Ringleader of 'zoo sadist' monkey torture network jailed for three years
Bartosz Poklek, 30, ran a global 'monkey hate' community from south-east London, scripting the torture of macaques on camera and selling the videos for hundreds of pounds.
A 30-year-old man from south-east London who ran an international network that filmed the torture and killing of monkeys for paying viewers has been jailed for three years and three months.
Bartosz Poklek, from Bexley, admitted running a large-scale monkey torture ring between June 2023 and September 2025. Woolwich Crown Court heard that he played a leading role in the so-called monkey hate community, running chat groups and distributing thousands of abuse-on-demand videos and images.
Prosecutors said Poklek styled himself as BP online and ran a chat group called the BP empire. He wrote scripts dictating how macaques should be mutilated, dismembered and tortured, and directed the way the animals would be killed, in some cases by being clubbed to death with a hammer. The videos were sold for up to 500 dollars, about 378 pounds, each.
If ever there was a case that demonstrates that the statutory maximum for animal cruelty is too low, this is it.Judge Christopher Grout
Sentencing him on Friday, Judge Christopher Grout said he had never encountered such a horrific case of animal abuse. The facts of the offending were truly appalling, the judge said, adding that they were likely to cause distress to anyone listening to or reading about them.
He went on to describe a vile underground community whose members have a hatred of monkeys, particularly baby monkeys, and take pleasure in watching them tortured and killed.
The court heard that the videos were filmed in south-east Asia, where macaque monkeys were tortured on camera for viewers around the world. Judge Grout said so-called zoo sadists were recruited after showing interest in animal abuse material on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok, before being invited onto more secure platforms such as Discord and Telegram. Some users paid to adopt a monkey so they could direct how it was tortured.
Prosecutor Alex Kettle-Williams told the court that monkeys were sometimes dressed in bonnets and nappies and fed from a baby's milk bottle, raising concern that the animals were being treated as proxy infants by users with an interest in violent child abuse. Poklek also pleaded guilty to publishing obscene videos for gain, possession of indecent images of children, and possession of ketamine.
Poklek was captured after he tried to obtain court documents from a monkey torture criminal case in the United States. The investigation involved British officers from the National Wildlife Crime Unit, the Metropolitan Police and West Mercia Police, alongside the US Homeland Security Investigations unit and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
Judge Grout said Poklek would be released after serving about a third of his sentence and urged Parliament to consider tougher penalties for animal abuse, which currently carries a five-year maximum. He said that if ever there was a case demonstrating the statutory maximum for animal cruelty was too low, this was it.
Alexia Nicol, representing Poklek, told the court he found it difficult to explain how he had become involved. Adeolu Odusote of the Crown Prosecution Service said Poklek had been a key cog in a vile trade that oversaw and encouraged the sickening torture of monkeys. The RSPCA urged anyone who encounters animal cruelty content online to report it directly to the platform, which under the Online Safety Act has new obligations to tackle illegal content glorifying or promoting animal abuse.
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