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Bittorrent!  Information wants to be free! Arrr! Ye be connecting over a vpn?
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Bittorrent!  Information wants to be free! Arrr! Ye be connecting over a vpn?    
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Before tackling M. C. A. Hogarth’s Kherishdar’s Exception, the fourth book in the series, potential readers should start with one of the earlier books: The Aphorisms of Kherishdar, The Admonishments of Kherishdar, or Black Blossom. The first two books are more accessible: interrelated collections of short-short stories (500 words or so). Aphorisms comprises various vignettes of Farren—a calligrapher/artist—and his interactions with customers and friends. Admonishments follows Kor, Kherishdar’s “Shame,” a traveling judge of sorts, who’s duty is to ‘correct’ rather than punish various lawbreakers. These corrections are supposed to bring the guilty back into ‘harmony with their ishas,’ (spirit) , but a lot of these corrections seem to involve ropes, whips, gags and public humiliations, so I guess one culture’s correction is another’s punishment.The Kherishdar books feature nominally furry aliens, the Ai-Naidari. Their furriness is what the late Fred Patten would refer to as “window dressing,” i.e., the characters are described as being furry, but they don’t do anything that a human wouldn’t or couldn’t do. They’re basically human-shaped, but a bit taller, a lot thinner, with long necks, cat ears and tails. More interesting than their appearance is their society, which is extremely hierarchical, conformist and xenophobic. It’s a world of polite people, where everyone is nice to each other, citizens are happy with their station in life, and there’s no social discord. They’re ruled by Therukedi, a benevolent, immortal emperor, who oversees a complicated social structure of Regals, Nobles, ministers, public servants and so on. There ‘s little opportunity for personal advancement—if you’re not born a Regal or Noble, you’re stuck. But it’s all good, because the Regals and Nobles take their nobeless oblige VERY seriously, and if they abuse their power they get a visit from Shame.With a few exceptions, the world of the Ai-Naidari ‘s is very low-tech. People either walk or ride ‘beasts.’ The only real SF element are the world gates, ancient structures that allow instant passage to various colony worlds. In both Aphorisms and Admonishments there is talk of (and brief encounters with) ‘aliens,’ called aunera. They’re not described or really interacted with until the novel Black Blossom, where a group of Ai-Naidari have become ‘tainted’ by dealing with aunera, who turn out to be a small colony of humans. It’s unclear if there are any other alien species known on Kherishdar.Kherishdar’s Exception is told in first person by the Ai-Naidari Haraa, and takes up directly after Black Blossom. Formerly a ‘Decoration’ (sort of a Geisha/courtesan that’s owned by a particular house or family) Haraa is now living in a blended household with Kor, Farren and a number of other people. She’s charged by the Emperor, Thirukedi, to learn the human’s language and society. That sounds interesting, but it mostly serves as an author soapbox to expound on the evils of abortion and the hypocrisy of making pets of some animals and eating others. The humans come off as dolts, incapable of (or unwilling to) explain the complex biological, evolutionary and the societal forces that shape human behavior.Most of the direct human interaction is in the first part of the story, and early on it looked like things might get exciting when one of the humans is openly hostile to Haraa due to events that happened in the previous book. But she ends up making friends with him, along with the other humans she gets to know. Later on the narration shifts to Haraa’s interaction with various members of her household, including an unrequited crush on Farren (who views her as a daughter), discussions about relationships (including a gay couple who are romantically involved but don’t have sex) and ongoing conversations with the Emperor Thirukedi about the humans. When another member of the household has a baby, Haraa is so overwhelmed with baby love that she immediately decides to have one too. A male character helpfully obliges with some great sex, despite declaring in a previous volume he didn’t want children. Only in the latter part of the book does anything external happen that throws Haraa’s ordered world into chaos, if only briefly. We find out that the Ai-Naidari are so xenophobic that they’d rather let their people die than accept any help from the human colonists, an attitude that is not really explained, particularly since the first two books had scenes with aliens being out and about (if accompanied) among them.And what of the Exception, the title character? She is the one person among all the Ai-Naidari who has no caste or rank and can comment on society with impunity, which makes her a potentially fascinating character. Unfortunately we see her only a few times, briefly, saying some rude things that upset Haraa. Other than the Exception the most intriguing character is Therukedi, whom Haraa adores so much she’s sent into orgasmic bliss simply by his touch. This volume does answer the question about who and what the Emperor is, and gives some background on the development of their society, so if you’ve wondered about that after reading the previous books then there is some payoff.Would I recommend any of the Kherishdar books? The Aphorisms of Kherishdar and The Admonishments of Kherishdar, yes, if only because their format and brevity keep things moving. The novels are another story (so to speak.). If you’re looking for a dynamic page-turner with action, conflict and suspense, look elsewhere. If you’re interested in a long, meandering tale about relationships, personal introspection and Ai-Naidari cultural customs, you might want to give Black Blossom and Kherishdar’s Exception a try.

The path of L.K.D. Jennings’s Mark of the Conifer to publication is almost as epic as the dinosaur saga itself. After an unsuccessful initial Kickstarter campaign in 2016, she retooled it and successfully funded the book in early 2017. Fully illustrated in color, it promised to be a handsome volume. Unfortunately, the printer she picked proved to be less than reliable, and delay followed delay, ultimately ending with her having to sue the printer for breach of contract. A year after the Kickstarter ended the EBook was finally released, with the hardcopy following some months later. Because I was a backer for only the EBook (I was really broke at the time), I have no clue how the final printed version came out, but expect it looked awesome.Readers can be thankful that the author was so persistent in bringing this book out, because it is a first-rate tale. If Baker’s Raptor Red set the bar for naturalistic dinosaur fiction, then Mark of the Conifer sets the standard for dinosaur fantasy. Any book featuring talking animals is invariably compared to Watership Down, but a more accurate comparison would be to Tailchaser’s Song. I can’t say exactly why without some spoilers, but it will be clear to anyone who’s read both that Jenning’s dinosaurs have more in common with Tad Williams’s cats than Adams’s rabbits.The protagonist is Sunstrike, a “droemar” (raptor). Hatched during a solar eclipse, Sunstrike has the mark of a sacred conifer cone on his chest. Clearly destined for great things! From the beginning, he’s taught the legends of his people; stories of the goddess Sol and her creations, the dinosaurs and dragon kings. The central tale borrows heavily from Meso-American mythology, with Sol requiring a blood sacrifice in order to renew her strength each day. Both hunters and their prey follow ‘The Pact,’ where injured or old herbivores offer themselves to hunters in return for a quick and painless death, their shed blood enabling Sol to rise each morning.Despite some early traumas-- including skirmishes with the lowest dinosaurs, Pact-rejectors contemptuously called ‘Ornis’-- Sunstrike’s childhood (chickhood?)passes normally. That all changes when his clan’s territory is invaded by the tyrannosaur Cheharraphix and her followers. Deliberately rejecting the Pact, they kill any Pact-following hunters and enslave the herbivores. Aided by her brother Sarkanj, who has discovered the secret of controlling fire, Cheharraphix carves a bloody swath through the land, seeking to wipe out all of Sol’s followers.After his family is added to Cheharraphix’s toll, Sunstrike gradually acquires an odd assortment of friends and followers who have also suffered at her claws. This includes Leaf, a young sauropod (long-necked) dinosaur, a couple of armored anklyosaurs, and a small horned dinosaur that leads the resistance against Cheharraphix. The rest of the story is the standard Hero’s Journey, as Sunstrike learns lessons, has battles, finds friends and foes, and suffers self-doubt. But really, even if the story arc is familiar, the fun is in getting there, and exploring the world of the dinosaurs.The two nitpicks I have with the book are technical. The EBook I read was badly formatted, with no paragraph or dialogue indentations, which made it difficult to follow who was saying what. I don’t know if that issue has since been ironed out, or if it was a problem with my particular tablet (a Kindle Paperwhite.) Because I have a dinky black-and-white reader, I didn’t get the full effect of the illustrations, but what I could see looked great.The second issue was the author referring to the dinosaur’s feet and hands as ‘paws.’ To me paws = mammal foot with pads. Call them claws, talons, feet, or something completely made-up, but every time I read ‘paws’ I cringed a little. Maybe it’s just me, but I thought it was an extremely odd detail.Those quibbles aside, I really enjoyed the book, and enjoyed it again when I reread it for this review. I’ll add that it does help to have a good working knowledge of types of dinosaurs so you can better picture the characters, but it’s not a prerequisite. Mark of the Conifer is highly recommended to anyone who loves a good adventure saga, animal POV books, or dinosaurs. This book has all three locked in its paws—talons!

Content warning for animal abuse and sexual violence. Part 4 of a 5 part update about the Zoosadist chat leaks.

In September 2018, the furry fandom was shocked by news about zoosadists (people into rape, torture and murder of animals for their fetish). Part 1) looks at how their ring was exposed, the threat to events, and who is implicated. A focus on ring member Tane makes a thread through a tangled story. Part 2) looks at police involvement and evasion by the ring. Part 3) is about trying to report a safety risk to an event. This part shares a new development.

In October 2017, the ringleader Snakething has hooked up Tane with someone for sex. It’s part of his practice of providing favors in return for videos, which can be leveraged for more favors. First, Snakething and Tane collaborate to push things where they want to go by sharing secrets about their target.

When secrets are valuable, they don’t easily stay secret, especially when Snakething talks about a fetish for domination by people holding his private info and threatening to expose and humiliate him. Months later, those blackmail games contributed to these chat leaks — but certain files weren’t included, and weren’t given to police either (as far as I found). Why? I think those files might implicate the leakers or push limited exposure out of control. We don’t know the extent of what hasn’t leaked, but here’s a clue. 

A report of sex trafficking [June 2019]

After the zoosadist ring was exposed, news stopped coming and went on pause. Months later, ring member Kero briefly appeared online while a few of his followers hoped for a comeback. The renewed attention made me look more and find something new. It ties to Part 3 about frustrations of trying to report a safety risk to cons, where I asked what a rape target might face in the circumstances.

A video of Tane having sex with a minor was planned in the ring and made for trading. It wasn’t leaked, but it turned up another way. As soon as I knew it was real, the police were helped to receive it. I was briefly able to see a still without touching it (no possessing, just a glimpse to prove it’s real). I have nothing else to do with it, except verifying it exists for reporting while other details need to be withheld for security.

Tane’s trademark fursuit was on the right side on top, with another person on the left on bottom, feet in the air wearing pink and black striped socks. They were on a bed by a window. People who know this video can recognize the details. A video made in a car is also “in the wild”. There’s corroboration in the chat logs about recording dates, methods, lengths, places, “jail worthy” video, “teen”, minor, and code “RLC” (real life cub) — and hiding things from parents.

• Telegram channel: A detailed breakdown of Tane’s logs with over 650 screenshots. (Text only without illegal content.)

I learned that people get different excuses about the video depending on how much they know. It’s claimed the minor was 18, or it was OK because the minor asked for sex, or is still together with Tane. What goes unmentioned is how the video was planned in the ring and made for trading with members to gain favors. That makes new victims and feeds the demand of predators.

They’re in this community and at your events. If anyone knows more, please help the police to catch them.

Got tips? About Tane, call Detective Weigand of the East Palo Alto Police at 650-853-7250.

Ring members discussed sharing some content only in person to keep it secret, but also schemed about ways to get it from others, including drugging or blackmailing them.

The video leaked to Illone (Kero’s boyfriend) months before his death by heroin. Snakething tries to calm Tane down about risk of exposing his secret. (Names already public.)

An opportunity to make a change, and what else can the police do?

