Female student in China followed to the washroom after coffee spiked with suspected aphrodisiac

A university is expected to be a safe space for learning, but not so for one student who was almost drugged by a fellow classmate.

A female student at the Shanghai International Studies University (SISU) found out on Sunday (June 12) that a male student had attempted to spike her drink with what she believes to be an aphrodisiac, 8World reported yesterday.

This female student had just returned to the library after lunch, taking a sip from her coffee. However, she quickly spat out her coffee which tasted strange, and that's when noticed a foreign object inside her cup.

She then went to the washroom to dispose of the drink before reporting the incident to campus security, where she was able to access closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage.

The culprit was revealed - a third-year student from the School of German Studies at SISU who had allegedly put something in her drink while she was away, 8World reported.

But the line of breadcrumbs led deeper into the woods, as she realised that the same person had trailed her when she was heading to the washroom to throw her coffee away earlier.

And that's not all.

"I noticed [that man] had been studying near me since last week," the female student commented on Weibo. "I can't say for sure that he wasn't deliberately observing me."

The student was also glad that she "didn't swallow [her drink]", and said that she was lucky to have found the drug in her coffee.

"It was terrifying," the student also added in her Weibo post. "I can't confirm that this wasn't be a traumatic experience for me. Whether or not the drug he purchased was an aphrodisiac doesn't matter - his intent was already clear."

She said that she will investigate the matter. 

The suspect, a 21-year-old student known as Yin, was arrested by police that afternoon following investigations, the Global Times reported yesterday (June 13).

Yin subsequently admitted to placing half an effervescent tablet of taurine into the victim's coffee cup, which he bought online, a spokesperson of the Songjiang Branch of Shanghai's Public Security Bureau informed the People's Daily.

Taurine effervescent tablets are falsely promoted as aphrodisiacs on online e-commerce platforms but are more commonly sold as health supplements, the Global Times also reported.

Following this incident, the female student went for a checkup at a hospital and found no issues with her health, according to an image uploaded to Weibo.

In Kuala Lumpur, a young woman's drink was allegedly spiked by two men who then raped her, according to a viral tweet on Nov 18 last year pleading for help in locating the two suspects.

The two men then surrendered themselves to the police for further investigations.

Closer to home, a man in Singapore recorded two women using an office toilet and drugged the drink of one of them with a muscle relaxant in an incident that occurred in 2019.

The man was subsequently sentenced to 14 months' jail in April last year, the Straits Times reported.

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khooyihang@asiaone.com