Two Brits charged as part of global ring that paid for monkeys to be tortured on camera

This article will contain references to animal abuse that some may find distressing.

Two Brits have been charged as part of the exposure of a global monkey torture ring.

Last year the BBC reported that a year-long investigation had uncovered a 'sadistic' monkey torture ring from Indonesia to the US.

They found hundreds of customers in the UK, US and other locations around the world had been paying people in Indonesia to make videos where they tortured and killed baby long-tailed macaques.

The videos were originally circulated on YouTube before the global torture ring moved to messaging platform Telegram.

Agoes Rudianto/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Buyers created scenarios where the baby monkeys were abused, tortured and sometimes killed on film.

The BBC spoke to a man in the US called Mike Macartney, who went by the name 'The Torture King', who said there was a poll set up asking people to suggest various methods of torture to be inflicted upon the monkeys.

"Do you want a hammer involved? Do you want pliers involved? Do you want a screwdriver?" he said of the poll asking for options and said the resulting video was 'the most grotesque thing I have ever seen'.

Undercover footage filmed by the BBC showed a torturer striking a monkey against a wall and describing it as 'so cool' when the blood started pouring from the animal's mouth.

Now the BBC has reported that Macartney was charged with conspiracy to create and distribute animal-crushing videos.

They have also reported that two women in the UK have been charged in connection with the monkey torture ring.

BBC

The torture ring involved videos where monkeys were set on fire, tortured with tools and in one video a monkey was put in a blender.

The British women charged were 37-year-old Kidderminster resident Holly LeGresley and 55-year-old Upton-upon-Severn woman Adriana Orme.

They were charged with publishing an obscene article and causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal, and a third woman in the UK has also been arrested.

Two Indonesian torturers have been arrested and jailed in connection to the torture ring, while two other people in the US besides Macartney have been charged.

48-year-old former US Air Force officer David Christopher Noble and 35-year-old Nicole Devilbiss are both facing up to five years in prison.