Ringleader of horrific animal torture gang jailed
A man who ran an international network that paid for monkeys to be tortured and killed on camera has been jailed for three years and three months.
Alex Kettle-Williams acted for the Crown Prosecution Service and Alexia Nicol acted for the Defendant.
The Defendant, Bartosz Poklek, from Bexley, south-east London, commissioned videos, wrote scripts setting out how the animals should be harmed. His offending took place between June 2023 and September 2025 and he admitted running a large-scale monkey torture ring and publishing obscene animal-cruelty videos for financial gain.
Poklek led a closed online “zoosadist” community that used platforms including YouTube, Facebook and TikTok to share and sell footage of monkeys mainly baby long-tailed macaques being subjected to prolonged cruelty in Indonesia and elsewhere in South-East Asia. Members could pay hundreds of dollars for specific acts to be filmed or “adopt” a monkey and decide how it would be treated.
Police recovered more than 10,500 files from his computer equipment, including almost 3,000 videos showing monkeys being abused or killed.
Sentencing him on Friday 9 October 2026 at Woolwich Crown Court, Judge Christopher Grout said:
“It is no exaggeration to say that as a lawyer or as a judge I have never encountered such a horrific case of animal abuse in my life.”
Poklek was also sentenced in relation to two counts of possession of indecent images of children and possession of amphetamine.
Poklek was also made subject to a Serious Crime Prevention Order. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, it is the first time such an order has been imposed in connection with a wildlife crime.
The Judge further added ‘If ever there was a case that demonstrates that the statutory maximum for animal cruelty is too low, this is it’ and strongly urged Parliament to consider tougher penalties.
The case followed an international investigation involving the Metropolitan Police, the National Wildlife Crime Unit, US Homeland Security Investigations and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/bartosz-poklek-monkey-videos-cruelty-b3064213.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmz65pjpvq5go
https://metro.co.uk/2026/10/09/zoo-ringleader-jailed-monkey-torture-videos-29695844/
