A man has appeared in court on charges that he castrated other males and posted the video on his “eunuch maker” website.
The removal of his victims’ penises and testicles is among the drastic body changes that Marius Gustavson and eight other people are accused of doing on their victims.
The group would record the operations and publish them to Gustavson’s eunuch maker website, where users would pay to view the treatments, London Magistrates Court was informed on Wednesday.
Gustavson, who is originally from Norway, is said to have been the ringleader of the wide-ranging conspiracy, which involved up to 29 offences involving extreme body modifications, the removal and trade of body parts, and the uploading of illicit videos.
The Metropolitan Police said the charges relate to 13 alleged victims.
Raids were carried out in London, Scotland and South Wales on Wednesday morning and a total of nine men later appeared in courts in central London and Wales over the alleged six-year plot, which is said to have brought in some £200,000 in income.
Gustavson, from Tottenham, north London, is charged with conspiracy to cause grievous bodily harm with intent between January 1 2016 and January 1 last year, along with five counts of causing GBH to five alleged victims.
The GBH charges include the removal of a man’s penis, the clamping of another’s testicles and freezing of a leg which required amputation.
He is further charged with acquiring or possessing criminal property, making an indecent image of a child and distributing an indecent image of a child.
The court heard Gustavson, who appeared in the dock in a wheelchair, has had his own leg, penis and nipple removed.
He appeared alongside Peter Wates, 65, from Croydon, in south London, who is charged with conspiracy to cause GBH with intent.
Wates is alleged to have been involved with nine of the 29 incidents while Romanian national Ion Ciucur, 28, who works in a hotel in Gretna Green, Scotland, is said to have been involved in two.
Ciucur, who appeared separately, faces the same count of conspiracy to cause GBH and all three men were remanded in custody ahead of their next appearance at the Old Bailey on April 19.
Three other men – David Carruthers, 60, Janus Atkin, 37, and Ashley Williams, 31 – who are all from Newport, in Gwent, South Wales, appeared at Newport Magistrates’ Court, charged with being involved in the same conspiracy.
They were granted bail and will appear at the Old Bailey on the same date for a plea hearing.
Nathan Arnold, 47, from South Kensington, west London, Damien Byrnes, 35, from Tottenham, north London, and Jacob Crimi-Appleby, 22, from Epsom, Surrey, also appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday each charged with a single offence of causing GBH with intent.
Arnold is alleged to have removed Gustavson’s nipple, Byrnes is accused of removing his penis and Crimi-Appleby is accused of freezing his leg requiring amputation.
They were each granted bail and will also appear at the Old Bailey with their co-defendants next month.
None of them have entered pleas to any of the charges.
The group is said to have been part of a society in which people willingly undergo extreme body modification.
The practice is linked to a subculture where men become ‘nullos’, short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.
The Met said in a statement: ‘We encourage anyone who has had similar experiences to seek medical advice from their local sexual health clinic or GP.’