09/15/2021 11:21 AM
Clarín.com
Society
Updated 09/15/2021 11:21 AM
The facade was a yoga center.
From there, they captured those who came in search of improving their quality of life.
They detected the most vulnerable and made them enter a spiral of physical and emotional submission.
The abuses lasted decades, and today four people are being tried in Mar del Plata, accused of
leading a sect
that exploited more than 30 people sexually and labor.
The crimes of which Silvia Caposiello, Sinecio de Jesús Coronado Acurero, Luis Antonio Fanesi and Fernando Velázquez are accused include, in addition to human trafficking, the alteration of children's documents and resistance to authority, when the Federal Justice ordered a series of raids on their facilities in 2018.
In the raids, they also found an arsenal.
The trial began this week in the Federal Oral Criminal Court, which is
trying them
for the crime of
human trafficking against 32 victims
.
The organization's leader, Eduardo Nicosia, is not on trial because he passed away earlier this year.
The events for which they are accused occurred between "the early 1970s and from 2005 until the July 3, 2018 raid in Mar del Plata," according to the Public Prosecutor's Office.
According to the details of the prosecution's accusation,
the organization operated from the City Hotel
, located at Diagonal Alberdi 2561, in the heart of Mar del Plata.
"Nicosia and her consorts used a
process of psychological coercion and isolation
of the victims, typical of sectarian organizations, generated from the
psychological manipulation
that was imposed on them," said the prosecution.
According to the victims' accounts taken during the investigation,
Nicosia would have had at least 15 sons and daughters
, 13 of them with six different mothers and the others with two of their biological daughters, and except for one case, the minors were registered as biological children of other members of the congregation, instigated by the leader himself.
Nicosia, who died in January and was dismissed by the court on April 20, "turned out to be the founder of the congregation,
a kind of spiritual guide
, main administrator and organizer of criminal activity," and "had complete control over lives and actions "of the victims," who were compelled to part with their property or belongings in favor of the congregation. "
According to the prosecution, Capossiello "controlled the victims in the absence of Nicosia and was in charge of the cooperative that manages the hotel complex," while Coronado Acurero "collaborated in the illegal activities investigated."
Fanesi, for his part, is accused of having belonged to the organization, "at least, since 1973 and participated in
control over the victims,
" and "in recent years, this function was fulfilled as a receptionist at the City Hotel."
Velázquez, meanwhile, was charged with intervening in his capacity as a psychologist and yoga instructor, giving lectures "from which he had personal talks with some of the people who attended,
detecting their vulnerabilities
and reporting afterwards. to Nicosia, in order to achieve their recruitment. "
ACE
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