Ben Axelson
NYup.comTue, 27 Mar 2018 16:47 UTC
© Patrick DodsonKeith Raniere, founder of NXIVM
The leader of a secretive Capital Region organization that allegedly brands women and has been called an "extreme cult" has been arrested by the FBI, the
Albany Times Union reported on Monday.
Keith Raniere, co-founder of the NXIVM corporation in Colonie, has been charged with sex trafficking and forced labor. A
victim claimed she was branded with Raniere's initials and blackmailed by the group in a New York Times expose earlier in March.
According to a federal complaint, Raniere, known by his followers as "The Vanguard," coerced women into joining a slave-master club by threatening to reveal ruinous information about the slave or someone close to her. Such information included sexually explicit photographs and damning videos and letters.Raniere describes the group as a private sorority on the NXIVM website, and followers insist that it is a self-help organization and not a cult.
However, emails from Raniere's Yahoo account indicate he did create the group and had female slaves assigned directly to him, according to the
Times Union.
Several women provided testimony in the investigation, claiming they were lured to a secret club that required them to consent to being branded with Raniere's initials.
Raniere is expected to appear on charges in Texas on Tuesday. A person briefed on the investigation told the
Times Union that the federal complaint does not include all the charges that are being examined by the U.S. attorney's office.
Raniere, who has three degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, was also the founder of Consumers' Buyline Inc., a buying club business investigated for being a pyramid scheme.
Comment: A
separate article provides more details surrounding his arrest. Apparently the cult leader fled to Mexico with a number of women in November once he became aware of the federal investigation. Once there, he stopped using a cellphone and only communicated through encrypted email. He was taken into custody by Mexican federal police who tracked him down staying at a posh $10k/week villa. The article describes the federal complaint:
The federal criminal complaint accuses Raniere of forming a group within NXIVM in which women said they were coerced into joining a slave-master club. The women, some of whom said they were pressured to have sex with Raniere, told federal authorities that a female doctor associated with NXIVM used a cauterizing iron to brand them with a design on their lower abdomen that contained the initials of Raniere and Allison Mack, an actress and NXIVM associate who is listed in the complaint as an unnamed co-conspirator.
The feds also raided the house of NXIVM's co-founder and president, Nancy Salzman, in upstate New York. That makes it likely the FBI investigation is looking at the organization as a whole and isn't stopping with the arrest of Raniere. NXIVM is alleged to be involved in shady brain research activities, which the NY Attorney General is investigating and has led to a NY Supreme Court justice to demand all documents related to its human studies and research to be turned over. For more on Raniere and NXIVM, see:
Comment: A separate article provides more details surrounding his arrest. Apparently the cult leader fled to Mexico with a number of women in November once he became aware of the federal investigation. Once there, he stopped using a cellphone and only communicated through encrypted email. He was taken into custody by Mexican federal police who tracked him down staying at a posh $10k/week villa. The article describes the federal complaint: The feds also raided the house of NXIVM's co-founder and president, Nancy Salzman, in upstate New York. That makes it likely the FBI investigation is looking at the organization as a whole and isn't stopping with the arrest of Raniere. NXIVM is alleged to be involved in shady brain research activities, which the NY Attorney General is investigating and has led to a NY Supreme Court justice to demand all documents related to its human studies and research to be turned over. For more on Raniere and NXIVM, see: