Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced the arrest of Yoel Alter, a member of the ultra-Orthodox Lev Tahor sect, who is accused of trafficking minors for the purpose of forced marriages with other members of the group.
According to investigations conducted by the Mexican prosecutor’s office, Alter holds a senior rank within the cult.
A Mexican federal judge ordered his arrest back in 2022 for charges of organized crime and human trafficking.
Alter was arrested in Guatemala on January 24 based on a temporary arrest warrant for extradition at the request of Mexican authorities. On October 14, the defendant definitively lost his appeal against the extradition case.
Although authorities in both countries originally agreed that the transfer of the defendant would take place at Mexico City International Airport, the Attorney General’s Office stated in its announcement that the extradition occurred in Chiapas, a Mexican state that shares a border with Guatemala.
Guatemalan authorities claimed that the offenses attributed to Alter are punishable in both countries, the statute of limitations for which does not expire until 2052.
Lev Tahor activity in Guatemala
The extradition request was supported by evidence confirming Lev Tahor’s presence in Chiapas, where an “area of operation” was identified and previous arrests of leaders and rescues of minors were carried out.
According to reports in the Guatemalan media, on December 20, 2024, the country’s prosecutor’s office raided the cult’s headquarters in the Santa Rosa district, about 60 kilometers southeast of Guatemala City.
The operation led to the rescue of 160 children, after four minors fled the compound in mid-November 2024 and reported the allegedly abusive conditions.
In addition, last November, Colombian authorities rescued 17 minors who were staying with cult members in a hotel in Yarumal, Colombia. Five of the members, from the United States, Canada, and Guatemala, were issued Interpol warrants for the charges of parental kidnapping and human trafficking.
“Lev Tahor” was founded in 1988 in Jerusalem by Rabbi Shlomo Erez Helbrans.
It is a cult that practices an ultra-Orthodox version of Judaism characterized by strict rules, rigid dietary laws, anti-Zionist ideology, and dark, robe-like clothing. For more than two decades, the group has been accused of child abuse, pedophilia, kidnapping, and neglect.