In the name of the Lord: Sex-slavery ‘religious’ cult rooted out in Mexico

The cult, the “Defensores de Cristo” (“Defenders of Christ”), allegedly recruited women to have sex with a Spanish man who acted as the cult leader and claimed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.

The cult’s “defenders” were subjected to forced labor or sexual activities, including prostitution, according to Mexico’s National Immigration Institute that said it filed a complaint more than a year ago against the sect.

In a press release published on its website, the National Migration Institute said that it had arrested 24 cult members last week following a raid on a squalid house located near Nuevo Laredo, a city near the Texas border. Fourteen foreigners were among those detained: six Spaniards, two Brazilians, two from Bolivia, two Venezuelans, one Argentinean and one from Ecuador.

Officials released the name of only one of those involved, José Arenas Losanger Segovia, a Venezuelan identified as the leader of the organization, which “was characterized by its recruiting of people at the national level.”

The cult website labels Losanger as an “apostle” of the reincarnation of Christ. It states that a Spanish-born man named Ignacio Gonzalez de Arriba is the reincarnation of Jesus, and that he bears the physical similarities of the Christian figure.

Prosecutors are now trying to ascertain who were the victims, and who were the accusers in the “Defenders of Christ”. Set up in 2010, the group operated in the northern Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Coahuila and forced its members to pay “tithes,” with money or forced labor, according to the National Migration Institute.

(José Leveña Acebo, Metro World News in Monterrey, Mexico)