LONDON – A Norwegian man who had his own genitals, nipples and legs amputated appeared in a UK court this week accused of livestreaming the castration of other men on his “eunuch maker” website. Marius Gustavsson, 45, along with eight others, allegedly performed extreme “body modifications” – including the removal of the male penis and testicles – and streamed the clips to paying customers, London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.
Gustavsson, who is originally from Norway but lived in north London, is said to have been the ringleader of an extensive conspiracy involving 29 criminal offences. He and eight other men were part of a genital subculture called “nullos”, where men voluntarily remove their genitals to become “nullos”.
AP Photo/Frank Augustine
The movement is not new, and the case in the UK is not the first high-profile incident related to it. In 2012, Japanese artist Mao Sugiyama, 23, removed his genitals and then cooked them and served them to paying guests at a banquet.
In a February 2022 interview with the Irish Independent, Gustavson said that he had performed the genital castration procedure on 58 other men and that he kept the removed genitalia in his freezer or preserved it in alcohol.
The court heard that Gustavsson, who appeared in the dock on Tuesday in a wheelchair, had his own legs, penis and nipples removed. She told Irish newspapers last year that she did the procedure herself because she “wanted to look like a Ken doll up there.”
The charges against Gustavson include removing one man’s penis, cutting off another’s testicles and freezing a man’s leg, which required amputation, London Magistrates Court told CBS News on Wednesday. Gustavsson was also charged with making and distributing indecent images of a child.
Police said the charges against him relate to a total of 13 alleged victims.
Nine suspects have now appeared in courts in central London and Wales over the alleged six-year plot, which is said to have generated £200,000, or about $246,000, in proceeds for those involved.
Gustavsson appeared in court alongside Peter Waits, 65, and Romanian national Ion Ciucur, 28, both of whom allegedly took part in some of the incidents with Gustavsson. Nathan Arnold, 47, Damien Byrnes, 35, and Jacob Creamy-Appleby, 22, also appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
Arnold is accused of removing Gustavsson’s nipples, Byrnes is accused of removing his penis, and Creamy-Appleby is accused of freezing his leg so that it required amputation.
Three other men appeared in court in Newport, South Wales, accused of being involved in the same conspiracy. All nine were due to appear again at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales in London on April 19. Gustavsson has been taken into custody. None of the defendants had entered a plea to the charges as of Thursday.
In his 2022 interview with the Irish Independent, Gustavsson said he carried out the procedures in a “very professional way” using a castration tool called the Burdizo to “help others achieve their goals”. The devices are typically used more in livestock or in veterinary settings.
The Irish newspaper quoted Gustavsson’s neighbors in London as saying they saw several ambulances regularly stopping outside the property, which had a large black tent in its back garden.
A lawyer for Gustavson did not respond to several CBS News requests for comment.