A 21-year-old Chinese woman has been allegedly raped by the driver of a app-based taxi service in China's southern Guangdong province, becoming the first such case of sexual assault in the Communist nation.
The victim complained to police that she hired a cab but could not recall through which car-hailing app.
The woman said she boarded the taxi at 3 am after attending a social event and then passed out in an inebriated state.
The alleged rape incident happened in the early hours of May 29, Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported.
She awoke two hours later in a hotel room with the driver, who she claimed admitted to having sex with her while she was unconscious.
The driver later took her home from where the victim contacted the police, the Post reported today.
The police identified the driver, a 29-year-old local man with the surname Deng, through surveillance videos taken from the hotel.
He was found to have been sentenced for theft earlier and spent time in prison in 2013.
He confessed to having sex with the woman while she was drunk, the report said.
The case is currently under investigation, said Zhang Zhengui, a spokesperson for the municipal public security bureau.
They were named illegal by the national transport authority earlier this year.
Chinese market leaders Didi Kuaidi, the product of a merger between two similar apps backed by Tencent and Alibaba, and one of its chief rivals, San Francisco-based Uber, have been beset by problems in recent weeks and months, but sexual assault has not been an issue in China so far.
Uber had its offices Guangzhou and Chengdu raided earlier this year and taxi drivers from across the country have been involved in violent incidents and protests against what they see as an unfair infringement on their business, often by unlicensed drivers.
Uber had its service temporarily suspended in New Delhi in December over complaints by a woman of rape by the driver.
In the US, an Uber driver was charged with kidnapping and raping a customer in 2014.
