The “online monkey torture video” arrests just keep coming
So the group tried again. “Million tears” had been booted by its host, but the group reconstituted on another platform and renamed itself “the trail of trillion tears.” They reached out to another Indonesian videographer and asked for a more graphic version of the same video. But this version, more sadistic than the last, still didn’t satisfy. As one of the Americans allegedly said to another, “honey that’s not what you asked for. Thats the village idiot version. But I’m talking with someone about getting a good vo [videographer] to do it.”
Arrests continue
In 2021, someone leaked communications from the “million tears” group to animals rights organizations like Lady Freethinker and Action for Primates, which handed it over to authorities. Still, it took several years to arrest and prosecute the torture group’s leaders.
In 2024, one of these leaders—Ronald Bedra of Ohio—pled guilty to commissioning the videos and to mailing “a thumb drive containing 64 videos of monkey torture to a co-conspirator in Wisconsin.” His mother, in a sentencing letter to the judge, said that her son must “have been undergoing some mental crisis when he decided to create the website.” As a boy, he had loved all of the family pets, she said, even providing a funeral for a fish.
Bedra was sentenced late last year to 54 months in prison. According to letters from family members, he has also lost his job, his wife, and his kids.
In April 2025, two more alleged co-conspirators were indicted and subsequently arrested; their cases were unsealed only this week. Two other co-conspirators from this group still appear to be uncharged.
In May 2025, 11 other Americans were indicted for their participation in monkey torture groups, though they appear to come from a different network. This group allegedly “paid a minor in Indonesia to commit the requested acts on camera.”
As for the Indonesian side of this equation, arrests have been happening there, too. Following complaints from animal rights groups, police in Indonesia have arrested multiple videographers over the last two years.
Update: Showing the international nature of these torture groups, the Scottish Sun just ran a rather lurid piece about the “sadistic Scots mum jailed for helping to run a horrific global monkey torture network.” The 39-year-old was apparently caught after US authorities broke up another monkey torturing network based around outsourcing the torture to Indonesia.
