The Mexican government has arrested a leader of an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect in southern Mexico on charges of organized crime and human trafficking, the state and federal government said Tuesday.
Authorities also said an unknown number of women and girls had been removed from the premises of the Lev Tahor organization.
The organized crime workplace of the attorney general’s office led the weekend operation in the municipality of Tapachula, near Mexico’s border with Guatemala, said a federal official who insisted on speaking on condition of anonymity because he has no right to speak publicly about the case.
A state law enforcement officer, who is also not legal to speak publicly about the case, knew the arrested leader as Menachem Endel Alter of Jerusalem.
On Tuesday, Moshe Alter, Endel Alter’s brother, delivered food to about two dozen women and girls detained at a government shelter. He said the government also took away a 3-month-old baby whose mother is now at the shelter. He said he didn’t know where they had taken the baby.
At the door of the shelter, women and young people dressed in long white hooded dresses shouted at officials and banged on the perimeter wall to protest the arrests.
“They are illegally detained,” Nissan Malka, one of the protesters.
Moshe Alter said another type of the network also arrested over the weekend, but the government did not verify the timing of the arrest. Community members know him as Moshe Joseph Rosner.
Moshe Alter said the unrest stemmed from what he called a political-religious clash with former Lev Tahor members who are going to dismantle it.
Lev Tahor has had legal elsewhere.
Last November, two leaders of the organization were convicted of kidnapping and child sexual exploitation crimes in New York. They allegedly kidnapped two young men from their mother to bring back a 14-year-old woman to an illegal sex rendezvous with an adult man.
The sect will have members in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Israel.
The events took place on the Jewish New Year Rosh Hashanah, which ends Tuesday evening.
Top headlines via email, mornings of the week
Get the top Union-Tribune headlines in your inbox Monday through Friday mornings, adding the most sensitive news, local, sports, commercial, entertainment and opinion.
You may get promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Privacy PolicyTerms of UseSubscribe to our newsletters
Follow