The height of animal cruelty
Today I’m sharing a story that blew my mind. Who knew? The cruelty described is unfathomable, and of course, the star of the exposé, a man called the “Torture King,” lives in a basement festooned with Confederate and MAGA flags. I’m not going to comment too much on this incredible story, but I wanted to share it with you.
This is the astonishing lede of 1 News New Zealand reporting on a stunning BBC investigation:
A BBC investigation has uncovered an international network of people paying Indonesians to torture and kill baby monkeys on film.
The story continues:
One man, called the “Torture King,” told the UK broadcaster a poll was set up to take customers' requests for the torture.
“Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver?” he told the BBC.
He called the resulting videos “the most grotesque thing [he has] have ever seen.”
Hundreds of people around the world were allegedly paying customers.
The long-tailed macaque abuse ring began on YouTube before moving to private groups on Telegram, the investigation found.
At least 20 people are now under investigation globally, with several arrests made already.
“BBC journalists went undercover in one of the main Telegram torture groups, where hundreds of people gathered to come up with extreme torture ideas and commission people in Indonesia and other Asian countries to carry them out,” the broadcaster's report said.
A BBC reporter also visited a suspected monkey torturer while undercover. They secretly filmed the encounter.
“The sadists' goal was to create bespoke films in which baby long-tailed macaque monkeys were abused, tortured and sometimes then killed on film,” the report added.
“The Torture King,” American Mike McCartney, was reportedly a key distributor of the videos in the US.
This is Mike McCartney:
The BBC investigation describes the “Torture King” as follows:
In real life, he was Mike McCartney, a 48-year-old former motorcycle gang member in Norfolk, Virginia, with a swastika tattoo and a “man cave” in his home decorated with Nazi symbols and Confederate flags. McCartney was well-built, heavily tattooed, and toothless from years of heroin addiction. He had spent two decades in one of America’s most dangerous outlaw motorcycle gangs, before going to prison and dropping out of that life. When the pandemic hit, he started spending a lot of time on YouTube. At some point, he saw his first monkey torture video. It was a video of Mini.
Mini’s owner was “teasing, taking the bottle out of reach”, McCartney said. The video gave him a “good chuckle”. He started watching more, leaving comments. It wasn't long before he got an invitation to a Telegram group.
“They had a poll set up,” McCartney recalled. “Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver?” He voted and came back to the app later. “And sure as heck there’s a new video with everything that was voted on,” he said. “And it was the most grotesque thing I’ve ever seen.”
McCartney saw a money-making opportunity — downloading torture videos from YouTube and selling them in Ape’s Cage. And as he sold and traded videos he became a trusted member of the monkey hate community, and rose high up in the informal pecking order.
But not to the very top. At the very top of the tree there was only one man. Screen name “Mr Ape.” The founder and CEO of Ape’s Cage.
Reading these accounts is stomach-churning. It is beyond sick. The cruelty is unfathomable, and yet it is widespread enough for there to be a globally-connected community of sadists.
Unsurprisingly, the “Torture King” is flying the symbol of slavery and the MAGA flag from his basement wall. It makes perfect sense. These are the totems of cruelty and racism in a movement with cruelty at its core. The politics of the “Torture King” isn’t incidental, it’s elemental. Make no mistake it poses a threat to society.
This BBC investigation is as disturbing a story as I have ever read. It is remarkable how much evil there is, but in this case, ordinary people acted to make a difference. I urge you to read this astonishing piece of journalism.
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