Baby monkeys have been tortured to death on film with viewers voting on which weapons they should be abused with.
The monkey torture rings consist of hundreds of people encouraging members to carry out extreme torture acts on macaques, usually on messaging app Telegram, the BBC reported.
Viewers all over the world paid criminals living in Indonesia to torture the baby monkeys, the world service found.
Undercover BBC journalists attended a gathering of one major Telegram torture group, where hundreds turned up.
People across Indonesia and the rest of Asia were assigned different torture acts to carry out.
Then, people created films of the monkeys being abused and tortured. Many of the monkeys were also killed on film.
Several arrests have already been made since the torture ring came to light, while investigations are underway.
The BBC spoke to one U.S. man involved in the circle.
Mike McCartney, also known by his screen name The Torture King, said Telegram groups asked people whether they wanted hammers, pliers or screwdrivers involved in the bespoke monkey torture film.
McCartney told the broadcasting service that the money made was "no different than drug money."
"Drug money comes from dirty hands, this money comes from bloody hands," he said.
Two other participants were also identified by the BBC including Stacey Storey—a grandmother in her 40s who also goes by the name "Sadistic"—and someone known as "Mr Ape."
Although agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security are now cracking down on the content, there are videos still available all over the internet.
Animal welfare groups have been trying to crack down on this issue for years.
Animal advocacy groups Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates are two organizations that have recently welcomed the crackdown by U.S. law enforcement into the monkey torture groups.
These organizations have been working on removing these grotesque videos since they first emerged online two years ago.
In March 2022, YouTube took several videos down after they were flagged by Newsweek.
The disturbing footage, which was posted to the platform on February 22, 2022, showed a baby macaque monkey being hand-fed from a bottle, with a caption reading "feeding the baby monkey to make sure he don't run away."
The film continued as a huge dog began repeatedly biting the monkey. The monkey could be seen clutching to the milk bottle as it was attacked by the dog.
The monkey could screeched in pain as the dog continued its attack.
YouTube confirmed to Newsweek that the video violated its violent and graphic content policy.
Animal advocacy groups are still calling on these social media platforms to crack down on the videos that remain live on their site.
"I applaud law enforcement for taking action to stop the horrific torture inflicted on innocent monkeys for profit," Nina Jackel, founder of Lady Freethinker, said in a press release. "These videos, sold privately and also persistently shared on YouTube and other platforms, depict what is easily the worst animal cruelty I have seen in my years working for animal protection. The helpless baby macaques who suffered and died for these videos deserve justice.''
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
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