Russian cult leader Konstantin Rudnev, who has already been convicted of sexual abuse, was arrested in the city of Bariloche, in Agentina on charges of human trafficking
A Russian cult leader who claimed he would rape his female followers has been detained in Argentina.
Konstantin Rudnev, already convicted of sexual abuse in Russia, was arrested in the city of Bariloche, on charges of human trafficking. Local media reports that he was stopped along with 13 others. Video footage shows him being arrested, with the police also detaining a number of women.
They can be seen being placed in handcuffs and forcibly taken away. Rudnev was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Siberia in August 2013, after being accused of raping his female followers. The leader of his own sect, Ashram Shambala, founded in the late 1980s in Novosibirsk, he called himself the “Great Shaman Shri Dzhnan Avatar Muni.”
He amassed about 20,000 fanatical followers all over the country, with branches in various parts of the former Soviet Union. He reportedly claimed to be a god from the star Sirius, an alien with mystical powers, and led orgies, amid a mix of yoga and esotericism.
His female disciples danced naked around him in bizarre videos that were leaked to the press. The sect’s strategies reportedly followed a pattern that many cults follow to gain new followers, including breaking down members psychologically, forcing them to sell their possessions and making them hand over their money.
Rudnev, a former military officer, was arrested in 2010 with a small bag of heroin in his pocket and was later convicted. Now, some 12 years after his conviction, Rudnev is being held over a disturbing human trafficking case.
When he was arrested, he reportedly tried to cut his throat with a razor. One photograph shows him with a bandage around his neck. He was arrested Friday night at Bariloche Airport while boarding a flight to Buenos Aires with a connecting flight out of Argentina to Porto Alegre, in Brazil.
The authorities have not yet released further details regarding Rudnev’s arrest but the investigation reportedly centres around a pregnant woman, possibly a minor, who was linked to Rudnev and was noticed visiting a hospital in Argentina several times, accompanied by his followers. It is currently unclear if he is the father of the young woman’s baby.
The investigation is ongoing.