Three Americans and one Canadian, members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, were arrested in Guatemala on charges of child abuse and mistreatment, police and prosecutors reported this Wednesday. “They are members of the Lev Tahor Jewish community, the arrest warrants were issued by a Guatemalan court, [and] they also had an Interpol red notice” since last January, the Police said in a statement, after specifying that they were arrested on Tuesday night.
The Lev Tahor sect, which practices an ultra-Orthodox version of Judaism, has been under investigation for months in Guatemala for alleged sexual abuse of minors. The Americans Nissen Yehuda Malka, 27, and Yoel Goldman, 26, were arrested in the capital. Meanwhile, American Chaim Malka (24) and Canadian Dinkel Avrohom (33) were handed over by Belizean authorities to Guatemala “after attempting to enter that country irregularly,” the prosecution said.
Three of them are accused of “mistreatment against minors,” while Chaim Malka faces charges for “human trafficking in the form of forced or servile pregnancy.” On January 30, Guatemalan authorities captured two Americans from the sect, including one of the leaders, accused of forcing marriages between minors.
A week earlier, police arrested an Israeli also a member of the sect at Mexico’s request, which was seeking him for human trafficking. In December, authorities raided a property belonging to this religious group in the municipality of Oratorio (southeast) and rescued 160 children, who have since remained under state protection.
The sect was formed in the 1980s and its members settled in Guatemala in 2013. It has had conflicts with authorities in Mexico and Canada. Guatemalan authorities estimate that the group consists of about 50 families from Guatemala, the United States, and Canada.
