The UK Charity Commission said it would be asking “serious questions” of the World Wide Fund for Nature after BuzzFeed News revealed the organization has funded anti-poaching guards who have tortured and killed people in wildlife parks across Asia and Africa.

The regulator confirmed that the WWF had submitted a “serious incident report” in the wake of the revelations and said it would respond “as a matter of urgency”.

“The appalling atrocities and human rights abuses that have been alleged here are at odds with everything we associate with charity,” a spokesperson for the commission said in a statement.