Mexican police have arrested members of an extremist sect known as the “Jewish Taliban” on charges of human trafficking and “gross” sexual crimes, a newspaper reported.Haaretz“Israeli.
Mexican police raided a compound belonging to the “Lev Tahor” sect, last week, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday, and arrested two members of it on charges of human trafficking and sexual crimes.
The raid took place in the town of Tapachula, near Mexico’s southeastern border with Guatemala.
The newspaper stated that the police found 26 people in the complex in Mexico, who are of Israeli, Canadian, American, Guatemalan and other nationalities.
Menachem Mendel, an Israeli, and Yoel Rosner, a Canadian, were arrested, and if convicted, they might face up to 20 years in prison, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Two members of the sect are still at large, having escaped from the compound two days before the police raid.
The newspaper reported that in addition to the SWAT teams and members of the Mexican prosecution and government welfare system, Yisrael Amir, an Israeli who managed to escape from the sect several years ago, also participated in the raid.
And because a number of members of the sect refused to leave it and go to the Israeli consulate, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the ministry did not want to force them to leave Mexico, so it decided with the local authorities to keep them in social care homes until there was room to talk to them.
The ministry said that a “special Israeli team” accompanied the police, while the Israeli consul was “nearby” in order to ensure that members of the sect were treated well and that children were not separated from their mothers, AFP reported.
She added that during the operation a three-year-old boy was handed over to his father, who had fled the sect years earlier, and both arrived in Israel on Monday.
What is this sect?
Lev Tahour, which has regarding 230 members, moved from Canada to Mexico’s Guatemala in 2014, following allegations of child abuse, including forced marriage.
Reports stated that marriage between teenagers and members of the older sect is common, according to the newspaper, which stated that its members do not like technology and that they force women to reveal their faces only, and to wear loose black cloaks that cover them from head to toe.
In 2021, the US federal authorities issued an indictment once morest cult leaders of child exploitation and kidnapping. This coincided with reports that 12-year-old girls were forced to marry men within the sect.
In a press release last April, the US Department of Justice confirmed that young girls were forced to “have sex with their husbands, tell people outside Lev Tahor that they are not married, claim they are older and have their children at home rather than in hospitals, as part of a concealment of Mothers’ real ages.
“Haaretz” indicated that the sect had requested political asylum from the Iranian government, and indicated that “the sect denouncing Zionism declared in its request its loyalty and submission to the Supreme Leader and the government of the Islamic Republic, and asked for ‘asylum, protection and religious freedom for the families of its loyal members’.”