A 71-year-old Romanian yoga guru and 14 others were handed preliminary charges by a Paris magistrate on a raft of counts linked to an international ring that for years allegedly subjected followers seeking enlightenment to sexual exploitation.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said that six of the 15 people interrogated were ordered held on Friday, while nine others were freed but under judicial surveillance.
Gregorian Bivolaru was among two of the six handed a string of preliminary charges that included human trafficking in an organized band, kidnapping, sequestration or arbitrary detention of numerous people along with rape and “abusing the weakness of a group” via psychological or physical subjection. None of the 15 was named but a judicial source said that Bivolaru was among the two facing the longest list of charges.
A trimmed-down version of the preliminary charges were handed to the other suspects. An investigation will now determine whether the preliminary charges lead to a formal indictment and a trial.
The arrest this past week of Bivolaru and 40 others in the Paris region ended a six-year manhunt in several countries. The police unit that combats sect-related crimes freed 26 people described by authorities as sect victims who had been housed in deplorable conditions.
Accounts from alleged victims detailed in the French media portray Bivolaru as a guru who coerced women into sexual relationships under the guise of spiritual elevation in a career spanning decades and continents.
Hellbound and Down 