In April 2026, Ma Fei was placed in administrative detention in Pingdingshan, Henan Province, on a charge of disturbing public order. The term was set at ten days.
In the four years prior to his arrest, Ma Fei tortured and killed an estimated 1,500 cats.
His methods, documented across the USB drive's footage, included gouging out eyes with screws, skinning, suffocation in bottles, and burning animals alive. Ma Fei reportedly turned up his television volume to mask the sounds before recording the process, uploading it to a Telegram channel, and collecting cryptocurrency from paying subscribers who commissioned specific methods of death.
The Stakeout
Local volunteers, not police, were responsible for identifying and apprehending Ma Fei.
Zhang (a pseudonym), a local woman who cared for stray cats in her neighborhood, had noticed something wrong. Between February and April 2026, eight to ten cats in the surrounding apartment complexes had been found mutilated or dead. Zhang and other volunteers began nightly patrols.
On the night of April 18, they heard Ma Fei's television suddenly blast at full volume around 11 PM. At 12:15 AM, he left his apartment on an electric scooter, discarded a white plastic bag in a trash bin, and fled. Inside the bag: a cat with its neck slashed and its eyes removed.
The volunteers continued their surveillance. Four days later, on April 22, they physically escorted Ma Fei to the Jiulishan Police Station and presented their evidence: testimony, video footage, and a 16GB USB drive obtained through overseas contacts that documented four years of killing. Police registered the case and imposed a ten-day administrative detention.
The Network
Ma Fei did not act alone. Within the broader network, he served as an administrator of a Telegram group ironically named "Aimao" (爱猫, "Love Cats"), one node in a broader network that has been the subject of ongoing international investigation by Project No More, Feline Guardians, and Chinese volunteer organizations.
The group's structure is commercial and organized. Hundreds of members operate with defined roles: procurement, filming, and client management. Patrons (金主) pay in cryptocurrency to commission custom killings, specifying methods. The group runs organized "kill contests" to incentivize participation, and all transactions are conducted in virtual currency to evade regulatory detection.
Ma Fei recruited participants and managed operations, obtaining cats by adopting them from an elderly neighbor under the guise of helping find them homes online. She later recognized at least three of her cats in his footage.
DL News reported that Telegram remains banned in mainland China but is widely accessed through VPN workarounds, and that the cryptocurrency payment infrastructure makes these networks exceptionally difficult to trace through conventional financial channels.
The Charge That Does Not Exist
Chinese police charged Ma Fei with "disturbing public order" (扰乱公共秩序) because China has no animal cruelty statute, and this was the most serious charge available to them.
The country's sole national animal protection statute, the Wildlife Protection Law, was passed in 1988 and covers only endangered species. The Animal Husbandry Law applies to livestock and poultry production. Animal sentience is not formally recognized anywhere in Chinese legislation. Stray cats are legally classified as wild animals and cannot be subject to property-related penalties.
A draft Anti-Cruelty to Animals Act was introduced in 2009 by Professor Chang Jiwen of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. It has never been adopted. Proposals submitted to the National People's Congress have, according to the South China Morning Post, "regularly stalled" since the mid-2010s.
The maximum penalty for "disturbing public order" is fifteen days of administrative detention, and it leaves no criminal record.
Ma Fei is not unique. Wang Chaoyi, a former ICBC bank employee documented by Feline Guardians as having a decade-long history of cat torture, received fifteen days. In March 2025, a man in Quzhou, Zhejiang who was filmed publicly stomping a cat to death received a fine and brief detention.
96 Percent
In 2025, the Chinese Ministry of Justice solicited public feedback on its legislative agenda. An online survey on anti-cruelty legislation attracted 4.2 million votes. 96 percent voted in favor.
China is now home to roughly 430 million pets, the second-largest pet population on earth. The relationship between Chinese citizens and their animals has changed, and the demand for legal protection has been building for years.
The law itself, however, has not materialized, and in its absence the networks have continued to operate.
In January 2026, Chinese animal campaigners, legal scholars, and lawyers convened in Beijing at the Animal Law Forum to call for a national companion animal protection law. Speakers outlined "the absence of explicit legal provisions recognizing the special status of companion animals." No legislation has followed.
Legal analysts have noted that Ma Fei could face stronger charges if pursued: distributing violent content, illegal business operations, and intentional property damage carrying up to seven years imprisonment, the last requiring proof that privately owned pets were among his victims. As of this writing, none of these charges have been filed.
Free
Secondary sources report that Ma Fei has since been released, though Project No More has not independently confirmed this. Local residents are said to have destroyed his electric scooter to limit his mobility and to be monitoring his apartment. Chinese volunteer networks remain active, and the investigation by Project No More and allied organizations is ongoing.
Over the course of four years, Ma Fei participated in a commercial torture operation responsible for the deaths of an estimated fifteen hundred animals, funded through cryptocurrency and organized on an encrypted platform with hundreds of paying participants. The legal system of the world's second-largest economy, confronted with all of this, produced ten days of administrative detention and no criminal record.
Legislation that would address cases like this has been proposed multiple times and enjoys overwhelming public support. The National People's Congress has not acted on it.
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Primary reporting via Red Star News / Sina, The Paper, and DL News. Legal analysis via NetEase. Legislative context via South China Morning Post, World Animal Protection, and Princeton Legal Journal. Release confirmed via field intelligence and Chinese volunteer networks. Additional corroboration from Project No More research division.