Anyone can help bring tips forward and make progress on the community level:

• Ask cons to consider better policies and improve how they respond to safety reports.
• Support whistleblowers who face backlash, especially if con staff spread it.
• Inform the public about the ring and how it works with coercion and coverup while raising demand for abuse.
• Support legislation about content traded by this ring — make animal rape/torture as unacceptable as child porn. (It happened for animal crush videos.)

It’s tricky to talk about a police report because of risk of interference, but what’s here is connecting things already leaked. There are active safety issues (parts of the story are undisclosed) and a need for tips about those. This site has a history of being asked to raise attention by and for victims in such cases.

Saying “leave it to police” fails when crimes fall between the cracks. (Animal abuser registries could help). Tech corps don’t screen users, and when I was tipped about a Youtube channel profiting from animal cruelty there wasn’t even a place to report it. Using Craigslist ads to get dogs is already a known problem with dogfighting. It reminds me of a woman who would pretend to adopt horses but sell them for slaughter, until she was convicted of fraud. Social media helped to gather victim reports. Publicity matters.

The police won’t say more to a blog. The chat logs discuss how to evade their reach and the ring was created outside the law, so it’s hard to say if others will be busted. But attention can bring out collateral crime. (Kind of like how Al Capone was busted for tax evasion, not for being a mafia boss.) After all, people arrested for bestiality are statistically likely to tie with crimes involving kids. Sex abusers are known to have many victims before getting caught.

Snakething (Levi Simmons) went free for the time being, but there’s more hope. Animal cruelty charges had a small time limit, but charging right away may have prevented adding more serious charges. There aren’t such limits for crimes with kids. (This video explains it:)

Complicity or publicity

In a close community there are times to be direct in backchannels. That worked with Fur Con but not so well elsewhere. Now expect people to attack this for being public even though help was sought in private first. Is there a “furry wall of silence” or is it just from certain cliques? The answer can depend on what happens next.

Wikileaks shined a light on important secrets, sometimes being criticized for sourcing documents that could be salted with fakes (so they go through vetting, and the info was still considered worthy.) Expect to see this report attacked like that for damage control. So where else would it come from, was the ring going to tell on itself? Unless someone can show what exactly is faked, let the logs speak for themselves with all the ways they’re corroborated.

Silence is what the ring wants. When the crime cases of Cupid and Noodles made Seattle news (in Part 1), they talked about limiting exposure and laying low until the case resolved. In 2019, the two men were convicted. What about the rest of the ring while they melt back into furry fandom or get new faces?

See them fear the power of attention instead of dismissing “callout culture/cyber bullying/witch hunts”:

(Cupid’s charges weren’t for “CP stuff”. Backlash at reporting didn’t stop conviction.)

Trading victims and videos — methods of the ring

Of all the sources, the detailed breakdown of Tane’s logs took by far the most work to put together. Casual chats aren’t easy sources, but reading over and over their spontaneous talk brings out many more stories. It makes portraits between the lines.

Tane’s banality, with his social credit to get protection of a clique of friends, hides an oily kind of evil. His agreeability to anything enabled Snakething to push limits as far as he could. It was mutual. (Imagine Tane claiming to be powerless to resist taking favors from a disabled guy who lives with his mom.)

Snakething’s procuring a minor and planning with Tane looks like a tactic of coordinated grooming — a predator “tag-team”.  I’ve now heard about this in multiple independent cases. The first person pushes limits to groom a target, but might not cross the line, making it easier to slither away. When they switch places, they make a pincher of coercion on the target. There are mutual favors and Snakething grows his porn collection this way. (Tane isn’t the only one he teams up with; he does it with Sangie too, targeting his nephew.) This trading is the basic mechanism of the ring.

Making and trading videos, then trading the target to Sangie, a convicted sex offender.

Snakething mentions meeting the older Sangie when he was around 18. Then 5 years later he moved up to be the groomer for a teen, who you can see being prepared to gather others while keeping secrets from parents. It’s what Tane calls corrupting targets into zoophilia and rape, and eventually (they hope) raping puppies and “hardzoo”. It resembles hate groups working to “redpill” targets. It can pull pliable people in with a carrot of taboo content.

There’s also a stick of coercion, with threats of exposure, and targeting people in unstable homes (or even their pets). Coercion is part of domination-fetish and multi-level social credit. (There are pyramid-scheme sex cults that trap members with “collateral”. The documentary Tickled found blackmail behind a video making operation.) It led to extortion charges in the Cupid crime case. People who use these tactics did coercion on ring members to get the chat logs.

Favor trading in the ring involves “porn wish lists,” with hopes to get content made to order (Snakething’s list includes abuse of snakes.) There are clues that targets are manipulated to produce content when they might otherwise say no (almost rape-by-proxy). Power and corruption is a dangerous game they play for thrills on top of just collecting content.  Power and risk stand out at key times like when Cupid’s arrest and plea deal may take down others, arrests “spook” Tane, or he’s upset to learn that Illone has him on video and poses a threat.

Snakething’s messages are a gift for storytelling. You can see a NEET with no other occupation grow social credit from people who want unobtainable things. It’s amazing that he can’t shut up about it in the logs. There’s a desperation in his wheedling and scheming, dangling carrots, and fetish for getting caught, but it takes a twisted slyness to get as far as he did. A marginalized loser (who can’t drive) gathered a crew of sadistic nerds with world travel and tech privileges, for an improbable snuff porn ring on the level of urban legends.

It’s not just in fandom.

The methods of trading victims and videos like Pokemon cards hits an absurd extreme with this ring, enabled by tech like a real life Black Mirror episode. It could be a focus of professional study about “filter bubbles”. Origins in the darkweb, international ties, porn made to order, and limits raised beyond imagination make fandom-level elements of the Peter Scully story (an international pay-per-view torture/rape ring). It’s a darkly fascinating case about how social credit works in internet culture, and how unmoderated social media can enable the worst in people. It’s a dystopian modern-day Lord Of The Flies.

Mean little boys used to just pull the wings off flies — now they stand in the shadow of tech giants and run rings cloaked with lies.

Active safety issues continue. Here’s a damning screenshot about “Zeta Omega”, the only other associate of the ring known to have access like Tane’s (a deal for sharing all content that came in). He was the source for a list shared by Snakething of people including Tane into “real life cub.” 

Sidebar — caveats about more discussion.

Opinion from an info source

Events have limited powers and Catch-22’s can stop them from helping.

• Conventions are not-for-profit and rely on volunteers and friend groups, naturally making favoritism issues.
• If they screen certain members, they might have to screen everyone, or have liability to get sued if something goes wrong. Saying they can’t screen everyone is a flipside for when they keep it simple to make new cons. I think it’s part of intrinsic deficits of an open-source subculture.
• Malicious trolls can leverage those deficits, so it helps to use calm organizing for community interest and volunteer to be part of the solution instead of just complaining.

Different cases can have different responses, but a ring is a ring.

• “Guilt by association” is an often-false complaint. If a sewing circle has a criminal it’s not their fault, but a crime ring can’t pretend to be a sewing circle. Response after finding out about ties is so important too.
• Certain critics say, why do furries fight hate speech more than sex abuse? It’s apples-and-oranges. A crime ring needs law enforcement, but it’s not illegal to be in hate groups and outsiders won’t help — it comes from inside.

Backlash is predictable. Don’t attack the messenger, and look for context.

• A ring is way more complex to report than spreading lazy attacks at a lone reporter. I’ve been lied about more times than you can count and threatened about “exposing” things I don’t even know what they’re cooking up.
• I’ve briefly had throwaway accounts in creepy groups to track them or been sympathetic to sources because I’m a narc. But I learned of the zoosadist ring when everyone else did, I don’t make deals or threaten anyone and the story is sourced from public info, voluntary tips or self-posting. No friends were protected.
• A few arrests may not stop a ring and neither do callouts. Long term goals are better than acting without a plan.

Exactly. Member of your community does something horrible, the correct response isn't smoke and fluff, it's to point and say in a loud, clear voice 'THIS PERSON IS A SACK OF SHIT'. Anything less means you really don't think what they did was a problem…

— Robin Bobcat (@BobcatRobin) November 8, 2018

They're tools. And like tools they can be used for good or bad depending on the desire of the person who wields it.

Which isn't to say you shouldn't, as a community, hold people accountable for false callouts or recognize when they are inappropriate.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) February 5, 2019

Want to change things in your community? Volunteer and staff events, and place yourself in a position where your voice has weight behind it.

True change starts inside an organization. It doesn’t matter how shiny the outside is if the wood underneath has termites.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) August 26, 2019

Knowledge is power [Now]

Admin of Zoofurries Society/Zeta Corner, tied to the Enumclaw incident.

Another story comes to mind: the 2016 triple murder with furries in Fullerton CA. It had a journalist for The Atlantic assigned to write a big story. He was well qualified with past work, like a story of a community dealing with a school shooting. (Thanks to Sanjiv B. for giving me encouragement at a key point for this story.)

Sanjiv got treated terribly with backlash and a “furry code of silence” because “media is bad.” The fandom never got a good look at how the Fullerton murders came from a network of relationships made by the fandom. Everyone stays dumber and history can repeat when people attack the messenger, put image over knowledge and See No Evil.

“Media is bad” attitude is rooted in the early 2000’s and influential advice by Anthrocon’s Uncle Kage. I think it’s good advice with good intentions, but taking it as gospel can be tribalist, outdated and counterproductive. It’s amazing to hear the same words echoed by a zoophile group admin tied to the Enumclaw/”Mr. Hands” incident — not a false association with furries, but directly from the horse’s mouth.

Exploitation is real, so how do you learn more but avoid being exploited? It comes from having higher goals, and don’t just be reactionary against the media. Use the power of fandom to guide it. Be The Media. If you don’t tell the story yourself, it might just get told by someone who isn’t a friendly insider.

Friendly is relative. If someone wants you to see no evil about this story, they’re not really being your friend. Having it in furry fandom isn’t a conspiracy theory or association fallacy or just natural. We made the niche where it took root. Technology helped it to grow. Those aren’t necessarily personal choices, but now you get to choose how to respond.  It’s your free speech.

What do you want —  a cult, or a culture?

Sources:

• [TEMPORARILY DOWN FOR NEW POLICE REPORT] Google drive: 1.5GB folder of the complete zoosadist chat logs.
• Telegram channel: A detailed breakdown of Tane’s logs. (Text only without illegal content.)
• Telegram channel: Tane’s Twitter and chat comparison (18 points corroborating the logs).
• Telegram channel: Leko’s messages about Tane.
• Telegram channel: PAWcon staffers handling the issue.

More — Part 1): Exposing the ring. Part 2): Running scared. Part 3): Investigation blocked. Part 4): A new development. Part 5): Interview with an expert.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.

An interesting new comic from Oni Press we found out about through Previews: Ghost Hog by Joey Weiser. “A new graphic novel from the Eisner Award-nominated creator of Mermin that deftly navigates loss, vengeance, and acceptance! Truff is the ghost of a young boar, fueled by fury towards the hunter who shot her down. She has a lot to learn about her new afterlife, and thankfully the forest spirits Claude and Stanley are there to guide her! However, they soon find that her parents, along with their fellow animal villagers, have been kidnapped by the malicious mountain demon Mava! Truff wants to help, but… the hunter is finally within her grasp, and if she lets him go, she may never get her revenge!” Check out the detailed review over at Comics Beat.

image c. 2019 Oni Press

This video was produced as a segment for the Nostalgia Critic's review of the Pink Floyds Wall but with the guest creatures by Fennah [1] using his  Kivouachian characters from his series Satellite City [2].  The universe Sam Fennah created is quite extensive and there is a lot to unpack but this video mostly just showcases the characters and animation style with a  more approachable music video defending Pink Floyd's the wall. "Animated, composited and rendered over the course of 17 days... A lot of work, totally worth it! This is the climax scene I had the pleasure of producing for The Nostalgia Critic's review of Pink Floyd's 'The Wall!' "   [1] https://www.youtube.com/user/Failsafe272 [2] https://satellite-city.fandom.com/wiki/Satellite_City_Wiki
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Content warning for animal abuse and sexual violence. Part 3 of a 5 part update about the Zoosadist chat leaks.

