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  • 29
    Jan
    2013
    5:15pm, EST

    Cult accused of grooming sex slaves for 'Christ' busted in Mexico

    By Mark Stevenson, The Associated Press

    Mexican officials broke up a bizarre cult that allegedly ran a sex-slavery ring among its followers on the U.S. border, authorities said Tuesday.

    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.


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    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 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.

    He quickly 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.

    But according to the Defenders of Christ website, he quickly 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.

    Myrna Garcia, and activist with the Support Network for Cult Victims who has worked with victims of the Defenders of Christ cult, 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. However, there could be some link; Gonzalez de Arriba first set up shop in the northern city of Torreon, which also has a strong Zeta's influence.

    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 clearly 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.

    208 comments

    Ya gotta love organized religion. Tax churches, mosques, and synagogues now!

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    Explore related topics: religion, human-trafficking, cult, featured, mind-control, sex-slave, defensores-de-cristo
  • 13
    Dec
    2012
    6:04am, EST

    Protests after shock verdict in Argentina sex slave trial

    Victor R. Caivano / AP

    A protester hurls a stone at police officers during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Dec. 12, 2012.

    Victor R. Caivano / AP

    Demonstrators and police officers clash during a protest against the acquittal of 13 people accused in the disappearance of a young woman in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2012.

    The Associated Press reports — The acquittal on Tuesday of 13 people accused in the disappearance of Marita Veron, a young woman who was allegedly kidnapped and forced into prostitution for "VIP clients," spread shock and outrage across Argentina on Wednesday, prompting street protests and calls by political leaders to impeach the three judges who delivered the verdict.

    Many called the ruling a setback for Argentina's efforts to combat sex trafficking, which began largely as a result of Susana Trimarco's one-woman, decade-long quest to find her missing daughter, Maria de los Angeles "Marita" Veron. Her attorneys said she would pursue appeals.

    Susana Trimarco via AP

    Susana Trimarco, right, poses with her daughter Marita Veron and her granddaughter Micaela, daughter of Marita, in 2002.

    Trimarco was a housewife who paid scant attention to the news until her daughter, Marita, disappeared. After getting little help from police, Trimarco launched her own investigation after receiving a tip that Marita may have been abducted and forced into sex slavery. Trimarco visited brothels seeking clues and the search took an additional goal: rescuing sex slaves and helping them start new lives. But years of searching haven't led Trimarco to Marita. Read the full story.

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    39 comments

    Actually the witness described Marita as having been forced to dye her hair blonde and to wear blue contacts.

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    Explore related topics: human-rights, protest, americas, argentina, crime, trafficking, world-news, sexual-politics, sex-slave, susana-trimarco, marita-veron
  • 17
    Apr
    2012
    9:46am, EDT

    German police rescue DJ from 'sex mad' woman's home

    By Reuters

    A Munich disc jockey held for five hours as a sex slave by a 47-year-old German woman said on Monday he would press charges of sexual coercion and deprivation of freedom against a woman he had met just a few hours earlier in a local pub. 

    The 43-year-old disc jockey named Dieter S. told Munich's T.Z. newspaper that he had to call police to rescue him from the woman's flat in Munich after she locked him inside, hid the key and forced him to have repeated sex with her. 


    "She was sex mad and there was no way out of the flat," Dieter said. He told the daily, which had also earlier published a police report about the incident, that he had consensual sex with the woman three times earlier that day on Easter Monday. 

     "I was having a beer at the pub after work and met this woman -- and we hit it off right away," Dieter said, referring to their meeting at a pub in Munich's Ludwigsvorstadt district. "She was quite attractive," he added. 

    But after the first consensual rounds, Dieter said he wanted to leave. He discovered she had locked the doors from the inside and hidden the key so he could not leave. He thought about trying to flee over the balcony but it was too high, he said. 

    "I realized I was trapped and had to keep going until she fell asleep," Dieter said. "So we had sex five more times." 

    As soon as the woman fell asleep, Dieter said he went out to the balcony and placed an emergency call to police on his cell phone. Police arrived 10 minutes later. 

    The woman unlocked the door to let the authorities in. She then promptly propositioned the officers, police said. 

    "She tried to persuade the police officers to join her in 'related activities' -- albeit unsuccessfully," Munich police wrote in a press release. 

    The woman was taken into custody and later released. She now faces charges of sexual coercion and deprivation of freedom.

     

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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    Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

    138 comments

    It has been reported by German media that the victim in this crime has not been able to achieve an erection since experiencing this horrific trauma. A team of physicians will be treating him with a new and promising drug known as coxafloppin. The lead physician Dr. Goothard Schlong said "we are hopi …

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