Keith Raniere, cult leader and co-founder of the NXIVM cult more than two decades ago, was arrested this week at a Mexican resort with several women and charged with sex trafficking.
Raniere purported to be a self-help guru, but he fled to Mexico last November after an investigation began to reveal a secret society within Nxivm in which Raniere allegedly coerced female followers into sex with him and branded them with his initials in the pelvic area, Fox News reported.
The society, called “Dominus Obsequious Sororium” or “Master Over the Slave Women,” was started in about 2015 and involved 15 to 20 women who had sex with Raniere and did chores for other men in Nxivm, the federal complaint stated, Fox News reported.
The women were threatened with the exposure of secrets and sexually explicit photos that they had to submit in order to get into the secret society if they did not have sex with Raniere, the complaint against him alleged.
Raniere claimed on the NXIVM website that he was not associated with the DOS society and that it was not part of NXIVM.
“I firmly support one’s right to freedom of expression, so what the sorority or any other social group chooses to do is not our business so long as there is no abuse,” Raniere wrote, according to The Washington Post.
Several high-profile people were involved with Nxivm, including Stephen Cooper, then-acting chief executive of Enron; Emiliano Salinas, son of a former Mexican president; and Clare Bronfman, the heiress to the Seagram’s liquor fortune, who court documents say is a major financial backer of Raniere, the Post reported.