In September 2018, the furry fandom was shocked by news about zoosadists (people into rape, torture and murder of animals for their fetish). Part 1) looks at how their ring was exposed, the threat to events, and who is implicated. A focus on ring member Tane makes a thread through a tangled story. Part 2) looks at police involvement and evasion by the ring. This part returns to how staff respond about a threat to events.

Here, Tane explains ways to drug targets for sex at furry conventions. He calls it “pseudoconsent” (coercing someone with technical permission when they lack real control). But when a person is sedated for sex there’s no legal defense for criminal charges, making liability no matter what. And BDSM role-play isn’t the problem. Besides risky, or even deadly activity that BDSM advocates discourage, the ring goes way farther in targeting victims for rape and worse.

This chat happens after Tane says he sedated someone for sex at Midwest Furfest.

Trying to get help [September 2018-July 2019]

The big furry convention in San Jose, CA is Further Confusion. Then there’s a small one at their old hotel, PAWcon. It feels like a nice personal party for a few hundred friends. I’ve known some of them for years. The con was about 6 weeks away when the zoosadist leaks shocked furries around the world. Probably few of them noticed Tane mentioning a visit to PAWcon in his own back yard.

Tane made plans to rape people at furry events. You’d think PAWcon would want to know about a safety risk to attendees, being reported by one. But when I tried to privately alert the con chair(s), the responses called it “none of your business” and a “wild goose chase”. Weird.

The weirdness involved a few people, not the whole staff. Eventually when I tried again (with the 2019 con coming soon), a caring and professional board member listened and found crime records of ring members supporting this story.  If they’re limited to only watching for safety, at least someone cared. I wish the pro response wasn’t such a contrast to conflict of interest and negligence. (Personal details are kept limited below for neutral reporting.)

Tane has friends on con staff.

(2018) Tane’s partner is A/V lead.

A week after the leaks, I was contacted by PAWcon’s A/V lead, Leko. Leko was one of Tane’s partners (a surprise to me). I was asked “as a friend” to not tell Tane’s name after it was forwarded to me by concerned tippers. Leko claimed their house would get hurt with cyber bullying, and Tane was in the ring to get info (except he didn’t call police about things that did cause arrests when leaked). It was inconsistent as a cover story, and helped authenticate the logs from a PAWcon staffer.

I liked Leko from being at events together, like one I organize with other PAWcon staff. If my event had a safety issue, of course I would be a friend and not say it isn’t my fight (posted by Leko at time of the leaks.) But the police need tips about a crime ring, and that comes from knowing who’s in it, not hiding a safety risk from the public. (You can’t realistically report an internet handle; isn’t it convenient to say “go to police” while trying to hold back the means?)

Leko teams up with Tane and a friend, Ratchet Fox, as A/V staff at events like Fur Con, TFF and BLFC. Those are big jobs with millions in equipment. That gets my respect. I visited Ratchet’s place right after the leaks happened, where he called Leko a best friend and mentioned helping at PAWcon. Ratchet was also friend/patron to Kero the Wolf on Patreon before the leaks, and was upset about Kero’s claims of being bullied for being in the ring.

Laveur, 2018 chair of PAWcon, had been landlord to Ratchet and Leko. (Some info of interest is redacted for privacy.) They shared the house at times and hosted parties I went to. Was it a house Leko brought up to protect? (There’s more houses tying to this story and in Tane’s logs.)

At PAWcon I tried talking to Laveur privately. The chair blocked me for asking who Tane was.

Next I tried Spectrum, Laveur’s 2018 co-chair and the chair for 2019. I tried him twice in 7 months. Spectrum said he would look into it when I named Tane. He didn’t.

On the second try, Spectrum said he’d never heard of Tane. Instead of asking about the safety issue or explaining his con’s policy, he questioned reports to other cons. That set up an excuse to dismiss it (skipping over whether other reports were secure and confidential for victims, or unsafe to leak to friends of Tane). He ignored ones named including Further Confusion, and after already failing to look, it was blown off again with insinuations about bad faith reporting of a “wild goose chase”. Then he denied any personal association to Leko — or anyone associated with Leko — his staff, tenant and friend of other staff, and partner of a wild goose at his con.

One can only fear what a rape target might face in these circumstances.

This isn’t a “callout” (it could be less neutral if it wasn’t just about trying to get help.) This is my mouth agape at how Tane wasn’t even considered a safety risk, but people who ask about it get blocked. And how chat logs (authenticated by a staffer) get suspicion — at the reporter — but ties to a crime ring don’t, while staff who know party with Tane. It feels bad to put names in a story, but it can’t be told without parts that influence management.

In the past I was asked to help PAWcon and I love volunteering, but this needed responsive management. Writing about it here is the least preferable alternative. I wish I wasn’t put in a position of pointing out that turning a blind eye to rape can cost more than listening to reports. Hopefully it can bring better informed handling, and help others who need to be heard, so the con can improve and succeed for all the good people involved.

How some staff responded over months of trying to get help

• Telegram channel of PAWcon staff responses.
• (From Part 2) — Telegram channel of Leko’s messages about Tane —  and Tane’s Twitter and chat comparison (18 points corroborating the logs).
• Screenshots related to attempts to report a safety issue:

1. [November 2018:] During PAWcon, the chair (and board VP) Laveur blocks me and refers the issue to his under-staffer (partner of Tane, who I was trying to report).
2. [December 2018:] Around when I first contacted Spectrum, Ratchet says people with problems should talk privately — which I kept trying — what a runaround! 
3. [July 2019:] Right after a 2nd try to alert Spectrum (new chair for the upcoming con), his thoughts on Twitter.
4. Older posts to a big group, the first time a public issue was made by con staff in this article, showing a prejudice not to listen to any reports. I still tried for months.

(What is consistency?) 

• Hundreds of hours of research about covered-up info doesn’t come free. If more people spoke up, we’d have more info and zoosadists wouldn’t misuse the fandom so freely.
• Hmm… why would anyone feel like it’s useless to make private reports to unreliable staff, and resort to pointing things out in public?
• Is it none of my business? Tane attends the SF Pride event I’ve organized since 2012 — and Ratchet pals with Leko and Tane as staff for a 2019 event where I was also staff, but I was a target of interference related to “subtweets” above.

A core clique across cons

This isn’t just reporting a personal experience. The chat logs have a clue to another significant connection between Tane and the ringleader Snakething.

There’s a wealthy benefactor who Snakething says will pay without limits for animal sex tourism to make porn for the ring. Someone who helps to plan a “hardzoo” meet in the woods in the EU (with ring member Sephius.) Someone referred to as “ZB”, who’s very secretive and knows Tane, but Snakething takes great care before revealing the identity.

The name comes out as Xyro/Zentra (@xyrotr1.) Tane is astonished that they work at two cons together. Xyro helped to run the Brony fandom’s most popular website Equestria Daily, was A/V director for Nightmare Nights Dallas, and staff at Anthrocon. He was A/V staff at Texas Furry Fiesta (2014-2018). Meanwhile, TFF had Ratchet as A/V director (2014-2018) and Leko was A/V crew, and other crew like Simon are roommate/close friends with Ratchet, Leko and Tane. (There’s no sign that con staffers besides two people in the ring knew about zoosadism until the chat leaks, but responses are an ongoing issue.)

Xyro’s “experiment with many animals”

For plans with Xyro, Snakething says they want to “rape a pup” together. He says they would cut the limbs off and violate a puppy in a way shown in snuff porn videos he shares, explode one with fireworks, or break their jaws to force oral sex, which Tane approves joining in. It raises the con safety issue about drugs/rape, and leads to pushing sadism as far as sex with headless bodies or severed heads — which is in videos they share (some made by ring member Woof in Cuba.)

The info is bolstered by forwards of Xyro sharing secrets and referenced as member of the anything-goes hardzoo group where the worst content was made.

UPDATE: more videos have been found, including someone having sex with the decapitated head of a small puppy.

— {{BROADCAST}} (@BROAADCASTED) September 20, 2018

The source (Snakething) is a real person who really rapes puppies and was arrested for it.

A “Zoo Witch Hunt”

From the morning of the chat leaks (9/16/18, 6:40 a.m.), Twitter has traces showing Xyro claimed impersonation almost instantly. A handful of notices about this shows little “mob,” but his account was closed and then accounts were deleted in many places.

In August 2019, I contacted a TFF board member to ask if Xyro was on staff. There was a short answer that he stopped going to cons due to a “zoo witch hunt” and then the chat was wiped and blocked like a slap in the face. The board member even locked their twitter and posted insults behind it. For a question. Weird.

That board member had welcomed tips I gave in early 2018 about 3 people. Multiple sources contacted me for help because they faced retaliation for speaking about sex predators on staff at TFF. It got taken seriously, and Sebris, the AV/DJ Coordinator for TFF in 2014-2018, was let go after I shared evidence about sex with minors and threats received by a whistleblower. (Notice that the con wasn’t named due to appropriate handling then). I approached with the same good faith for private talk again. This really struck a nerve.

Formerly a trusted contact to tip about safety issues.

Confidential to Savrin: I’ve had pressure not to post this part, and I answered that it follows a pattern of trying to report privately and being rebuffed by con staff over a year of effort. It was suggested to try placation to bring sources to my side to corroborate about Xyro. I said I would take a block at face value and it’s not about gaining favor or smearing anyone, but reporting the story as it comes. This isn’t personal, everyone makes mistakes or has knee-jerk reactions, and I’m happy to talk more with problem solving in mind. Staying firm about reporting already brought important tips that tie in and haven’t yet been touched by this story. It’s bigger and needs more attention.

Why in the A/V crew? [Now]

As one of the original internet subcultures, furry fandom makes a niche for this ring. Skills to set up events can overlap with tech skills to cover things up. Video trading ties to Tane’s skills in video setup, with frequent discussion in the logs about how to secretly record sex.

With TFF’s former AV/DJ coordinator Sebris, whistleblowers cited power of popularity at key events for the community. It made a climate of hostility to whistleblowing. That hits hard on LGBT minors, who can’t easily report abuse without risk of being outed or worse at home.

A/V work is key to how furry cons succeed, from what Ratchet told me — BLFC spares no expense on their main stage, with over a million in equipment and one of the fandom’s largest budgets, because that’s the crossroads of the con. Some named here are “core AV staff” for many furry cons.

Naturally, friends stick together, and being friends isn’t the issue; it’s about non-responsive handling. Although only two here directly tie to a ring (Xyro and Tane), ties to zoosadism behind the good vibes of con dances are the starkest meeting of the light side and dark side of fandom. These staffers can take credit for lots of good work with lighting dances — maybe they would like to shine a light on what hides in their shadow.

AV staff/friend/roommate with Tane, Leko, and Ratchet, posting at time of the chat leaks.

8 months later… Who would ever drug someone’s drink? How could we ever find out? What would a  con staffer do if fellow con staff was involved?

When cons have conflicts, snitches get stitches — what about policy reform?

Love goes to volunteers who support cons for the benefit of others. For the benefit of others shouldn’t mean zoosadists who plan rape.

Callouts get complaints, sometimes in good faith, but how about that toxic loyalty? Conflicts of interest in management and failure to even consider repeat reports can make reporting to anyone be a minefield. It’s not the job of people bringing issues forward to keep trying to overcome a wall of silence.

