Warning: This article contains graphic details and images, and discusses sexual misconduct.
In part one of a Newshub investigation, a thread was uncovered on an international shoe fetish site showing how Palmerston North Number One Shoes employee Malachai Wylie has allegedly been secretly taking candid photos of coworkers and customers then sniffing, spitting and ejaculating in their shoes.
He has since been arrested and charged with two counts of offensive behaviour and one of theft.
But this was just the tip of the iceberg - Newshub can now reveal other threads and social media pages dating back to his time as a high school student.
For the past half-decade, Wylie has allegedly been running a network of porn, fetish and Facebook pages, soliciting and posting images from as many as 250 teen girls - then posting their contact details to his followers.
And he isn't just believed to be an online predator. A Facebook post describes sexually attacking a passed-out teen girl: allegedly licking her feet, stealing her insoles and ejaculating on her face.
- Do you know more? Send an email in confidence to scottpalmer@tv3.co.nz or jenniekendrick@tv3.co.nz
Newshub contacted Wylie and asked him why he's been running these pages and targeting his coworkers.
Wylie responded by asking if the story could not be published, adding it would "destroy my life". He refused to answer Newshub's questions about his alleged actions.
Newshub also contacted both Number One Shoes and the Number One Shoes Palmerston North store about their employee - they both declined to comment.
In a thread on the shoe fetish site, Wylie's profile shared a Facebook page he's accused of running where he allegedly targets hundreds of young girls by using fake Facebook accounts.
"I ask these girls over Facebook asking them to send me photos of their shoes (they are unaware of the real purpose behind this)," his profile wrote on the thread.
These shoe pics - along with the names of victims, full-face photos, and underwear and bikini photos taken from their profiles - are then uploaded to the Facebook page.
Newshub understands most of the girls live in Wellington and Palmerston North, two places Wylie has lived, and are likely known to him.
This Facebook page was started in 2014, when Newshub understands Wylie was a student at St Patrick's College, Silverstream. Many of the early victims can be identified as Wellington region students by their school uniforms.
Since then, the page has gained nearly 1000 followers and posts regularly, amassing over 250 albums dedicated to different girls, each named after the separate victims. Given Wylie's profile states he has under a 20 percent success rate in gaining replies, this means he has potentially targeted over 1250 girls in the last seven years.
On the shoe fetish forum, his profile shared an example of the messages sent to victims, teaching other forum users how to dupe girls into providing photos of their shoes.
"I ask them if they would be willing to help for an 'art portfolio' I'm doing at school and tell them the art portfolio uses photos of their shoes to express the influence of brands on consumer behaviour."
Newshub spoke to one victim, who knew Wylie in real life, who confirmed she had been contacted by a girl's fake profile asking her for shoe photos for a uni project. These photos were then uploaded to the shoe fetish site and Facebook.
She described Wylie as "a bit weird" and "always interested in my shoes".
Since Newshub published part one, several other women have come forward to recount how they were contacted by a profile named 'Ella Brookes' who asked for shoe photos for a uni project.
Others were contacted by a 'Keiya Allan' profile, which also asked for shoe pictures for a school project.
The tangled worm of betrayal
By tracing Wylie's repeated use of the same usernames, and the sharing the same material between pages and platforms, Newshub has uncovered a web of activity.
Newshub believes Wylie is also responsible for a separate Facebook profile that used the aliases 'Zach Noble-Torn' and 'Josh Lewis'.
This profile dates back to 2015, and cross-posts and promotes material off the main Facebook page.
It had recently changed names again before it was deleted around the same time Wylie was arrested.
The 'Josh Lewis' account uploaded hundreds of photos of Kiwi teenagers taken off their real profiles, putting their real names to their photos and sometimes stating they are as young as 14. Wylie didn't respond to a request as to why he did it, only saying "these accusations are pretty overwhelming".
The photos are typical of high school girls: pulling 'duck faces', hugging best friends, showing off their costumes for school athletics days, and documenting bikini-clad beach outings.
One girl's modelling photo uploaded was taken from the Facebook of a professional Wellington-based photographer.
In another photo, two girls in school uniforms strike silly poses and was captioned: "School girls - who do you like more?"
A 2016 post gleefully relays stealing a girl's shoes, ejaculating into them, and returning them before she noticed they were missing.
The post also asks his followers what they'd like to do to the girls and their footwear. His fans go into disturbing detail about the acts they would perform on their shoes.
Disturbingly, these profiles have offered and provided followers contact details of victims they posted, raising fears these girls could be stalked, groomed or physically attacked by other individuals.
One man commented about "wanting" the girl in a photograph, begging to know where a victim lived so he could "go and get her".
This girl was just 14.
And the 'Josh Lewis' Facebook page says he has sexually attacked one victim in real life. In 2016 it uploaded a photo of a sleeping girl, describing how she was so drunk she didn't wake up when they allegedly licked her feet, stole her insoles and ejaculated on her face.
The twisted snake of deceit
Facebook isn't the only way Wylie is believed to show off his work. In addition to the shoe fetish site threads, he is believed to run multiple pornsite accounts, building up a substantial collection of illegal shoe and teen content.
Starting from 2016, the same photos posted to his Facebook pages were uploaded under one of his regular usernames to a porn site.
The first post in April 2016 offered up images of a girl now working as a teacher.
Then in May 2016 came a megathread where dozens of high school girls were posted and ranked on a 'slut scale' from 1-10.
"If you want contact details of any of the girls reply or PM me."
Then came the full Facebook name for another girl: "Facebook this slut! I would love to get her reaction!"
The most recent thread called was posted in April 2021, saying he's posting some "sexy girls from New Zealand".
"I know all of them," he adds.
The last post was the day before Wylie was arrested.
The Stench of Treachery
The full extent of Wylie's alleged offending still remains unclear - as do the identities of people who may have aided and abetted his depraved actions.
On the shoe fetish forum, his profile claimed he has been paying an "accomplice" to surreptitiously photograph and try on her friends' shoes. It seems he approached the woman for her help explicitly because she had access to women he wanted to target.
It's unknown how many other secret accounts and pages may be running, and some of the material posted may prove impossible to eradicate from the internet.
After material deemed too controversial even for Pornhub was deleted, other users on the shoe fetish site noted they had downloaded these videos, and offered to reshare them.
His alleged offending might still be ongoing if it wasn't for a German woman who recognised the location of his store and the name of a coworker from his posts. We asked her what she would like to result from the situation.
"I just want him to stop cumming in people's shoes! But with fetishes going that deep I think it's difficult to get people to change their behaviours," she says.
"I have the feeling that his victims not knowing what's going on is at least as important to him as the shoes - maybe the police charging him will scare him enough to stop."
A former coworker and alleged victim of Wylie told Newshub she hopes he's held responsible for what he's done.
"I've changed my whole look on Facebook, it's really sketchy now and anything could happen on there," she told Newshub.
"My trust in people has just gone down- especially since I knew him. It's really rough."
Police confirm Wylie has been arrested and the matter is now before the courts.
"A 23 year old man was arrested on 23/4/21 and charged with two counts of offensive behaviour and one of theft," a spokesperson told Newshub.
"He appeared in the Palmerston District Court on 29/4/21 and was remanded on bail to appear again in the same court on 25/5/21."
