BUENOS AIRES (AP) — An Argentina-based yoga group sexually exploited weak girls it known as “geishas” to get cash and affect from rich and highly effective males all over the world, together with opera star Placido Domingo, who knew the group’s leaders for greater than twenty years, based on interviews with former members and native authorities.
A sprawling investigation into the sect-like Buenos Aires Yoga Faculty, which operated for greater than 30 years in Argentina’s capital, has uncovered what authorities are calling a legal group concerned in intercourse trafficking, cash laundering, involuntary servitude, unlawful observe of medication and different crimes. Nineteen members have been arrested within the investigation that reaches into the U.S., the place six extra suspects are sought.
Regardless of its title, the varsity didn’t supply yoga courses. Leaders are accused of preying on individuals to affix its ranks with guarantees of everlasting happiness after which exploiting them sexually and financially, based on charging paperwork.
Former members of the varsity and officers investigating the case advised The Related Press that the group pressured feminine members to work as “geishas” who had been assigned to make company really feel welcome on the faculty, with intercourse a part of the expectations. Influential or rich males had been matched up with members of the “Geishado VIP,” considered one of many teams of girls that had been pressured to have sexual encounters in alternate for cash and affect that benefited sect leaders, based on the charging paperwork. A few of the girls had been despatched to america and Uruguay to have intercourse with males, a observe that amounted to slavery, authorities mentioned.
Former member Pablo Salum mentioned his mom and sister had been among the many girls exploited in Argentina, and described orgies and sexual abuse of youngsters.
“While you reached 11 or 12 years outdated, the chief advised you who you needed to have sexual relations with,” he mentioned, including that youthful kids had been made to observe sexual exercise. Salum says he was introduced into the group by his mom at age 8 and left at 14. His accusations helped spark the present investigation.
Some members of the group had been lowered to “a state of affairs of slavery,” pressured to have sexual encounters and tasked with menial chores on the faculty like cleansing and cooking, based on the investigative paperwork and a police official. Female and male “slaves” had been required to comply with directions with out asking any questions, mentioned a former member named Carlos, who requested to be recognized solely by his first title as a result of he left the group a few years in the past and couldn’t verify particulars from the present investigation.
Domingo discovered himself embroiled within the scandal after legislation enforcement officers carried out dozens of raids in Buenos Aires in August concentrating on the varsity. The famed tenor was “a client of prostitution” however isn’t accused of a criminal offense as a result of prostitution is authorized in Argentina, mentioned a legislation enforcement supply in Argentina who, like different police and judicial sources in Buenos Aires, spoke to the AP on situation of anonymity as a result of the investigation is ongoing.
Authorities launched wiretapped telephone conversations from earlier this 12 months by which a person they recognized as Domingo seems to be arranging a sexual meetup at his lodge in April in Buenos Aires with Susana Mendelievich, a live performance pianist who prosecutors say was a sect chief in command of the “Geishado VIP.”
In one of many wiretaps, Mendelievich talks with one other sect chief about how the group had tried unsuccessfully for years to make use of its music connections to recruit Domingo into the group nevertheless it was value attempting once more whereas he was in Buenos Aires in April for a sequence of live shows. In one other wiretap, Mendelievich asks sect chief Juan Percowicz if she will take Domingo to “the museum,” the moniker used to check with the highest flooring of their 10-story constructing the place influential males had intercourse with group members. Mendelievich, 75, and Percowicz, 84, had been detained within the raids in August; each had been launched this week to deal with arrest.
Domingo has publicly tried to distance himself from the group, which allegedly had a number of places of work in america.
“After all, I’ve nothing to do with that,” Domingo, 81, mentioned final week in reference to the group’s allegedly unlawful actions. In feedback to a tv station in Mexico, the place he was performing, Domingo didn’t deny he was the person within the wiretapped recordings however mentioned he felt betrayed by musicians he had thought of to be mates. “It makes me unhappy while you’ve had mates for a few years and also you understand you’ve gotten been used.”
Domingo has not responded to quite a few requests by means of his representatives for an interview or remark from the AP.