Caution is reasonable. Action can come with liability. It’s not easy to ban people (which I never requested). But with text evidence, news reports and court records showing a crime ring in the community, it’s negligent to ignore and self-defeating to flip retaliation back (remember how RMFC collapsed?) I’ve seen backlash by a certain clique since the chat leaks, and more is predictable.

Wouldn’t it help to take this seriously with clearer conduct policies for staff, or a staffer dedicated to adult issues (drugs, sex, consent, rape crisis response training) to bring the culture up to date from family-friendly PR of the past? How about a unified policy across cons so they don’t pass the buck to other cons about people who depart for bad reasons?

It’s an issue in many communities (not just furries), according to a founder of Bronycon (Purple Tinker), who protested cons being unwilling to make “drama” about each other following nonresponse about a pedophile on staff.

Let’s return to a story thread that highlights inconsistency across different cons.

PAWcon’s sex offenders

Current PAWcon chair Spectrum oversaw 2018 staffer Growly, whose sex offense record got many complaints about con handling. Luckily Growly was let go from staff in early 2019. It only gets mentioned for the risk of favoring staff like that. His re-arrest in July 2019 made me bring up Tane again to Spectrum.

I also tried twice to bring up Sangie of Inkedfur, a dealer at PAWcon and convicted sex offender. He was a focus of independent tips to this site about grooming teens, and teamed up with the ringleader SnakeThing to groom his underage nephew in the chat logs. When it came out in the leaks, Sangie tried to excuse his chat history as “sarcasm” and tried to appear cooperative as if to excuse his other face. He was a source for forwarded messages direct from Snakething admitting raping a puppy.

Sangie was claiming to have his record expunged, he was already known to police, and there were delicate legal issues, so this got backchannel attention.

Fur Con’s policy about sex offenders: a strikingly different response [December 2018]

Between tries to alert PAWcon, I made reports to cons most likely to be affected.

Further Confusion was soon and named in the chat logs. They listened professionally and immediately changed their Code of Conduct. (I keep secure documenting but I don’t speak for them). I also asked them to forward info to PAWcon so it wasn’t just from me. Fur Con was beyond helpful, and it couldn’t have been more different from responses like “cyber bullying/wild goose chase/witch hunt”. This wasn’t asked for, and I told them I wasn’t planning a story at the time, which made it their private choice from just listening.

We have clarified and updated our Code of Conduct regarding membership eligibility and conditions. The new text appears under the "Membership" heading on https://t.co/eheSwKvsuA, and will be in effect for FC2019. Please contact chairman@furcon.org with any concerns.

— Further Confusion (@furcon) December 18, 2018

Fur con’s response:

“AAE and FurCon do not permit membership or attendance by any individual who is a convicted sex offender, or appears on any federal or state sex offender registry. In addition, AAE and FurCon reserve the right, at the board’s discretion, to deny membership or attendance to anyone with a documented history of sexual violence, including inappropriate conduct towards minors.”

Texas Furry Fiesta added a similar rule in June 2019 (prior to board member response above.)

Publishing Part 1 led to DEFCON Furs taking action about Tane with an official statement from the board that they do not tolerate abusive behavior.

Going on pause, then a new development [June 2019]

Evidence of the ring was delivered to police in late 2018. There couldn’t be any predictions and results could take years if ever. By Fur Con in January 2019, I stopped expecting much new info to come out. I moved ahead with other stories but kept working to monitor (part of the hundreds of hours put in).

Then in June, an unexpected piece of info turned up that needed reporting to police. The police said the chat logs made a worthwhile case, but jurisdiction and type of proof came up. An internet ring made incidents across agencies, and what about photos/videos to show who did what?

Criminal cases can take time to build sufficiently that they'll have a reasonable chance of success. Motherfuckers can be under investigation for literally years before being formally charged.

This shit isn't Law and Order, stopping thinking it is.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) June 6, 2019

A tech platform for evasion, and a catch-22 for proof.

Telegram is a messaging service liked by terrorists, illegal file traders, furries, and many mainstream users for an alternative to big tech corps. It was founded by a Russian billionaire for encrypted communication safe from Putin’s spying (or is it?) Billionaire funding means no monetization. Support is in Dubai.

Here’s why a shady ring likes it:

• Telegram Secret Chat encrypts and destroys messages. (Forbes.com: “Going dark” makes “a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley.”)
• Telegram support told me that Telegram doesn’t disclose user activity; ring members chatted about it needing multiple court orders around the world (all they might get is a phone number.) Other people seeking help couldn’t get responses for reports about predators targeting children.
• User practices also throw off exposure. That includes trading accounts or holding blackmail evidence for “insurance”.

If it’s about illegal files, you can’t just possess them to prove it. If traders like Tane have infosec skills, they don’t “possess” them either, they encrypt and cover tracks when trading. The ring tells each other how to dodge getting caught, and how proof needs faces in photos. Tane’s chat logs have files removed.

(November 2017) Snakething gives cover-up advice to another zoosadist, who he learned is being reported for trading animal snuff porn and planning to rape babies.

Coverup behind technicality isn’t innocence. What we know right now is social evidence. You can see the chats happened, how they’re corroborated, and who’s in them. Waiting for investigation may take forever. Meanwhile, Kero and the ringleader Snakething got away with charges because video evidence was too old.

See the catch-22 of waiting to bring attention?

The gap

There’s many things police have power to do that fans don’t, things the community knows that police don’t, and things neither can do without more attention. The gap between is where this ring thrives. Event and group managers have a better position to bridge the gap than others.

There was a huge gap between responses from PAWcon and Fur Con about this story. It’s challenging to parse, but I’m grateful to Fur Con for being the heroes (and PAWcon staff who did care) and showing that this isn’t just a “wild goose chase” or muck raking to ignore. My (very costly) part in reporting the story now goes to the community, because knowledge is power.

Next: more details of info reported to police, and here’s where I really get to use free speech.

More — Part 1): Exposing the ring. Part 2): Running scared. Part 3): Investigation blocked. Part 4): A new development. Part 5): Interview with an expert.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.W

Content warning for animal abuse and sexual violence. Part 3 of a 5 part update about the Zoosadist chat leaks.

In September 2018, the furry fandom was shocked by news about zoosadists (people into rape, torture and murder of animals for their fetish). Part 1) looks at how their ring was exposed, the threat to events, and who is implicated. A focus on ring member Tane makes a thread through a tangled story. Part 2) looks at police involvement and evasion by the ring. This part returns to how staff respond about a threat to events.

Here, Tane explains ways to drug targets for sex at furry conventions. He calls it “pseudoconsent” (coercing someone with technical permission when they lack real control). But when a person is sedated for sex there’s no legal defense for criminal charges, making liability no matter what. And BDSM role-play isn’t the problem. Besides risky, or even deadly activity that BDSM advocates discourage, the ring goes way farther in targeting victims for rape and worse.

This chat happens after Tane says he sedated someone for sex at Midwest Furfest.

Trying to get help [September 2018-July 2019]

The big furry convention in San Jose, CA is Further Confusion. Then there’s a small one at their old hotel, PAWcon. It feels like a nice personal party for a few hundred friends. I’ve known some of them for years. The con was about 6 weeks away when the zoosadist leaks shocked furries around the world. Probably few of them noticed Tane mentioning a visit to PAWcon in his own back yard.

Tane made plans to rape people at furry events. You’d think PAWcon would want to know about a safety risk to attendees, being reported by one. But when I tried to privately alert the con chair(s), the responses called it “none of your business” and a “wild goose chase”. Weird.

The weirdness involved a few people, not the whole staff. Eventually when I tried again (with the 2019 con coming soon), a caring and professional board member listened and found crime records of ring members supporting this story.  If they’re limited to only watching for safety, at least someone cared. I wish the pro response wasn’t such a contrast to conflict of interest and negligence. (Personal details are kept limited below for neutral reporting.)

Tane has friends on con staff.

(2018) Tane’s partner is A/V lead.

A week after the leaks, I was contacted by PAWcon’s A/V lead, Leko. Leko was one of Tane’s partners (a surprise to me). I was asked “as a friend” to not tell Tane’s name after it was forwarded to me by concerned tippers. Leko claimed their house would get hurt with cyber bullying, and Tane was in the ring to get info (except he didn’t call police about things that did cause arrests when leaked). It was inconsistent as a cover story, and helped authenticate the logs from a PAWcon staffer.

I liked Leko from being at events together, like one I organize with other PAWcon staff. If my event had a safety issue, of course I would be a friend and not say it isn’t my fight (posted by Leko at time of the leaks.) But the police need tips about a crime ring, and that comes from knowing who’s in it, not hiding a safety risk from the public. (You can’t realistically report an internet handle; isn’t it convenient to say “go to police” while trying to hold back the means?)

Leko teams up with Tane and a friend, Ratchet Fox, as A/V staff at events like Fur Con, TFF and BLFC. Those are big jobs with millions in equipment. That gets my respect. I visited Ratchet’s place right after the leaks happened, where he called Leko a best friend and mentioned helping at PAWcon. Ratchet was also friend/patron to Kero the Wolf on Patreon before the leaks, and was upset about Kero’s claims of being bullied for being in the ring.

Laveur, 2018 chair of PAWcon, had been landlord to Ratchet and Leko. (Some info of interest is redacted for privacy.) They shared the house at times and hosted parties I went to. Was it a house Leko brought up to protect? (There’s more houses tying to this story and in Tane’s logs.)

At PAWcon I tried talking to Laveur privately. The chair blocked me for asking who Tane was.

Next I tried Spectrum, Laveur’s 2018 co-chair and the chair for 2019. I tried him twice in 7 months. Spectrum said he would look into it when I named Tane. He didn’t.

On the second try, Spectrum said he’d never heard of Tane. Instead of asking about the safety issue or explaining his con’s policy, he questioned reports to other cons. That set up an excuse to dismiss it (skipping over whether other reports were secure and confidential for victims, or unsafe to leak to friends of Tane). He ignored ones named including Further Confusion, and after already failing to look, it was blown off again with insinuations about bad faith reporting of a “wild goose chase”. Then he denied any personal association to Leko — or anyone associated with Leko — his staff, tenant and friend of other staff, and partner of a wild goose at his con.

One can only fear what a rape target might face in these circumstances.

This isn’t a “callout” (it could be less neutral if it wasn’t just about trying to get help.) This is my mouth agape at how Tane wasn’t even considered a safety risk, but people who ask about it get blocked. And how chat logs (authenticated by a staffer) get suspicion — at the reporter — but ties to a crime ring don’t, while staff who know party with Tane. It feels bad to put names in a story, but it can’t be told without parts that influence management.

In the past I was asked to help PAWcon and I love volunteering, but this needed responsive management. Writing about it here is the least preferable alternative. I wish I wasn’t put in a position of pointing out that turning a blind eye to rape can cost more than listening to reports. Hopefully it can bring better informed handling, and help others who need to be heard, so the con can improve and succeed for all the good people involved.

How some staff responded over months of trying to get help

• Telegram channel of PAWcon staff responses.
• (From Part 2) — Telegram channel of Leko’s messages about Tane —  and Tane’s Twitter and chat comparison (18 points corroborating the logs).
• Screenshots related to attempts to report a safety issue:

1. [November 2018:] During PAWcon, the chair (and board VP) Laveur blocks me and refers the issue to his under-staffer (partner of Tane, who I was trying to report).
2. [December 2018:] Around when I first contacted Spectrum, Ratchet says people with problems should talk privately — which I kept trying — what a runaround! 
3. [July 2019:] Right after a 2nd try to alert Spectrum (new chair for the upcoming con), his thoughts on Twitter.
4. Older posts to a big group, the first time a public issue was made by con staff in this article, showing a prejudice not to listen to any reports. I still tried for months.

(What is consistency?) 

