A gruesome documentary has revealed how a sick criminal, branded a ‘Eunuch Maker’ managed to convince men to have their penises amputated on a livestream.
Marius Gustavson, who is from Norway but lived in Finsbury Park, north London, made £300,000 from selling videos of himself castrating men and removing other body parts including limbs.
He was arrested in November 2022 after branding a man’s calf with the letters EM, for Eunuch Maker.
But when police investigated, they found much worse including body parts stashed in freezers. He was later jailed for a minimum of 22 years for running the vile enterprise.
Now, documentary The Eunuch Maker, hosted by Marcel Theroux, has aired on Crime + Investigation which explores the scandalous story.
Edward, a non-binary client of Gustavson, came forward to claim they have an ‘enduring sense of gratitude to Gustavson’ for helping them remove their testicles and penis.
Edward said: ‘It’s important that this isn’t just reported as a crime but other people’s individual stories. I wanted to be rid of my testicles, it felt like they shouldn’t be part of me.
‘I never spoke to any gender specialists; the UK in particular has a very binary view of gender. If I felt I was a woman then there would be more help available, but I don’t consider myself trans, in that I’m not a trans woman.
‘If I have to label it, it’s non-binary. So that wasn’t an option. For a long period of time I felt alone. ‘
Marius Gustavson, who was from Norway but lived in Finsbury Park, London, was able to convince men to have their penises amputated on livestream
Edward first met Gustavson on an online forum in 2014 and the pair decided to meet in person.
They said: ‘He was oddly forthcoming, I tried to backout at one point and he said, ”No, no. I’ve come all this way, you’re going to meet me.” And I did.
‘He was very friendly, charming and nice, he was a big jolly bear, to use the gay terminology.
‘He had a huge bag full of things, he wanted to use a device, it’s designed for animals that clamps the testicular cords.
‘He was quite keen to do it there and then, but I said, ”No, it’s nice to meet you but I don’t think so. And that was that.”
Edward said it was a sense of relief meeting Gustavson because they were talking to someone ‘face to face’ who didn’t think they ‘were mad or a deviant’.
‘That’s very comforting to not be alone. I went to visit him a number of times and one of the times we decided that we were going to clamp.
‘He never did anything against my will, but he did put pressure on me. I remember him saying, ”If we don’t do this you will be really disappointed, you need to do this.”’
Edward ended up agreeing to getting their testicles and penis removed, while it was being filmed and live streamed.
Gustavson made a living castrating and removing body parts. He made £300,000 from videos of penises, testicles and legs being severed from victims who had been pressured into taking part
He and his team used kitchen knives and tools used for ‘animal castration’ to carry out their surgeries
They said: ‘I knew it would hurt but I didn’t think it would hurt that much. In all honesty, the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life.
‘The testicle swelled out and I went to A&E and then that was removed in day surgery at the hospital. I was really pleased and now needed to get the second half done.’
Gustavson was involved in at least 29 procedures on 13 victims between 2017 and 2021 but recruited others to help him carry out more operations.
One accomplice was Peter Wates, 67, a retired former member of the Royal Society of Chemists from Surrey.
‘We went to a hotel room. Marius set up both cameras and Peter Wates done the procedure. I was numbed, thankfully. He cut open the side of the scrotum, pulled out the testicle before then cutting it off.
‘It didn’t hurt at all and as much as surgery in a hotel room can be clean and sterile, it was clean and sterile.
‘I took things easy for a couple of weeks and healed up pretty well. I was delighted. I have an enduring sense of gratitude to Gustavson for helping me reach a position that medically in the UK isn’t possible to get to.’
Speaking to Daniel, another client of Gustavson, who asked him for a penectomy, which is the surgical removal of a penis, Theroux wanted to find out what the allure of amputation and body disfigurement was for these men.
Daniel explained: ‘I was battered as a kid, rented out to different men, vulnerable. I really thought seriously about it when I was quite young.’
