The "Defensores de Cristo" or "Defenders
of Christ" cult allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man
who claimed he was the reincarnation of Christ. Followers were subjected to
forced labor or sexual services, including prostitution, according to a victims'
advocacy group that said it filed a complaint more than a year ago about the
cult.
Federal police, agents of Mexico's National Immigration Institute and
prosecutors raided a house earlier this week near Nuevo
Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas,
and found cult members, including children, living in filthy conditions.
The institute said 14
foreigners were detained in the raid and have been turned over to prosecutors, pending
possible charges.
Those detained include six Spaniards, and two
people each from Brazil, Bolivia and Venezuela. One person from Argentina and one from Ecuador were
also detained. Spain's
Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed its citizens were among those arrested.
The institute said 10
Mexicans were also found at the house, mainly women, and are presumably among
the victims of the cult.
The Attorney General's Office said the
investigation was still under way as to what charges, if any, might apply in
the case. Given the binds of sect loyalty that had been built over an estimated
three years, prosecutors were still trying to work out which of the detainees
may be considered victims, and which were abusers.
The institute said the sect's leaders made members
pay "tithes," with money or forced labor.
An official of the immigration institute who was
not authorized to be quoted by name said that women were recruited to the sect
and then were forced to have sex with sect elders; the official described it as
a form of human trafficking that included prostitution.
Spaniard Ignacio Gonzalez de Arriba set up shop in
Mexico about three years ago,
after a stint in Brazil and
other parts of South America, said Myrna
Garcia, an activist with the Support Network for Cult Victims who has worked
with victims of the Defenders of Christ cult.
He became involved in offering courses on "bio-programming,"
an esoteric practice that claims to allow practicants to "reprogram" their
brains to eliminate pain, suffering and anxiety, according to immigration
institute.
Gonzalez de Arriba or other detainees could not be
reached for comment on Tuesday. A number listed in an advertisement for the "bio-programming"
courses was disconnected.
But according to the Defenders of Christ website, he
moved on to claim that he was Jesus Christ reincarnated.
Photos of Gonzalez de Arriba are juxtaposed with a
painting of Christ, purportedly showing how the Spaniards eyebrows, nose and
mouth are "exactly like" those of Christ.
Garcia said Gonzalez de Arriba "mixed bio-programming,
Christian and New Age doctrines and fears about the end of the world ... to
control followers, to keep them terrorized."
"He made them believe he was Christ," said Garcia, whose group filed a
complaint with Mexican authorities about the cult's abuses about one year ago.
"Like Christ, they have to adore him, if not they will lose their souls ...
they have to give their lives for him."
"There were women who were forced into prostitution," Garcia noted.
"It was a form of human trafficking that was extraordinarily effect from
the criminal point of view," she said, because the women were terrified of
being separated from the sect.
How the cult managed to thrive in an area of Mexico that is
tightly controlled by the violent Zetas drug cartel remains a mystery.
The immigration institute said in a press release
that the Defenders of Christ was headed by Venezuelan citizen Jose Arenas Losanger
Segovia, but according to Garcia and the cult's website, he was a lieutenant of
Gonzalez de Arriba.
The Interior Department said the Defenders of
Christ had not registered as a religious group, as required under Mexican law. Garcia
said cells of the cult might still be active in Peru
and Argentina.
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