• Hundreds of hours of research about covered-up info doesn’t come free. If more people spoke up, we’d have more info and zoosadists wouldn’t misuse the fandom so freely.
• Hmm… why would anyone feel like it’s useless to make private reports to unreliable staff, and resort to pointing things out in public?
• Is it none of my business? Tane attends the SF Pride event I’ve organized since 2012 — and Ratchet pals with Leko and Tane as staff for a 2019 event where I was also staff, but I was a target of interference related to “subtweets” above.

A core clique across cons

This isn’t just reporting a personal experience. The chat logs have a clue to another significant connection between Tane and the ringleader Snakething.

There’s a wealthy benefactor who Snakething says will pay without limits for animal sex tourism to make porn for the ring. Someone who helps to plan a “hardzoo” meet in the woods in the EU (with ring member Sephius.) Someone referred to as “ZB”, who’s very secretive and knows Tane, but Snakething takes great care before revealing the identity.

The name comes out as Xyro/Zentra (@xyrotr1.) Tane is astonished that they work at two cons together. Xyro helped to run the Brony fandom’s most popular website Equestria Daily, was A/V director for Nightmare Nights Dallas, and staff at Anthrocon. He was A/V staff at Texas Furry Fiesta (2014-2018). Meanwhile, TFF had Ratchet as A/V director (2014-2018) and Leko was A/V crew, and other crew like Simon are roommate/close friends with Ratchet, Leko and Tane. (There’s no sign that con staffers besides two people in the ring knew about zoosadism until the chat leaks, but responses are an ongoing issue.)

Xyro’s “experiment with many animals”

For plans with Xyro, Snakething says they want to “rape a pup” together. He says they would cut the limbs off and violate a puppy in a way shown in snuff porn videos he shares, explode one with fireworks, or break their jaws to force oral sex, which Tane approves joining in. It raises the con safety issue about drugs/rape, and leads to pushing sadism as far as sex with headless bodies or severed heads — which is in videos they share (some made by ring member Woof in Cuba.)

The info is bolstered by forwards of Xyro sharing secrets and referenced as member of the anything-goes hardzoo group where the worst content was made.

UPDATE: more videos have been found, including someone having sex with the decapitated head of a small puppy.

— {{BROADCAST}} (@BROAADCASTED) September 20, 2018

The source (Snakething) is a real person who really rapes puppies and was arrested for it.

A “Zoo Witch Hunt”

From the morning of the chat leaks (9/16/18, 6:40 a.m.), Twitter has traces showing Xyro claimed impersonation almost instantly. A handful of notices about this shows little “mob,” but his account was closed and then accounts were deleted in many places.

In August 2019, I contacted a TFF board member to ask if Xyro was on staff. There was a short answer that he stopped going to cons due to a “zoo witch hunt” and then the chat was wiped and blocked like a slap in the face. The board member even locked their twitter and posted insults behind it. For a question. Weird.

That board member had welcomed tips I gave in early 2018 about 3 people. Multiple sources contacted me for help because they faced retaliation for speaking about sex predators on staff at TFF. It got taken seriously, and Sebris, the AV/DJ Coordinator for TFF in 2014-2018, was let go after I shared evidence about sex with minors and threats received by a whistleblower. (Notice that the con wasn’t named due to appropriate handling then). I approached with the same good faith for private talk again. This really struck a nerve.

Formerly a trusted contact to tip about safety issues.

Confidential to Savrin: I’ve had pressure not to post this part, and I answered that it follows a pattern of trying to report privately and being rebuffed by con staff over a year of effort. It was suggested to try placation to bring sources to my side to corroborate about Xyro. I said I would take a block at face value and it’s not about gaining favor or smearing anyone, but reporting the story as it comes. This isn’t personal, everyone makes mistakes or has knee-jerk reactions, and I’m happy to talk more with problem solving in mind. Staying firm about reporting already brought important tips that tie in and haven’t yet been touched by this story. It’s bigger and needs more attention.

Why in the A/V crew? [Now]

As one of the original internet subcultures, furry fandom makes a niche for this ring. Skills to set up events can overlap with tech skills to cover things up. Video trading ties to Tane’s skills in video setup, with frequent discussion in the logs about how to secretly record sex.

With TFF’s former AV/DJ coordinator Sebris, whistleblowers cited power of popularity at key events for the community. It made a climate of hostility to whistleblowing. That hits hard on LGBT minors, who can’t easily report abuse without risk of being outed or worse at home.

A/V work is key to how furry cons succeed, from what Ratchet told me — BLFC spares no expense on their main stage, with over a million in equipment and one of the fandom’s largest budgets, because that’s the crossroads of the con. Some named here are “core AV staff” for many furry cons.

Naturally, friends stick together, and being friends isn’t the issue; it’s about non-responsive handling. Although only two here directly tie to a ring (Xyro and Tane), ties to zoosadism behind the good vibes of con dances are the starkest meeting of the light side and dark side of fandom. These staffers can take credit for lots of good work with lighting dances — maybe they would like to shine a light on what hides in their shadow.

AV staff/friend/roommate with Tane, Leko, and Ratchet, posting at time of the chat leaks.

8 months later… Who would ever drug someone’s drink? How could we ever find out? What would a  con staffer do if fellow con staff was involved?

When cons have conflicts, snitches get stitches — what about policy reform?

Love goes to volunteers who support cons for the benefit of others. For the benefit of others shouldn’t mean zoosadists who plan rape.

Callouts get complaints, sometimes in good faith, but how about that toxic loyalty? Conflicts of interest in management and failure to even consider repeat reports can make reporting to anyone be a minefield. It’s not the job of people bringing issues forward to keep trying to overcome a wall of silence.

Caution is reasonable. Action can come with liability. It’s not easy to ban people (which I never requested). But with text evidence, news reports and court records showing a crime ring in the community, it’s negligent to ignore and self-defeating to flip retaliation back (remember how RMFC collapsed?) I’ve seen backlash by a certain clique since the chat leaks, and more is predictable.

Wouldn’t it help to take this seriously with clearer conduct policies for staff, or a staffer dedicated to adult issues (drugs, sex, consent, rape crisis response training) to bring the culture up to date from family-friendly PR of the past? How about a unified policy across cons so they don’t pass the buck to other cons about people who depart for bad reasons?

It’s an issue in many communities (not just furries), according to a founder of Bronycon (Purple Tinker), who protested cons being unwilling to make “drama” about each other following nonresponse about a pedophile on staff.

Let’s return to a story thread that highlights inconsistency across different cons.

PAWcon’s sex offenders

Current PAWcon chair Spectrum oversaw 2018 staffer Growly, whose sex offense record got many complaints about con handling. Luckily Growly was let go from staff in early 2019. It only gets mentioned for the risk of favoring staff like that. His re-arrest in July 2019 made me bring up Tane again to Spectrum.

I also tried twice to bring up Sangie of Inkedfur, a dealer at PAWcon and convicted sex offender. He was a focus of independent tips to this site about grooming teens, and teamed up with the ringleader SnakeThing to groom his underage nephew in the chat logs. When it came out in the leaks, Sangie tried to excuse his chat history as “sarcasm” and tried to appear cooperative as if to excuse his other face. He was a source for forwarded messages direct from Snakething admitting raping a puppy.

Sangie was claiming to have his record expunged, he was already known to police, and there were delicate legal issues, so this got backchannel attention.

Fur Con’s policy about sex offenders: a strikingly different response [December 2018]

Between tries to alert PAWcon, I made reports to cons most likely to be affected.

Further Confusion was soon and named in the chat logs. They listened professionally and immediately changed their Code of Conduct. (I keep secure documenting but I don’t speak for them). I also asked them to forward info to PAWcon so it wasn’t just from me. Fur Con was beyond helpful, and it couldn’t have been more different from responses like “cyber bullying/wild goose chase/witch hunt”. This wasn’t asked for, and I told them I wasn’t planning a story at the time, which made it their private choice from just listening.

We have clarified and updated our Code of Conduct regarding membership eligibility and conditions. The new text appears under the "Membership" heading on https://t.co/eheSwKvsuA, and will be in effect for FC2019. Please contact chairman@furcon.org with any concerns.

— Further Confusion (@furcon) December 18, 2018

Fur con’s response:

“AAE and FurCon do not permit membership or attendance by any individual who is a convicted sex offender, or appears on any federal or state sex offender registry. In addition, AAE and FurCon reserve the right, at the board’s discretion, to deny membership or attendance to anyone with a documented history of sexual violence, including inappropriate conduct towards minors.”

Texas Furry Fiesta added a similar rule in June 2019 (prior to board member response above.)

Publishing Part 1 led to DEFCON Furs taking action about Tane with an official statement from the board that they do not tolerate abusive behavior.

Going on pause, then a new development [June 2019]

Evidence of the ring was delivered to police in late 2018. There couldn’t be any predictions and results could take years if ever. By Fur Con in January 2019, I stopped expecting much new info to come out. I moved ahead with other stories but kept working to monitor (part of the hundreds of hours put in).

Then in June, an unexpected piece of info turned up that needed reporting to police. The police said the chat logs made a worthwhile case, but jurisdiction and type of proof came up. An internet ring made incidents across agencies, and what about photos/videos to show who did what?

Criminal cases can take time to build sufficiently that they'll have a reasonable chance of success. Motherfuckers can be under investigation for literally years before being formally charged.

This shit isn't Law and Order, stopping thinking it is.

— Boozy Badger (@BoozyBadger) June 6, 2019

A tech platform for evasion, and a catch-22 for proof.

Telegram is a messaging service liked by terrorists, illegal file traders, furries, and many mainstream users for an alternative to big tech corps. It was founded by a Russian billionaire for encrypted communication safe from Putin’s spying (or is it?) Billionaire funding means no monetization. Support is in Dubai.

Here’s why a shady ring likes it:

• Telegram Secret Chat encrypts and destroys messages. (Forbes.com: “Going dark” makes “a long-running feud between federal authorities and Silicon Valley.”)
• Telegram support told me that Telegram doesn’t disclose user activity; ring members chatted about it needing multiple court orders around the world (all they might get is a phone number.) Other people seeking help couldn’t get responses for reports about predators targeting children.
• User practices also throw off exposure. That includes trading accounts or holding blackmail evidence for “insurance”.

If it’s about illegal files, you can’t just possess them to prove it. If traders like Tane have infosec skills, they don’t “possess” them either, they encrypt and cover tracks when trading. The ring tells each other how to dodge getting caught, and how proof needs faces in photos. Tane’s chat logs have files removed.

(November 2017) Snakething gives cover-up advice to another zoosadist, who he learned is being reported for trading animal snuff porn and planning to rape babies.

Coverup behind technicality isn’t innocence. What we know right now is social evidence. You can see the chats happened, how they’re corroborated, and who’s in them. Waiting for investigation may take forever. Meanwhile, Kero and the ringleader Snakething got away with charges because video evidence was too old.

See the catch-22 of waiting to bring attention?

The gap

There’s many things police have power to do that fans don’t, things the community knows that police don’t, and things neither can do without more attention. The gap between is where this ring thrives. Event and group managers have a better position to bridge the gap than others.

There was a huge gap between responses from PAWcon and Fur Con about this story. It’s challenging to parse, but I’m grateful to Fur Con for being the heroes (and PAWcon staff who did care) and showing that this isn’t just a “wild goose chase” or muck raking to ignore. My (very costly) part in reporting the story now goes to the community, because knowledge is power.

Next: more details of info reported to police, and here’s where I really get to use free speech.

Part 1): Exposing the ring. Part 2): Running scared. Part 3): Investigation blocked. Part 4): A new development. Part 5): Interview with an expert.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.

