An evil international monkey torture ring that stretches from Indonesia to the United States has been discovered by a year-long BBC investigation.
The World Service discovered that hundreds of customers from the US, UK, and other countries paid Indonesians to kill and torture baby long-tailed macaques on camera.
The torture network first appeared on YouTube before moving to exclusive groups on the secure messaging platform Telegram.
Police have made several arrests and are currently looking for the buyers.
This article contains disturbing material, so please be aware.
Hundreds of people gathered in one of the major Telegram torture groups, where BBC journalists went undercover, to brainstorm ideas for extreme forms of torture and to hire people in Indonesia and other Asian nations to carry them out.
The sadists' aim was to produce custom films in which young long-tailed macaque monkeys were mistreated, tortured, and occasionally killed on camera.
The BBC was given access to an international law enforcement effort to apprehend the tormentors in Indonesia as well as the distributors and purchasers in the US.
At least 20 people are currently the subject of investigations around the world, including one man indicted last week in Oregon, the US, and three women who reside in the UK and were detained by the police last year but later released while still being investigated.
Mike McCartney, an important video distributor in the US who goes by the alias "The Torture King," agreed to speak with the BBC and shared his account of the moment he joined his first Telegram monkey torture group.
McCartney stated, "They set up a poll.". He asked, "Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver involved? "The resulting video was "the most grotesque thing I have ever seen," he said.
McCartney, a former motorcycle gang member who served time in prison before joining the world of monkey torture, eventually ran several Telegram groups where ardent torture supporters shared videos.
He remarked, "It's no different than drug money. "This money comes from bloody hands, just like drug money does," the saying goes. ".
Stacey Storey, a grandmother in her 40s from Alabama who was known in the community as "Sadistic," and a ringleader known as "Mr Ape," whose real name we cannot reveal out of concern for our safety, were also named by the BBC as two other key suspects who are currently under investigation by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
At least four monkey deaths and numerous other acts of torture were attributable to "Mr Ape," who admitted as much in a BBC interview. He claimed that he had ordered videos that were "extremely brutal.".
When Department of Homeland Security agents took possession of Storey's phone, they discovered nearly 100 videos of torture as well as proof that she had paid for the making of some of the most gruesome videos ever made.
Police sources claim that Storey was involved in a group that engaged in torture as recently as this month. When contacted by the BBC in Alabama in January, Storey claimed to have been hacked and declined to elaborate on the claims.
Stacey Storey, Mike McCartney, and "Mr Ape" are three of five main targets of the ongoing Homeland Security inquiry. Although they have not been charged, the DHS's evidence suggests that they could be tried and sentenced to up to seven years in prison.
The DHS investigation is being led by Special Agent Paul Wolpert, who stated that the nature of the alleged crimes had shocked everyone involved from law enforcement.
He remarked, "I don't know if anyone would ever be ready for a crime like this. "The same goes for the lawyers, the jury, and anyone else who reads about this.". It's going to surprise everyone, I think. ".
"Expect a knock on the door at some point," Agent Wolpert warned anyone involved in purchasing or disseminating the monkey torture videos. 'You won't get away with it,' I said. ".
Two torture suspects have been detained by Indonesian police. Asep Yadi Nurul Hikmah was found guilty of selling a protected species and animal torture, and he received a three-year prison term. The maximum sentence that could be given for torturing an animal was given to M. Ajis Rasjana: eight months.
The BBC recently discovered dozens of groups sharing extreme content, some with more than 1,000 members, on Telegram and now Facebook, where monkey torture videos are still readily available.
Action for Primates co-founder Sarah Kite noted an increase in the extreme, graphic content that was previously hidden but is now freely available on social media sites like Facebook.
The groups we brought to Facebook's attention were removed, the company informed the BBC. A spokesperson stated, "We do not permit the promotion of animal abuse on our platforms and we remove this content when we become aware of it, as we did in this case.
Ms. Kite also urged the UK to update its legal framework to make it simpler to prosecute those who finance the production of torture videos. She argued that stronger laws should be in place to hold those who deliberately cause an animal pain to account. This includes those who pay for the suffering and provide a wish list for what they want done to the animal.
Animal abuse had "no place" on the platform, according to a statement from YouTube to the BBC, and the company was "working hard to quickly remove violative content.".
The statement read, "We've removed hundreds of thousands of videos and shut down tens of thousands of channels just this year for breaking our violent and graphic policies.
In a statement, Telegram stated that it was "committed to protecting user privacy and human rights, such as the freedom of speech," but added that its moderators "cannot proactively patrol private groups.".
The critics of monkeys.
The BBC News website offers the complete article, as well as links to BBC iPlayer for the documentary The Monkey Haters and BBC Sounds for the radio version.
