Germany recorded 751 cases categorized as group rapes in 2025, according to the federal government's response to a parliamentary inquiry submitted by the opposition Alternative für Deutschland party. Of the 1,087 identified suspects in these cases, 509 were German citizens and 578 were non-German nationals. Syrians constituted the largest foreign-national suspect group with 110 individuals, followed by Afghans with 64, Iraqis with 46, and Turks with 44.
The government cautioned that "group rape" is not a distinct criminal offense or a standardized police category. The figures were generated by filtering recorded rape cases where multiple suspects were identified during police investigations, not necessarily convictions.
These figures emerged as investigators in Nuremberg pursue allegations that vulnerable teenage girls were systematically drawn into a network involving affection, gifts, narcotics, and sexual exploitation. Bavarian police stated in May that men operating near the city's main railway station allegedly approached girls from unstable backgrounds, offering them attention, clothing, or cosmetics. Investigators claim some were later supplied with hard drugs, including crystal meth, and their resulting dependency was allegedly exploited for sexual acts or other services.
The investigation, known as EKO Kajal, has led to ten suspects being held in pretrial detention in cases involving alleged sexual offenses against minors and the distribution of drugs or medication to young people. In recent arrests, police alleged a 21-year-old Syrian man raped two girls, aged 15 and 18, in a Nuremberg apartment after they were given narcotics by a 40-year-old Syrian man. Both men are detained, and the accusations remain allegations.
These developments bear similarities to grooming-gang cases uncovered in Britain, where girls were allegedly supplied with drugs and alcohol before being repeatedly abused by groups of men. Emma Schubart, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, suggested that insufficient screening and inadequate integration policies contribute to such problems in both countries. She argued that the isolation of some immigrant communities can foster environments where criminal networks operate with limited scrutiny.
Schubart challenged the notion that socioeconomic factors alone explain disparities in some sexual offense statistics, stating that native Germans from similar backgrounds do not exhibit equivalent rates in group sexual offending. She identified the intersection of drugs and sexual exploitation as a significant parallel between the situations in the U.K. and Germany, describing it as a pattern where drug-trafficking networks also involve sex trafficking.
Britain has faced scrutiny over grooming scandals in various cities, where official reviews found that authorities repeatedly missed or ignored evidence of child abuse. A British government audit concluded that inconsistent definitions and incomplete data made it impossible to ascertain the full national scale of group-based child sexual exploitation, though it noted disproportionate representation of certain ethnic groups in some local datasets.
Schubart suggested that officials in both Germany and the U.K. have sometimes avoided discussing offenders' backgrounds to avoid damaging relations with minority communities. Meanwhile, a 2025 analysis by Germany's ifo Institute of district-level police data from 2018 through 2023 found no correlation between a rising foreign population and local crime rates, including in areas with more refugees. Researchers noted that factors such as age, sex, and urban concentration can influence suspect rates.
The competing evidence presents a challenge for European governments in investigating organized exploitation and demographic patterns without political hesitation, while also avoiding generalizations about millions of immigrants.