And now a rather different take on Dreamworks’ How To Train Your Dragon universe, this time in a new Netflix TV series for young viewers. Animation World Network gave us the scoop: “DreamWorks Animation has just unveiled the high-flying trailer and cast of its new animated preschool series, Dragons Rescue Riders. This all-new chapter in the Oscar-nominated How to Train Your Dragon franchise follows the adventures of twins, Dak and Leyla, raised by dragons, who share a unique ability to communicate with them. The brother and sister lead a team of five young dragons, Aggro, Winger, Summer, Cutter, and Burple, with whom they spend their days rescuing other dragons and helping people in their adopted town of Huttsgalor. All 14 episodes of the new series debut September 27 exclusively on Netflix.” Check out the preview trailer as well.

image c. 2019 Dreamworks Animation

Some rabbits really seem to enjoy the chase even in the lego universe.
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Content warning for animal abuse and sexual violence. Part 2 of a 5 part update about the Zoosadist chat leaks.

In September 2018, the furry fandom was shocked by news about zoosadists (people into rape, torture and murder of animals for their fetish). Part 1) looks at how their ring was exposed, the threat to events, and who is implicated. A focus on ring member Tane makes a thread through a tangled story. This part looks at their evasion.

One excuse for people caught associated with the ring is downplaying it as “just fantasy”. To deflect public anger, member Kero the Wolf claimed he just likes “feral art” — a handful of pictures in a mountain of animal abuse in their chat leaks. Euphemistic illusions are a way to beg tolerance in a fandom where weird interests have free expression. But furries have limits. So the extreme fringe members hide their tracks with alt accounts, encryption and codes.

It’s the week after Halloween in 2017, and Tane was just at PAWcon, a small event in San Jose, CA. Snakething has frightening news — associates in the UK are being arrested for illegal content. Snakething is reassuring about Telegram’s encryption, but Tane is spooked about the arrest of ring associate Cupid (from Part 1). Cupid was arrested because Snakething leaked an incriminating video of him to a friend. The police took his phone — can they trace content on it to others? Will more dominos fall? The chatting is subdued for weeks after, and Snakething has to owe favors and settle fears. Notice “SC” (Telegram’s Secret Chat that deletes after viewing), and the code “RLC” (real life cub).

Police on the job [October 2018-now]

The envelope was sealed and mailed with tracking to see when it arrived. It was a moment of hope. A year after Tane’s chat about Cupid and “RLC”, higher powers now had a hard drive of leaked evidence. It included lots of work by furries to hold their hands and point out what to investigate.

The police don’t waste time on wild goose chases for internet rumors. So far, there have been 3 arrests for real activity that came from the leaks:

• SnakeThing (Levi Simmons) — arrested in Oregon for raping a puppy on video to share with the ring.
• EliteKnight (Christian Stewart Nichols) — arrested in Florida for abusing his dog on video to share with the ring.
• Woof (Ruben Pernas) — arrested in Cuba after a hunt to ID him for mutilating and killing animals for the ring.

Unfortunately (for now), Woof seems to be free because Cuba has no animal welfare laws. So the Cuban people hit the streets with public protest to ask their government for new laws because of him — an exceptional happening in a repressive country. There are claims that it’s the first officially-sanctioned, independently-organized, non government-associated protest in their nation’s history. I tried to get attention on the story with contacts at Vice and more, hoping that someone would cover a crime ring in furry fandom leaping to international notice. (A P.R. problem, or an opportunity to show what we care about?)

See Cuban protesters on the march below in a video about “Woof”.

[Zoosadist leaks] – Cuban media has exposed Rubén Marrero Pernas, AKA "Woof", perhaps the most extreme member of the zoosadist ring including @kerothewolf that was leaked in September.

"Cubans denounce a rapist and murderer of dogs." Article in Spanish:https://t.co/5AcaS6sHFv

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) November 24, 2018

Underground in Cuba

On 8/26/19, I got a voice message about the video from an activist who helps Cuban animals to be adopted internationally with groups like CEDA. There are mixed up details in the section about who worked in Cuba (from 8:00-10:30). Even so, the activist was grateful to helpers for doing what they can.

After ID was found for Ruben Pernas, an underground effort had to be made to locate and expose him. Nobody would believe them for a long time (much like publishing stories about Kero and others) until they gathered backing and Pernas was fired from his job. CEDA didn’t approach the Cuban government, but they rescued his dogs. The story can’t be easily told, and I’m reminded of the film Citizen X (about a hunt for a killer complicated by Soviet police beaurocracy.)

The difficulty was manifold. The story could embarrass the system. Speaking about police in a country like Cuba can have consequences like denial of travel. There are no animal shelters in Cuba — it’s handled by individuals who take strays off the streets if they can, and groups like CEDA who try to get fosters, with help from Animal Protectors. Records must be hard to get. Their work had to be done in silence for 2 months, in collaboration with quiet middle-people.

“The hard part is keeping something so horrible without being able to discuss it… Let me tell you this was the most difficult and heartbreaking situation I’ve ever had to deal with. I want to shine the light on the good that Cuba did by the arrest.” — (Contact to the middle-people.)

Free speech to openly discuss this story is a freedom to cherish.

Limits of laws, and a problem for a community.

When the first sirens died down, Snakething was let go. The animal abuse hadn’t been found in time. Ring members including Woof are free to do more harm. But with the story out in public already, more attention can influence what happens next.

In furry fandom, talking on social media is one thing, but more focused work to get help can hit a wall. The Geek Social Fallacies lurk behind it. Backlash at “drama” means lazy insults to this volunteer for donating work that others don’t. Some say shut up and leave it to the cops, deferring to authority outside the community. You can find lots of balls in furry art, but where else?  (Look at Cubans on the street protesting to their authorities for a change.)

I think the police don’t manage a community. They come after things go wrong, and they can’t just arrest people for saying things that we know they do:

• Animals don’t tell, while tech helps to cover up. (Corporations even profit from animal cruelty media they won’t regulate.)
• Local police have low priority for cybercrime out of their area. Federals have bigger fish to fry (terrorism etc.), so animal abuse falls back to local police.
• Outdated laws didn’t envision a ring like this, which skips jurisdictions, while bestiality isn’t illegal everywhere or regulated like child abuse. Videos circulate for years, but statutory limits make short times to solve crimes. The police may not waste effort if arresting ends up in dropped charges.

These limits blocked a New York police investigation into Kero the Wolf. His parents stonewalled them from comparing evidence of crime on their property (in a garage and campers) that was in abuse videos and Kero’s Beastforum posts. The statutory time limits ran out. Investigation continues in PA.

The chat logs of the zoosadist ring discuss this, one tactic to get away with crime is using a fursuit and concealing face. In kero's case they have his garage in an abuse vid and one he posted himself, but it takes a warrant to make it courtworthy. No face = no warrant, catch22

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) August 21, 2019

I've spent the last two weeks looking over the evidence that had been given to the New York police investigating Kero The Wolf. ITT I explain why there's hard proof the statute of limitations is what hamstrung NY's case against Kero, and how he's gotten away on a technicality.

— Archive The Wolf (@KeroArchive) September 2, 2019

Only police may have certain power, but only insiders (or family) may be able to help them to use it. Detective work can take years, and a few arrests may not stop a ring. People like OJ Simpson get off charges (but not from personal, community or civil judgement). Interfering with police is a concern, but leaving it only to them can be negligent. Shining a light matters when predators prey in the shadows. There’s no “witch hunt” for witches right next to you.

Running scared [September 2018]

Back to the fandom impact right when the leaks reached the public. I had to guess why lots of people were coming out of the woodwork in my messages with weird intentions. What do you think is going on when I get contacted unprompted, about people I don’t know, to deny things I didn’t bring up? It gives a strong impression of fear and coverup of many wider ties. I heard from:

• Kero the Wolf — Told me his excuse about being hacked. It was unbelievable and I told him to stop, get a lawyer and go dark. Kero eventually admitted that he did lie to me and thousands of fans with a downloaded screenshot of “hacker” activity that he told me came from his device. But he still wanted it both ways as if mystery hackers wrote the bad messages in his name, and he only wrote a small part that couldn’t get him in much trouble.
• Saito Fox — Contacted me on behalf of Kero with the same story (and fake screenshot) at nearly the same time. He was very close to RC Fox (who killed himself on the day he was facing conviction for child porn charges,) according to RC Fox’s friend Pakyto who traded zoosadist porn with Snakething. Saito turned up in the logs for running a zoophile group for Midwest Furfest, where Snakething tried to hook them up with animal owners. What a tangle.
• Defenders and friends of people in the ring — some with fandom popularity — threw fits when I wouldn’t buy the hacking excuse, or wanted to debate that zoophiles being underground are like gays forced to meet in secret in the 1950’s (a reminder of gay rights dissociating from a fringe of pedophiles trying to ride their coattails.) They were clearly whispering in angry private circles because I got tagged into this.
• Leko — a local furry who I knew in person (and didn’t know was a partner of Tane) started a new thread to follow.

A cover story, and authenticating the logs 

Tane’s partner tells a story that isn’t consistent with the chat logs and other corroborating details.

• Telegram channel: Leko’s messages about Tane.

Leko claims that Tane was in the ring to set the other person up for the police, but there wasn’t enough evidence to make a case. Leko says he isn’t one of those “demented perverts”, just a normal one (so it’s just fantasy, but the chats are real?) The chats are excused for having no illegal content, only commonly available files — but it doesn’t explain all the file removals from Tane’s logs, and something even more inconsistent.

Files in the chat leaks DID cause arrests. There was no help from Tane, according to the leakers, and he failed to report evidence. In 2017, when Tane received Snakething’s 2016 puppy rape video, it wouldn’t have been too late to get him charged. Holding it let the statutory time limits decay until he got away with it in 2018. (Leko sent the claims before Snakething’s arrest made them inconsistent.)

Kero claimed to be targeted by hackers. Woof confessed and EliteKnight confirmed. Glowfox claimed the logs were “out of context”. Tane claimed a self-made police sting (supported by nothing else.) The stories didn’t line up or win benefit of the doubt for anyone. At least Tane’s is based on the logs being real.

Second corroboration

I went beyond Leko’s claims to corroborate the Telegram logs. When the chats leaked, Tane locked his Twitter and switched usernames with another account. But first, a source with access provided a screenshot dump of the timeline. I painstakingly traced how his Tweets synched with his private messages.

• Telegram channel: Tane’s Twitter and chat comparison (18 points corroborating the logs).

Both sources have info the other doesn’t, such as photos matching text, and location info original to the Telegram logs that couldn’t be seen in public posts. Other Twitter accounts only tie in by roundabout research (such as tracing user location) that won’t make sense if simply faked in text, showing one source isn’t just based on the other. They weave together at points like this one, from Tane’s trip to a zoophile meet on a farm in Nebraska.

Triple check: Why wasn’t even more evidence brought to the police?

Leko claimed Tane was in the chats, but didn’t have enough evidence to go to police. (Part 4 will link a detailed breakdown of the chats with over 650 screenshots.)

But Tane received original videos of animal abuse from Snakething. He claimed to do animal sex tourism and helped hook up other ring members. Explained how to drug (roofie) drinks at cons. Targeted Nachodoggo for rape, and was told of a plan to molest a child. Didn’t seek ID to help targets in danger, and used Secret Chat to hide evidence at his request. THIS was a “setup?”

I still went out of the way to check. Leko had said they were preparing a statement together to own up to some things and explain the police claims. In September 2019, I got in touch before publishing, and offered an opportunity to clear things up and give their side, like Tane offered on his Twitter.  I sent questions:

• What records were gathered for reporting to police?
• Why wasn’t it enough evidence to give them?
• How did Tane gather records when he asked to use Secret Chat?
• Is he willing to explain the details of specific plans and files that were traded and discussed?
• Is he willing to ID specific places and people named in the chats? Will any of them back this up?
• What effort was made to get ID for cases of imminent harm?
• How did he cooperate in the arrests of Levi Simmons, Christian Nichols, and Ruben Pernas (Snakething, Eliteknight, and Woof)? Will anyone back this up?
• Will he do a video interview?

