The BBC has found evidence that UK citizens are involved in an international ring that spreads videos of horrific abuse of cats and kittens online. The secret network has thousands of members who share and sell images and videos of the abuse, and sometimes make them themselves.

In a group on an encrypted messaging app, the BBC found conversations in which British members were planning to adopt kittens purely to abuse them. Some suggested taking kittens from the UK animal welfare charity RSPCA and mutilating them.

The investigation comes as two teenagers admitted in court to cutting up and hanging two kittens in Ruislip, north-west London. Police recovered a knife, a blowtorch and scissors from the scene. A 16-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy were due to be sentenced for the crime on Monday (4 August).

Investigators believe the teenagers may have links to the international cat-abuse ring, which deliberately makes videos of abuse and sells them on secret apps. The BBC says the ring originated in China but has now spread worldwide, and it has confirmed active members in several countries including the UK.

The animal rights organisation Feline Guardians says that from May 2023 to May 2024 a video of cat abuse was published online roughly every 14 hours. This year it has found 24 such active groups, one of which has more than a thousand members. It says the most active abuser alone has uploaded videos of torturing and killing more than 200 cats.

In the groups the BBC monitored, it found accounts located in the UK that were planning to buy or adopt cats to abuse. In one chat a member shared an RSPCA cat adoption application form. Another advertised cats for sale in the UK and wrote: "I want to make them suffer a lot."

Lara (not her real name), a Feline Guardians volunteer who has worked undercover in the groups for a long time, said: "My heart breaks every day. There is no day I don't cry." In her experience, the abusers' cruelty has no limit.

The videos the BBC saw are too horrific to publish. They show cats being drowned and given electric shocks. In one, a caged kitten is starved to see how long it will survive.

Group members use electric shocks to knock cats unconscious and revive them, to prolong their suffering. New members are encouraged to make and post their own videos of abusing cats, which gives them access to larger secret networks.

More alarming still, there is evidence of children taking part in the groups. One member wrote: "I am 10, I love torturing cats."

In September 2023 the network organised a challenge called the "100 cat kill competition", calling on members to show how quickly they could torture and kill 100 cats.

Such videos first went viral in China in 2023. Wang Chaoyi, who was responsible for two of the videos, was detained for only 15 days and released after writing a "letter of repentance". But his videos became so popular that many others began making similar content on Chinese and Western social media. The ring later moved to secret messaging apps.

One website even calls itself a "community of cat lovers" while being involved in cat abuse. It invites users to "submit their own work", and to gain access a user must show proof of abusing a cat.

Some accounts in the ring go by the name "Little Winnie" and use images of Winnie the Pooh as a caricature of Chinese President Xi Jinping. These accounts are also admins of many groups.

A Feline Guardians activist who did not want to be named built an online relationship with the owner of one "Little Winnie" account and identified him through a video call as a 27-year-old man living in Tokyo, Japan. He denied to the BBC any involvement in the cat-abuse network.

Feline Guardians has already protested outside the Chinese embassy in London. China has no effective law to prevent such abuse, so offenders carry on without fear of the law.

Animal rights activists say the network is a serious threat not only to animals but to society, and are calling on governments in every country to enforce strict laws and raise awareness now.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.