- Chinese Telegram poster began posting cat torture videos in 2022.
- Volunteer group gathered evidence presented to police last week.
- Telegram is banned in China, but many use workarounds to access app.
Chinese police have arrested a man accused of torturing around 1,500 stray cats to death in exchange for crypto payments.
Officers accuse a man in his sixties surnamed Ma, who resides in Henan Province, of being the “ringleader” of a macabre private Telegram community dedicated to cat torture. The community members typically paid the accused to make custom cat torture videos.
“In the early hours of April 19, our volunteers found a kitten with its eyes gouged out, and its throat cut in a rubbish bin in a building in a residential complex [near Ma’s house],” members of a cat rescue group told Chinese media outlet China Newsweek.
Telegram is banned in Mainland China, but scores of Chinese users have found workarounds and proxies that allow them to access the app. Tech startups last year showcased an array of tools that will let police monitor Chinese-language groups on Telegram.
Hunt for ringleader
The cat rescue group was spearheaded by a Henan Province resident surnamed Zhang. The group said it spent months trying to unmask the identity of the torture group ringleader.
Their efforts finally paid off last week, Zhang said.
“Ma told an elderly neighbour he would help find new homes for more than 20 stray cats the neighbour was caring for,” Zhang said, “On the morning of April 18, Ma then adopted a kitten. And on the same night at around 11 pm, he suddenly turned up the volume on his TV.”
The group said this suggests Ma was trying to cover up the sound of the cat’s cries of pain. The same kitten’s body was found in the aforementioned bin the following day.
The rescue group said it had monitored the Telegram group ringleader, who used the alias Mou Tian, for some time.
The group said it had evidence Mou Tian began posting cat torture videos on Telegram in 2022, and had made scores of custom videos for customers who provided crypto donations.
Late-night excursions
After examining clues in scores of photographs and videos, the group was able to gather evidence suggesting Ma and Mou Tian were the same person.
Before reporting their evidence to the police, the group watched Ma’s behaviour carefully, noticing that he would leave his house at around midnight most days, only returning home at 4 or 5 am.
“We suspect that he deliberately chose to go out during times when there were fewer people around, so he could catch and abuse stray cats,” Zhang said.
The group also found evidence Ma had adopted cats through pet shops, online platforms, and rescue organisations, but added that the “whereabouts of most of these cats remains unknown.”
“Mou Tian had previously posted in the Telegram group about going out late at night to abuse and kill cats and trick people into adopting kittens. These details correspond to Ma’s behaviour,” a group member using the alias Lin Feng told China Newsweek.
Online clues
The volunteers spent days trying to confirm their suspicions, using the online evidence as a guide.
Through on-site visits and interviews with residents, they were able to establish that one of Mou Tian’s filming sites appeared to be a parking lot near Ma’s house. Other videos appeared to confirm a torture location as the balcony of Ma’s home.
And a particularly stomach-churning torture video that involved Mou Tian inflicting burns on a cat tied to a frying pan over a gas hob, matched up with images of Ma’s kitchen.
The group compiled all the evidence it could find and reported the case to a police station in the city of Pingdingshan.
Officers responded by arresting Ma. They have placed him under administrative detention for 10 days.
But legal experts say prosecutors may struggle to build a strong case against him, describing the case as “complex.”
Chinese law essentially classifies stray cats as wild animals, and legal protection surrounding abuse of these animals is vague, a lawyer told the same media outlet.
“Stray cats cannot be considered private property and therefore cannot be subject to property-related penalties, unlike pets,” the lawyer said.
Instead, police have charged Ma with “disturbing public order on an especially large scale.”
Jiulishan Police Station refused to comment further on the matter, telling China Newsweek that “details of the case could not be disclosed at this time.”
The development comes as Chinese courts crack down on individuals and organisations who use crypto to launder money and commit other crimes.
Tim Alper is a News Correspondent at DL News. Got a tip? Email him at tdalper@dlnews.com