There was no reply by publishing time. I look forward to more info. Until then, the logs can speak for themselves. They’re very informative for how Tane fit in the ring and how it worked. From not even knowing who he was at first — and even being asked for favors about him — I had a fresh start to investigate without personal bias, and every detail I found matches this report.

A job for a team of one [October 2018]

The story until now has looked at who was in the ring, the limits for police, confusion and dodging, and the horrifying content instead of euphemistic “fantasy”. Then there was a big job to sort info for further action. It needed a team, so I gathered a small one. Members read Tane’s logs and reacted:

Tane’s awful. He talked for 15 HTML files. And he’s on the list of people into real life cub…’with experience’. There’s no images… because Tane’s an infosec guy. He moves to secret chat a number of times. It’s hard to summarize all of the terrible things Tane does/says. None of this is “He’s sorry for what he’s done and is seeking therapy and professional help to stop the behavior entirely.” Just “Please bury his guilt so we can keep doing what we’re doing without anyone knowing or confronting us”… There’s no fucking way he needed to prove (Snakething)’s guilt for that long. If he was attempting to play undercover cop, he went about it in the worst possible way… and never actually did anything with the info.

Like, if he wants to play that angle, he’d better have receipts of actually talking to police. The undercover cop story sounds about as believable as the being hacked story… an actual agent wouldn’t send messages on a self-destruct timer. Because it’d make their case a lot harder to prove. And Tane was the one who pushed that, not (Snakething). Any mole wants info to be as archived as long as possible. Tane actively took steps to do the opposite.

Other groups gathered and were infested by trolls, moles and misinformation, making it a minefield to work with others. It needed full time staff, but that doesn’t exist in fandom. Detaching from agendas meant doing it alone. Without more resources, it’s taken a year to investigate and report more.

Complicity by silence

A lot of the community would rather “see no evil” than know more. The path of least resistance would be shutting up and letting someone else do it… maybe nobody, while we wait for help that never comes.

That’s how the ring members hope it goes. But it was very odd to have this fall out of the sky, then have scared people bring up issues I didn’t start, about people I didn’t know, and hope I wouldn’t talk. The more I looked, the more it was clear that sitting back would clear a path for manipulation and complicity.

That pressure even came from higher powers in the community — some of them afraid about their own ties. More about that in Part 3.

More — Part 1): Exposing the ring. Part 2): Running scared. Part 3): Investigation blocked. Part 4): A new development. Part 5): Interview with an expert.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon.

Megaplex 2019 has come and gone, and with it, fursuiters that have experienced the scorching heat are left wondering one thing: Why? Why would anyone live there? Why would I wear a full-body snuggie in 100 degree weather? As a fur who has lived in Florida their entire life, I can assure you that the […]

American furcon Midwest FurFest has recently reported that they have rescinded and barred Milo Yiannopoulos from attending the con. Yiannopoulos, a far-right political commentator, recently announced that he made a “fursona” for himself, and bought tickets to the MFF as well. He also suggested hosting a panel titled “The Politics of Fur”: This triggered a […]

Just your typical people turning into Chickens to advertise KFC commercial. (I think we need some fursuit films that animate expressions like this)  
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Content warning for animal abuse and sexual violence. Part 1 of a 5 part update about the Zoosadist chat leaks.

A rape plan [October 2017]

It’s near Halloween. In Coos Bay, Oregon, spooky movies are playing at the Egyptian Theater. And Snakething (Levi Simmons) is at home having an evening chat with a new friend, Tane, a furry fan in California. The men were introduced by a friend with a mutual interest. 

Tane goes to college, and Snakething lives with his mom — he can’t drive or work, so he spends time gathering online friends from around the world. Most come from the furry fandom. Furries often gather for special interests, like art or music, but Snakething obsessively collects porn from secret sources. His friends make a crime ring for zoosadism (a fetish for raping, torturing and murdering animals). They call it “hardzoo” (or hardzoosuiting with a fursuit, a very rare interest that they try to “corrupt” others into).

Tonight Tane and Snakething are making plans for Nacho (Nachodoggo), a woman who recently reported crimes by two other men tied to the ring. (A video of those men abusing her dog was leaked by a friend of Snakething, leading to their arrests.) The plan is to drug Nachodoggo, and when she’s unconscious, rape her with others she isn’t aware of, like their friend Tekkita.

Since they met, Tane has enjoyed a video where Snakething drugged and raped a 10-12 week old puppy. The puppy came from Craigslist, and may have been killed and dumped by the camera man to hide it. (Snakething claims it’s OK but doesn’t know.) The video was made to share with the ring. Members gain trust and favors by hooking each other up with people, animals, or content for trade, where the worst is rarest, as if the victims are Pokemon cards for kids to collect. They have a term for child targets: RLC (real life cub).

The furry fandom has maybe a million members in the world. Few or none know the full extent of one of the worst stories that has ever happened inside it. The zoosadists are a tiny group hiding in a fringe of a subculture, but one germ can take down a giant. Let’s put it under a microscope.

A threat to events [Now]

The plan to rape Nachodoggo was still secret when I saw the crimes she reported in Seattle news. In 2017, I contacted her to learn about the arrests of “Noodles” and “Cupid” (Kevin Richards and Matthew Grabowski) in Renton, WA. But when the ringleader Snakething was arrested in October 2018 for the puppy rape, he escaped charges due to statutory limits. (Time wouldn’t run out so fast for a human victim.) There are clues that much more was hidden from the police.

Tane, Cupid, and other ring members are still active at furry events. Event organizers know it.

Their plan is leading this story to highlight an active threat. Nachodoggo told me: “these men are dangerous“. She says the screenshots I showed her are real plans by people who would do anything to get what they want, with associates already using drugging and deception for sex crime.

I spoke to people involved and learned undisclosed details. Nachodoggo faced extortion and backlash, and her ID was redacted in the crime charges due to threats. There may be more interference like that, but as a source, the police found her reports worthy for cases that cleared with convictions in April 2019.

Those linked legal docs are the tip of the iceberg. Others won’t tell, and animals can’t, but a lot can be said about people known to be involved. Some claim innocence or say it’s fantasy talk. Snakething’s arrest — and this report — shows that people are getting away with crime even when caught red handed.

Data points of a larger ring: Cupid and Noodles in the news, months after abusing Nachodoggo’s dog and weeks after a plan to rape her with Cupid’s friend Tekkita.

Back at events right after conviction in 2019.

An international problem 

While the crimes reported by Nachodoggo were in process, I had no idea about a much larger story brewing in secret. Members of the zoosadist ring were being introduced through a darkweb forum called Animals Dark Paradise that was for cruelty on the level of urban legends. I’d never heard of real animal snuff porn (where victims are used for sex during or after being killed), let alone enough demand for group meetings to make it.

Less extreme bestiality content has long thrived on unregulated sites like Beastforum. When it closed in February 2019, the Washington Examiner quoted an activist who called it a sign of legislation in progress for “a national policy against bestiality”. Meanwhile in the UK, the BBC News reported about trading of abuse images. It’s being displaced from the open web, to the dark web, to encrypted messaging:

Secure messaging apps, including Telegram and Discord, have become popular following successful police operations against criminal markets operating on what is known as the dark web… Messages are protected by peer-to-peer encryption, generally putting them beyond law enforcement’s reach.

UPDATE: shortly after this report was published, the NY Times reported an exponential rise of abuse image trading on the internet. Over 1/3 of reports to law enforcement ever received were made in the last year. It shows law enforcement resources being dwarfed by the scale, extremity, and enterprising complexity of the problem. This story would be a symptom of that explosion of tech-enabled abuse.

A ring exposed [September 2018]

On Telegram, Snakething’s “hardzoo” group (“The Forest” or “BBB/Beasty Beast Beasts”) filtered in members from larger zoophile groups, letting them concentrate resources and contacts. Unsatisfied by trading common files, they gathered to create zoosadist content that resembled the acts of movie serial killers.

Dogs would be gotten from animal rescues or private ads from people hoping to give them forever homes. They would be restrained with duct tape, rope or drugs, then mutilated and torn apart to hear them “sing”, in the words of a ring member who was arrested for killings in Cuba.

We can now read that Snakething and Tane were planning to rent a beautiful cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway, like a group vacation for five normal friends. But instead of a place to enjoy a fire or go hiking, they wanted to budget for “toys” (disposable animals from Craigslist), and looked for seclusion so screaming dogs couldn’t be heard being raped.

The rental site where they looked at cabins in Mt. Hood National Forest, Oregon. The plan could use Tane’s experience in 4-wheeler driving, and video tech skills for setting up furry cons.

This upset admins of shady groups like Zoofurries Society/Zeta Corner or Zoofurries Alliance. They got a password that Snakething gave to a play partner, and dumped the logs from his Telegram account. On 9/16/2018, they put it on Twitter and tagged me as a news source, but I had no idea what it was about.

Reasons to leak

The leakers claimed “no vendettas”. I started with a theory of fallout from the Nachodoggo/Cupid/Noodles cases, with dueling evidence disclosures tied to plea deals (or “insurance” from a dead man’s switch). Or a move to taint evidence to block more charges. There were deals, revenge motives and friend ties, but I couldn’t say they directly caused the leaks or had anything to do with why many members were exposed.

The going story says a domination/blackmail fetish game was used to trick a password out of Snakething’s play partner, and then truly expose animal torture. The partner seems to be EliteKnight, who posted a story to match. He was a definite candidate for blackmail about illegal activity. (And being a “fall guy”. I think they have others being visible faces for their groups to dump if they’re at risk, too.)

Leaking online instead of reporting to police made a mess for investigation. I think the leakers did it because they feared being arrested, exposing friends and losing their groups. It was extremely dubious to see them pose as having good intentions for cutting risks to themselves. (Snakething became a security threat to them when his video trading caused Cupid’s arrest). There’s many reasons to find this unacceptable and a form of obstruction. It’s also likely that the story wouldn’t be known otherwise.

I doubt any single person knows how deep this goes, but after hundreds of hours of research and talking to dozens of sources, I can say more than anyone has written in one place so far.

Reporting the story [One year later]

This multi-part article took weeks to write, including sorting evidence in linked archives. This is a third news update since 2018. Furry readers may have heard of Kero the Wolf, the highest-profile gateway to the story. (Kero’s boyfriend was Illone/Colwyn, a fellow zoosadist known as very active on Animals Dark Paradise). Kero’s 100K-strong Youtube following (and lying to the public, including hiding ties to “Colwyn”) earned a focus for previous articles:

• Zoosadism leaks: possibly the worst story to ever hit fandom
• Zoosadism investigation: Capitalizing on abuse, and the ugly persistence of Kero.

This is the hardest story I’ve written, by research time, emotional cost and backlash. That includes knee-jerk attacks from bystanders about dealing with sources or trying to get help. The cost is more than could ever be gained, but it comes from caring about others. I hate having it in news about furries, but I hate having it buried even more.

In a year of trying to shine light on a murky story, I can see how tangled it is. Ring members got caught up with infighting, infiltrating, bargaining, and blackmailing each other. Zoophiles that partially outed them threaten to ruin the story if they can’t control it. They want apologism and credit for helping (imagine a necrophile, leaning on a shovel, saying “we don’t like people who kill for corpses”). Sources or reporters are targets of smokescreens, manipulation, and backlash to limit exposure. Community apathy includes denying it’s a fandom issue, acting like it’s private business, just fantasy, “drama”, or cyber-bullying to talk about it. Everyone acts like a ring isn’t a ring.