The knife used by Damien Byrnes, 36, from Tottenham, north London, to remove the penis of Marius Gustavson
On one occasion when Gustavson cooked human testicles which were then plated to be eaten and kept other body parts as trophies in his freezer
Daniel, who revealed he suffered ‘heavy’ sexual abuse as a child, added: ‘I basically ended up on the street, nowhere to go. I met a guy, I guess he was a trick (a client of a prostitute) as they call it nowadays.
‘And he was a guy who got his kicks out of putting people in pain, as I discovered when I moved in, and there was no way I was leaving the next day.
‘His favourite thing was c*** torture, he used to take photos and he used to sell the photos. There is one one photo that I am really unrecognisable in, with my c*** and balls and that photo went everywhere.
‘I am ashamed of it I suppose but, at the time, I really didn’t have much of an option. It was take it or something much worse would happen.
‘He used to threaten my c*** most of the time. ”We will have that off one day if you don’t behave”.’
Daniel claimed he was locked in a relationship with a sadist and he began to hate himself.
He added: ‘Every time I went to the toilet to pee, I would look at it and think if that wasn’t there, that would be the end of it.’
Daniel revealed he was chatting to someone online who told him that Gustavson could organise a penectomy if he wanted it.
He explained: ‘I met him at a supermarket outside of London. We sat in the car for about two hours just chatting. He was a proper gent, I liked him.
Gustavson decided to set up the Eunuchmaker website, which was a site where people could pay to watch surgeries being carried out on others, some of them as young as 16, via livestream
Gustavson was involved in at least 29 procedures on 13 victims between 2017 and 2021, but recruited others to help him carry out more operations
‘He was an open and honest guy, it was a good conversation and he trusted me, I trusted him. He told me he does ball first and then the penis.
‘He asked me about the photo, he noticed it was me. He said, ”It’s worth quite a lot of money you know, it’s quite famous. You can get good money for it.”
‘I said ”How much?” and he said ”£20,000”. I thought he would want money off me to do it but he said ”No”. I said, who ”would buy that?” He said he already has a buyer.’
Daniel said he was tempted by the money and even met up with Gustavson at his home to see where the procedure would be done.
He said: ‘He showed me his tools, I didn’t have a clue what it was. He showed me how he would do it with two bands.
‘He asked me if I wanted to try the bands on and alarm bells started ringing when he came up with that and I left shortly afterwards.’
After giving it some thought, he decided against having his penis removed but he continued his friendship with Gustavson.
Another man, who remained anonymous, said he met Gustavson online to discuss sadomasochism, also known as S&M, a term that describes the act of deriving pleasure from inflicting or receiving pain or humiliation.
He said: ‘He was into a bit of everything CBT stuff, torture stuff, bondage.’
While living in London in 2012 Gustavson became interested in body modification
The documentary filmmaker Marcel Theroux, above, revealed he spoke with Gustavson in prison to try to understand why someone would sign up for castrations
The man revealed he met up with Gustavson to ‘play’ but he set ‘a limit’ of no permanent damage.
‘I was very trusting, took some drugs, lay down, got tortured.’
The man claimed that Gustavson later tried to convince him of the ‘benefits of castration’, including being able to ‘control his sex drive’.
‘So a few days later I removed ‘no permanent damage’ from the limits and then that week he said, ”Well we should castrate you then” and we already started planning.
‘I came up to London, bought drugs, went to his apartment, took the drugs. He then went to his wardrobe and pulled out the clamps. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought about those.
‘That was the moment I knew I screwed up, the pain was something else. Instead of calling a stop to it, I just called for more drugs.
‘I got back home and my testicles were purple and the size of a melon, the pain got more and more extreme.
‘I remember lying in bed in agony as the video was posted online.’
The man revealed he later agreed to have everything cut, including his now dead testicles.
The men rented an AirBnB to do the procedure and he started to think he might actually die.
He said: ‘At that point I realised how much damage Gustavson had done to me. I realised he had been talking bull***. I started to see that he was just a butcher.
