Warning: This article contains discussion of child abuse which some readers may find distressing.
A survivor of a cult helped police to crack down on a group in Buenos Aires.
After more than 50 raids were conducted in the Argentinian capital in 2022, Pablo Salum became a hero.
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Salum is believed to have been the first child taken in by the cult when he was just eight years of age after his mother visited the group for help with a health condition.
He shared that at first, the sect was a school of philosophy and new age culture, but that it began to grow into a much larger operation pretty quickly.
Salum told Argentian outlet TN: “The first meeting we went to, we were four people, I was the first child to be caught. Then it grew rapidly and we were more than a thousand people."
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He added: “I went from having a beautiful family, I went to having nothing. They left us totally destroyed.”
Salum became the first person to escape and tell all about the ‘Escuela de Yoga’ or ‘Yoga School’ sect and filed his first official complaints between 1991 and 1992.
Shockingly, nothing came of his revelations.
TN reported that the group trafficked people and coerced them into servitude.
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He continued: “Juan Percovich and his son Marcelo Guerra, in charge of the organization, captured politicians, celebrities, human rights people, which is proven in the previous case, exchanged sexual favours with people from the organization, including my mother and my sister."
But that’s not the worst of it as he claimed that children were ‘forced to have sexual relations with adults and with their own parents’.
According to the investigation, the cult brought people in by offering treatment to make money while also sharing a philosophy of ending the ‘evils of AIDs and drugs’ and ‘the development of happiness’.
Authorities managed to seize pornographic material, jewellery and medicines from the raid.
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TN reported that leaders were able to generate further income in foreign currency to launder it through property and vehicle purchases.
Vía País reported that 24 people were arrested in the raids in Villa Crespo, writing: "More than a million dollars, almost 2 million pesos, pounds sterling, euros, pornographic material, sex toys, property titles and a Ford Bronco truck were seized in an operation that took place at the Villa Crespo headquarters, in the neighbourhoods of Belgrano and Flores, a country in the North Zone and also in the Ezeiza International Airport."
If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence regarding the welfare of a child, the Childhelp USA National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-4-A-CHILD (1-800-422-4453) operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, US Virgin Islands, Guam and Puerto Rico.
Topics: Crime, True crime, Travel, Police