Worst of all are blind complicity, defenses for indefensible things, and lies about the story being fake.

The chats are real people talking about real activity.

See for yourself. Warning: graphic evidence of animal abuse. Check legality in your jurisdiction to view this. To my knowledge (not a lawyer), viewing to investigate in the USA is legal and it’s been checked by many people. It may be illegal in the UK and Crown dependencies under the “extreme porn” laws. [TEMPORARILY DOWN FOR NEW POLICE REPORT]

• 1.5GB Google drive download of the zoosadist chat logs.

Members of the ring confirm the logs are real by their actions. Their private activity cross-checks with years of matching activity with friends, social media posts, news reports, and crime cases. It synchs with original information like incriminating photos/videos found only in the logs. One purpose for the ring was to hook each other up to make “zoosuiter” porn, and unique costumes can identify their wearers. With Kero’s boyfriend Illone/Colwyn, his death (by heroin) ties many pieces together (that’s why Kero erases the memory of his dead boyfriend, who can never speak denial.) It all weaves a huge matrix of corroboration.

For a conspiracy theory of faking the chats, it would take a squad of Hollywood scriptwriters, with intimate knowledge of hundreds of ID’s and movements that would need a time machine to predict, somehow having power over uneditable server-side sources. A claim about evidence of hacking was shown to be a lie by Kero (who still hasn’t fully disclosed his involvement). Hacking Telegram to target one member and smear their image would be akin to a government taking down another country’s electrical grid to turn off one light bulb; faking a giant ring is absurdly unreal for such a motive. This mess of a conspiracy theory would be hopeless to carry out undetected, with no coherent reason, and if one could hack Telegram they could claim huge rewards. I haven’t seen a single real clue that anything was faked — although not everything was exposed that could be.

The cult of cruelty

Known members exposed in the ring (by account names):

• Snakething — Ringleader in Oregon and obsessive collector of extreme porn, who gathered members on Telegram to feed his urges.
• Woof — Cuban, basically an animal serial killer to make torture porn, and focus of a hunt that extracted a confession.
• Eliteknight — Florida resident and play partner of Snakething, who abused his dog for zoosadist porn. He posted confirmation for the leaks.
• Glowfox — Peruvian who forced sadism on dogs, whose boyfriend appears in the logs too. He claimed to be taken “out of context” for being in the ring.
• Tane — Had a special porn trading deal with Snakething. Partner to an SF Bay Area furry, who confirmed Tane was in the ring with excuses about why.
• Kero — From PA, he made necro/bestiality content behind the scenes while doing innocent-looking fursuiting on Youtube for over 100,000 subscribers.
• Sephius — Austrian who claimed to rape puppies to death, thought to be the person in a video of sex with a dead deer originally attributed to Kero.
• Equinas — Zoophile ranch owner in WA, hoster of furry/zoophile parties and Calzoo ring activity going back to the 1990’s.
• Tim Win/Matepups — Camera man for Snakething’s abuse video, associate of Equinas, reputed to be the most unhinged member with many victims.
• Tekkita/Mr. Bitchtits — Zoosadist contact of Snakething, associated to Cupid and source for porn of him (possible partner or roommate).
• Techno Husky — SF Bay Area zoosadist who Snakething tries to convince to abuse the family chihuahua, text indicates sharing child porn.
• Sangie — play partner of Snakething, owner of Inkedfur (a furry art printing company), helps groom the nephew of Snakething for molesting.
• Blonde Dog/Golden Retriever — Into decapitation and necrophilia with puppies, works at a dog boarding kennel, meets Tane in person.
• Ember — Ring member who discussed sedating dogs for rape, who caught public attention for his drug overdose at BLFC 2017.
• Kintari — Previously known vet tech/zoophile (NSFW) named in the logs for zoosadism/snuff porn, and source for drugs to subdue animals for rape.
• Illone Sheppypaws — Kero’s boyfriend, Animals Dark Paradise user who introduced Woof to Snakething.
• Coywolf, Humacyrnus, Mo Mo, Shepnuts, Zeta Omega, Xyro, Miskas, and more who aren’t named.

Associated by guilt

Dozens of members make countless ties to already known crime:

• Sangie is a convicted sex offender (and subject of many tips to this site about a repeat pattern).
• Spark Dalmation is a repeat sex offender. In the chat he’s on a list of names, including Tane, said to be into/experienced with “RLC” (Real Life Cub.)
• Icepaws was a former Anthrocon staffer whose porn is shared by Snakething, arrested for animal abuse in the bust of a furry pedophile ring in PA.
• Cupid and Noodles were convicted for their charges, with court records corroborating what’s in the logs.

Association — in the court record of Cupid’s conviction. It has Nachodoggo’s 2017 police report with details that appeared independently in the 2018 chat leaks, like Cupid getting animals from private adoption ads to rape and dump. Tane’s logs mention that while Cupid was on bail and unable to own pets, there was a plan to pay for delivery of “one time use” animals from Craigslist, which would be snuffed and left in the woods. Some members discussed large payments to make videos. These are some of many corroborating details between people, legal docs, and media.

Known leakers and hosts

Difficult sourcing may be the only way this could be seen:

• Shadowwoof (leaker) — Admin of groups like Zoofurries Society (with around 1000 members and at one time had admins like zoosadist Tekkita). He’s been admin/opposition for Simba in the UK (known for running a furry Discord group with a cult-like/multi-level social credit system. Simba collects user info and runs FinDom groups, and is under police investigation.) Shadow uses threats/blackmail to gather info, so wasn’t consulted for this article.
• Akela (leaker) — member of zoophile groups. He uses threats/blackmail to gather info, so wasn’t consulted for this article.
• Logs are hosted on TOR by Doug Spink (not a source). He plays “zoophile media spokesperson,” with a cocaine-smuggling felony record, news articles and a book by a journalist about him. He posted that ring members force the logs down from hosts with legal claims that their own info is too extreme.
• Logs are also on Kiwifarms, a notorious harassment site that rejects takedowns to be one of the only open hosts.

Demanding other sourcing is an easy deflection. (Where else would it come from? How does Wikileaks get documents?) Deniers can find lots of ways to attack this messenger, because that’s easier than defending a ring. It’s a common tactic to cover up institutional abuse, although a fandom doesn’t exactly have institutions. There’s more like a little power and lots of “not my job” involved. Nobody has a real watchdog job in it (I’m a volunteer who just reports things).

Independently of getting involved with the leakers, I looked myself and found a real story. It made much harder work for a lone reporter, vastly uncompensated by tiny PBS-style support. It lets me say my article has no profit, and no stake in blackmail, harassment sites, deals, or protecting anyone. Again, not one real clue of faking has reached my attention, and the logs have a mountain of corroboration. It’s getting stronger over time with elements like Cupid’s conviction.

A major news report of orphanage abuse by nuns lacked institutional records that exposed priest abuse — instead it cross-checked many sources to build evidence.

One ring to rule them all

The zoosadist ring has abuse beyond any seen in the past, but it ties to an overlapping list of older rings:

• Calzoo (started in the 1990’s), whose members “have turned up in nearly every furry zoophile incident of note” (including this one.)
• The Enumclaw ring, known in headlines and a documentary about a “bestiality brothel,” sex tourism and the horse sex death of “Mr. Hands” (Kenneth Pinyan, an employee of Boeing). I found a tie to a Zoofurries Society admin.
• The Dolph ring, an animal sex tourism group at a Swiss waterpark that shut down after dolphins died from poor care.
• The PA pedophile ring of Rebelwolf, which made news with 8 arrests in 2016.

There were enough ties that I had already been comparing news stories and developing sources before learning of the zoosadist ring in 2018. It took root in furry zoophile groups, and wormed into a niche of a niche of a subculture using its resources and networks. These sub-groups are sometimes held out as social connection for people who love their pets that much, but are founded on porn trading with mental gymnastics about it. (They’re also places where members may be surveilled or blackmailed.) Keep in mind that nobody approves who joins the community, and furry fans are also working to uncover the story.

Focus on Tane

One ring member has gotten low notice so far for high activity. His chat logs with the ringleader Snakething are some of the longest, and they had a deal for sharing all content that came in. (Only one other person had such access.) Later parts will show triple-checked corroboration that Tane’s logs are real, and a detailed breakdown of the contents (including practices to evade police.) It makes a thread to help follow a tangled story where tech has a big role.

Tane works in information security with government clearance, and was known as a member of the public DEFCON Furs group and a regular attendee of the DEF CON hacker convention in Las Vegas. (See their official statement below.) DEFCON Furs is a tech focused group “for members of the infosec community that share an interest in the furry fandom,” and they organize events and parties at the con. Tane appeared in a Vice article about fursuiting at DEF CON. He seems to travel a lot, which ties to animal sex tourism clues in the logs, including going to a zoophile meet at a farm in Nebraska.

At the Nebraska farm, Tane met a friend who runs a furry porn imageboard, and a performer in animal porn videos from the commercial maker Petlust. (An employee did a Q&A about his job there, mentioning “tech savvy” and a tie to the “Mr. Hands” incident.)

These screens came from Tane’s Howlr profile. Notice how many furry events are on his list — places where ring members planned to meet for their activity.

Howlr is a popular furry sex hookup service like Grindr, generally for consenting adults, but founded by Stormy, who left due to controversy about bestiality acts shortly before the chat leaks. Independently, the leaks tied him to the ring’s plans for “zoosuiter” parties with pimp-like animal owner hookups at furry cons.

Monsters with friendly faces

Old horror stories have monsters who lurk in the wilderness beyond civilization. Modern monsters hide behind masks of technology, but walk among you like friends. They aren’t just strangers on the internet. Some of them help to run your community while complicit with this story. That’s everyone’s problem.

Come back for more about that in the next parts. As always, send requests for help to report anonymously, guest submissions, hugs, coupons, death threats, or (worst of all) plans to call me a narc and throw gum on my fursuit to: patch.ofurr@gmail.com.

UPDATES and corrections: Cupid did not work for Boeing, he worked at SEA-TAC as a service engineer for Alaska Airlines. EliteKnight was not in Ohio (source of a police report about him,) he was in Florida. Miskas is added to names in the ring from the chat logs and a tip from a source whose own experience corroborates the logs. “Nacho” has been updated to account name “Nachodoggo” to help separate it from others with similar handles.

On 9/17/19, organizers reached out with an official statement: “DEFCON Furs does not tolerate abusive behavior. Actions have been taken to address the accusations raised by this article.” From more personal messages with DEFCON Furs members, at this time I would think Tane’s activity was never condoned and doesn’t represent them. It only shows another member of the public being interested in tech. Positive activities they organize deserve an article of their own.

More — Part 1): Exposing the ring. Part 2): Running scared. Part 3): Investigation blocked. Part 4): A new development. Part 5): Interview with an expert.

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Ow… Hey! It’s crazy-hot out. But we’re back with more anthropomorphic news. We got this from Animation Scoop: “Netflix will transport viewers around the world to a colorful and imaginative land where fantastical creatures sing and adventure surrounds you – welcome to Centaurworld. The new kids animated series hails from first-time showrunner Megan Nicole Dong, a 2017 honoree of Variety’s “10 Animators to Watch” list… Centaurworld follows a war horse who is transported from her embattled world to a strange land inhabited by silly, singing centaurs of all species, shapes, and sizes. Desperate to return home, she befriends a group of these magical creatures and embarks on a journey that will test her more than any battle she’s ever faced before… The series will feature a mix of animation styles and each episode will include original songs in a variety of genres.” No word yet on a premier date, but it’s Netflix — they will let us know!

image c. 2019 Netflix

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