilitate and normalize abuse. Also in Operation Medusa it demonstrates how, when abuse is organised, shared and encouraged collectively, we are no longer faced with individual deviant behaviours, but with a system which transforms violence against women into a practice to be legitimized and replicated.
