Colombia said Monday it had sent 26 members of a fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox Jewish cult to the United States, where they are under investigation for alleged child sex abuse.
Authorities in the South American nation said the group included 17 children and nine adults from the Lev Tahor sect, who were detained during a Nov. 22 raid on a hotel in northwestern Colombia.
The group was then flown to New York, where the children were placed in the care of Child Protective Services pending a police investigation into the adults.
Lev Tahor, which has been described as the “Jewish Taliban,” was founded in Jerusalem in 1988 by the anti-Zionist Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Its members have moved from Israel to the United States and back, before relocating to Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, often fleeing child welfare agencies. They have also spent shorter periods in several Eastern European countries as well as Turkey.
The cult adheres to an extreme fundamentalist interpretation of Judaism, including requiring girls as young as three to wear head-to-toe black coverings.
Last year, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for a leader of Lev Tahor. Jonathan Emmanuel Cardona Castillo, 23, is wanted by Guatemala on charges including human trafficking, rape and abuse of minors, the international police organization said in a Red Notice.