In 2019, quite a few girls advised the AP they had been sexually harassed by Domingo, thought of one of many biggest opera singers of all time. Greater than 20 girls got here ahead to accuse Domingo of inappropriate and sexually charged conduct that included groping and different undesirable touching, persistent late-night telephone calls, stalking them in dressing rooms and pressuring them into sexual relationships by providing development within the opera world. A number of of the ladies mentioned he punished them professionally once they refused his advances.
The Spanish opera singer denied wrongdoing on the time, and he mentioned it pained him to suppose he made girls uncomfortable. Investigations by the American Guild of Musical Artists and the Los Angeles Opera, the place Domingo had served as common director, discovered sexual harassment allegations in opposition to him to be credible. The allegations and subsequent findings halted Domingo’s profession in america, although he nonetheless performs in different elements of the world.
The revelations out of Argentina have once more introduced undesirable consideration to the opera star.
The promoter of a live performance in neighboring Chile introduced final week {that a} Domingo live performance scheduled for Oct. 16 at an area within the capital, Santiago, was canceled, though the group mentioned it was on account of logistical causes.
Authorities haven’t launched the names of different highly effective males they are saying the group allegedly focused. However investigators say they’re poring over arduous drives and “packing containers and packing containers” of erotic pictures and videotapes seized within the raids. Judicial officers say that many sexual encounters organized by the group occurred at its Buenos Aires faculty and had been videotaped.
Carlos advised the AP that he noticed Domingo go to the varsity a number of occasions within the Nineteen Nineties, together with as soon as because the visitor of honor at a cocktail party inside the varsity. Carlos mentioned he was a waiter on the social gathering, held in Domingo’s honor, the place the singer made a beneficiant supply on the finish of the night to fly a number of of the group’s leaders with him to Europe on an upcoming journey.
“On the dinner Placido Domingo mentioned ‘let’s all go to Europe’,” mentioned Carlos, who left the group after 10 years in 1999. “He was inviting all of them, the entire desk, to Europe.”
At Domingo’s desk had been classical musicians who police say had been a part of the group’s management: Rubén D’Artagnan González, Verónica Iacono and Mendelievich amongst others, based on Carlos who mentioned it was frequent information on the faculty that the three accompanied Domingo on his journey.
González, who died in 2018, served as concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1986 till 1996 and is accused of enjoying a key position within the group’s U.S. operations. Iacono was a New York-based soprano, who used the stage title “Loiacono,” and is the topic of a global arrest warrant. One other alleged chief named Mariano Krawczyk, was an oboist who goes by the inventive title Mariano Krauz.
The extent of Domingo’s skilled or private ties to the musicians within the group will not be identified, and he has declined touch upon that. However Domingo has carried out with a number of of the individuals who’ve been arrested, together with at a 1996 live performance that featured the three he allegedly invited to Europe and Krawczyk.
Throughout that Buenos Aires live performance, Domingo and Iacono sang a portion of “Marked Playing cards” an opera that Iacono, Mendelievich, González and Krawczyk wrote collectively based mostly on a e book by Percowicz, the founder and chief of the Buenos Aires Yoga Faculty.
Sexual encounters had been touted to members as a type of “therapeutic” and supplied a path to scaling the seven ranges of the varsity’s strict hierarchy that had Percowicz on the high, based on charging paperwork.
Former members interviewed by AP say Percowicz was generally known as “El Maestro.” Others ranked on the seventh stage had been Iacono, Krawczyk and Mendelievich, based on prosecutors’ paperwork. A judicial supply says she has seen paperwork that present González was at a high stage of the group earlier than he died. Krawczyk was amongst these arrested.
To advance shortly, members may additionally donate cash and signal over property. The group had revenues of round half one million {dollars} per 30 days, based on a judicial official.
Cult members included legal professionals and accountants who suggested leaders on a posh cash laundering community that included beginning companies and shopping for actual property in Argentina and america, the investigative paperwork mentioned.
Members additionally allegedly bought medical remedies for a number of illnesses, together with AIDS and drug habit, that concerned “sleep cures,” which basically meant giving individuals medicine to assist them sleep for days at a time. Authorities say the pseudo medical remedies had been additionally achieved in america, the place the group’s clinic CMI Abasto, had subsidiaries.
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Related Press Author Olga R. Rodriguez contributed from San Francisco.