‘I was lying there scrotum cut open and I remember thinking I don’t care if I live or die, I just want to hurt him.’
Despite going through with the procedure, the man claimed he didn’t see any of the compensation from the video revenue which Gustavson had promised.
The castration practice is linked to a subculture where men become ‘nullos’ – short for genital nullification, by having their penis and testicles removed.
While living in London in 2012, Gustavson became interested in body modification. His obsession spiralled until, in 2017, he had his penis removed by male escort Damien Byrnes (who later became his co-defendant in his 2024 trial for unauthorised surgeries).
Two years later, Gustavson had part of his leg frozen, which meant it had to be amputated. He also had a nipple removed. He went on to claim £18,000 in disability benefits.
After having irreversible and catastrophic procedures on himself, Gustavson’s dark obsession became ever stronger.
Gustavson set up the Eunuchmaker website, where people could pay to watch surgeries being carried out on other people, some of them as young as 16, via livestream.
The site also offered services including male castration. Subscribers could sign up to different membership levels from free to VIP, which cost £100.
Among Gustavson’s gruesome actions were cooking human testicles which he plated up to be eaten, and keeping body parts in a freezer.
However, sometimes the operations went badly wrong. During the trial, the court heard recordings of 999 calls in which Gustavson lied to the operators about how his victims had injured themselves.
The grotesque website managed to accumulate 22,841 registered users and earned almost £300,000 before it was shut down.
Judge Mark Lucraft KC claimed his motivation was ‘a mix of sexual gratification as well as financial reward’. He conducted the business alongside six accomplices, who were also sentenced.
Six other men received jail terms of between four and a half years and 12 years for their part in the plot.
He conducted the businesses alongside accomplices such as his ‘right-hand man’ Peter Wates, and Janus Atkin, a 38-year-old trainee vet from Newport.
David Carruthers, a 61-year-old retired hospital porter, was involved in six procedures, including four testicle removals. He worked for Ceredigion and Mid Wales NHS trust from 1991 to 2002 but had no medical qualifications.
His boyfriend, 32-year-old Ashley Williams, also formed part of the butchery ring.
Gustavson’s boyfriend, Jacob Crimi-Appleby, a 23-year-old from Epsom, froze Gustavson’s leg in February 2019 – forcing it to be amputated.
Also involved were Damien Byrnes, who had carried out Gustavson’s castration years earlier, Ion Ciucur, a 30-year-old Romanian, and 61-year-old German Stefan Scharf.
Nurse Nathan Arnold, 48, from South Kensington, west London, received a two-year suspended sentence for the partial removal of Gustavson’s nipple with a scalpel in the summer of 2019.
The documentary filmmaker Theroux revealed he spoke with Gustavson in prison to try to understand why someone would sign up for castrations.
Theroux said Gustavson had a ‘superpower’ in ‘melting away people’s shame’ and he made all their problems ‘fixable’.
Speaking to LADbible, he added: ‘I think that’s possibly evil, that’s possibly an aspect of evil to do that, to trivialise things and make significant decisions seem insignificant.’
Theroux claimed the website created ‘a community’ where people could earn status by getting castrated as well as being paid for it.
He said: ‘It’s the danger of ending up in this sort of self-reinforcing silo where people’s extreme belief kind of hardens and doesn’t get challenged.
‘Then outside that it’s just the stupid normies who don’t understand how cool this is.’
The documentary maker said there was a ‘complexity’ around the subject as there could be an aspect of body dysmorphia where ‘these men hate aspects of their own body’.
Theroux added that for some there was also a ‘large degree of kink’ for some people, saying that in certain cases castration had been ‘an extreme variant’ of c*** and ball torture (CBT).
Meanwhile he claimed others were suffering from ‘childhood sexual trauma’ and they transferred part of that trauma to their anatomy.
‘I think you get that from one of the interviewees. You get a sense that this is someone who’s been through a terrible trauma, and he identifies it with his penis.’
