The Belgian police arrested five men on Tuesday and Wednesday who in recent years would have spent at least 41 women in the nightlife of the West-Flemish city of Kortrijk. Some of the women would then have been raped. That is what the Belgian Public Prosecution Service has Wednesday announced. In the event of a spiking, someone is drugged without knowledge, often by adding drugs to a drink. Three of the suspects are café operators, sources report, among other things The latest news And the VRT. It would be about personnel from the popular youth café The painted bird and it now closed Patron.
The men are suspected of “rape, damage to sexual integrity and deliberately administering harmful substances,” the public prosecutor writes. Their modus operandi would have been the same: the women was offered a drink, “after which they woke up the next morning and couldn’t remember anything anymore.” Opposite the VRT slightly spokesperson: “They were then naked in bed, bruises and vaginal bleeding had. It was clear that they were stunned to have sex with them.” The incidents took place between December 2021 and December 2024.
The case shocked Belgium last fall, when the public prosecutor announced an investigation. In the year and a half, seven women had reported to the police. They had all been to cafés in ” t Straatje ‘, the name of the entertainment neighborhood on Burgemeester Reynaertstraat of the Provinciality of Kortrijk. The women was handed a shot, which, according to the OM, turned out to be ketamine in all cases. The standard In November, how tense the atmosphere in Kortrijk’s hospitality industry is. “Now of course we are on our guard. Certainly with weird people,” said a group of friends. A café operator indicated that he was not able to sleep “from the news. “The rumors have been around for some time.”
Black-out after an amaretto
In Het Nieuwsblad And at the VRT, one of the victims, a 25-year-old woman, told last November how she ordered an Amaretto with Iced Tea in one evening in Kortrijk pub. “Shortly afterwards, the light went out. According to my girlfriends, I became aggressive and at a certain moment I stormed out of the cafe. After that I got a complete blackout.” That night the woman said she was ‘untraceable’ for her friends for two hours, until she hung around the street again around 5 o’clock.
The police picked her up and put the woman in jail. Initially she was fined for public drunkenness. “They all thought I was just drunk that night,” she says. “But I immediately felt that something was wrong. That made me angry.” In the hospital it turned out that she did not wear too much alcohol. Traces of ketamine were found in her blood, on her clothing was the DNA of a stranger.
The public prosecutor’s office expects there to be more victims. The lawyers of several women say they are ‘surprised’ to Belgian media about the size of the case. After interrogation, one of the five suspects was allowed to go home. According to the public prosecutor, the men exchanged ‘experiences’ with each other.