A British woman has pleaded guilty to being part of a global monkey torture network which set live animals on fire and put them in blenders.
Holly LeGresley, 37, from Kidderminster, participated in a private online group which paid people in Indonesia to kill baby monkeys on video.
Under the username ‘The Immolator’ she used the messaging app Telegram to help brainstorm, crowdfund and commission of the animals being tortured while she lived with her parents in the Midlands.
She even ran a poll for other members on which method of torture should be used to kill an infant monkey.
LeGresley pleaded guilty at Worcester Magistrates’ Court and will be sentenced on June 7.
Kevin Lacks-Kelly, the head of the UK National Wildlife Crime Unit, said: ‘I’ve been investigating wild crime for 22 years and it sickens me to say that this is unequivocally the worst case I have ever investigated or overseen.’
Sarah Kite, co-founder of Action for Primates who investigated the group said LeGresely ‘derived enjoyment from watching helpless infant monkeys in terror and pain’.
She said: ‘The depth of the depravity and perversion… in facilitating the horrific and gratuitous torture and killing of vulnerable baby monkeys was sickening, something I had never seen previously.’
The group was ran by US national Mike Macartney who went the screen name ‘Torture King’ and is a former motorcycle gang member.
He pleaded guilty to animal abuse charges in the US and is facing up to five years in prison.
A second woman, Adriana Orme, 55, also appeared at court in connection with the network.
She has been charged with publishing an obscene article and for causing unnecessary suffering to a protected animal.
Her next appearance will be June 5.
The charges came following a BBC investigation, where reporters went undercover to expose the existence of the gangs.
At least 20 people have been placed under investigation since.
Two others in the US, David Christopher Noble, 48, andNicole Devilbiss, 35, are both facing up to five years in prison.
Police in Indonesia also arrested two torture suspects.
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