They called them­selves the “Ger­man dri­ving school for ex­perts,” but pros­e­cu­tors say the true pur­pose of their Telegram chats was to brag about the women they raped and share tips about how to drug them.

In posts that some­times in­clud­ed pho­tos and videos of their at­tacks on un­con­scious vic­tims, they re­ferred to women as “cars,” seda­tives as “fu­el” and rape as “dri­ving,” ac­cord­ing to court doc­u­ments. They called their vic­tims “dead pigs.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors have been por­ing through sev­er­al years’ worth of posts in rough­ly two dozen group chats on the pop­u­lar mes­sag­ing app that au­thor­i­ties be­lieve served an on­line preda­tor net­work of main­ly Chi­nese men tar­get­ing most­ly Chi­nese women in Ger­many. Their in­ves­ti­ga­tion has al­ready led to the con­vic­tions of three al­leged in­ner cir­cle mem­bers on rape and oth­er charges. A fourth was con­vict­ed Wednes­day in Berlin.