Guatemalan Officials Raid Compound of Jewish Sect and Remove 160 kids and 40 women [View all]

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Guatemalan Officials Raid Compound of Jewish Sect and Remove Dozens of Minors
The authorities said at least 160 children and teenagers might have been the victims of human trafficking and other crimes on a farm run by Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox sect.






Guatemalan officials raided a compound on Friday belonging to Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect with past links to child exploitation. Prosecutors said they had removed at least 160 children and teenagers from the site who they believed were the victims of human trafficking and other offenses.

A regional prosecutor, Dimas Jiménez y Jiménez, told reporters in a news conference that the authorities were considering charges including human trafficking, forced pregnancy, mistreatment of minors and rape.

“We suspect these crimes were committed by a member of the community,” Mr. Jiménez y Jiménez said.

Officials also said that a deputy commissioner of the National Civil Police, Manuel Salvador Aldana Monzón, was arrested on Friday night in relation to the case. He was arrested on charges of leaking confidential information to one of the leaders of Lev Tahor, they said, possibly acting as an informant about police operations.

The authorities had attempted to raid the community before, but they were always obstructed in some way, Lucrecia Prera, the head of the Attorney General’s Office for Children and Adolescents, said in an interview.

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The raid is the latest effort by Guatemalan authorities to investigate the reclusive Lev Tahor community, made up of about 500 members living on a farm surrounded by walls and a padlocked gate in the Santa Rosa department, close to Guatemala’s border with El Salvador.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/20/world/americas/guatemala-raid-ultra-orthodox-jewish-sect.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jU4.tF2a.2nalViTh34Um&smid=url-share