In the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, in the geographical center of the capital of Argentina, the Buenos Aires Yoga School has been operating for more than 30 years.
It is a two-story house, immaculate white walls and a door with black bars.
Neighbors now say that they always saw "strange things" there.
The Argentine Justice arrested last Friday in 50 raids on 24 members of the school, including its founder, an 84-year-old notary named Juan Percowicz.
The group is accused of integrating a sect dedicated to recruiting and subjugating hundreds of people.
The victims, who came eager to achieve "the development of happiness", ended up deprived of their assets, subjected to servitude and even prostituted.
Percowicz is an old acquaintance of Argentine justice.
In 1993 he was charged with the same crimes that have now brought him to jail, but he came out clean.
His file went through three courts, thanks to the links that the leader had with local politicians and international human rights organizations.
The accusations against the Yoga School finally came to nothing.
Almost 30 years later, justice has once again fallen on Percowicz and his accomplices.
The leader is already an old man, who lives in a closed neighborhood on the outskirts of Buenos Aires and moves around in expensive cars.
When the police arrived at his house, he had almost two million pesos in his possession, in addition to silver coins and dollars.
He also has a prolific collection of old VHS videos with sadomasochistic sex scenes.
His accomplices are divided between Argentina and the United States, where the sect had a collection office.
The mechanism they used to deceive their victims was manual.
A top-down structure, collection systems disguised as "ontological" courses and an oiled machinery to keep the "students'" money.
At the top of the pyramid was Percowicz, who called himself "the angel" or "the teacher".
The leader was level seven of the organization, seconded by "apostles" (level six), "geniuses" (level five) and "students", level four.
For the "ordinary humans" the lower levels were left.
According to the accusation, the members of the highest levels were in charge of different undertakings that gave life and, above all, resources to the organization.
The recruitment of "students" was done in an "ontological coaching" school located in the center of Buenos Aires.
Once inside, the women were subjected to “geishado”, a euphemism for prostitution.
The victims were handed over for long periods to wealthy businessmen who paid for the services of the school.
The "students" obtained in exchange points to ascend in the scale of "the angel".
At the same time, the sect kept the money of the members of the school, who donated properties or made contributions of up to 10,000 dollars per month to promote "geniuses" or "apostles".
The most unruly were subjected to a "sleep cure", a cocktail of drugs that promised to cure all kinds of addictions and even AIDS.
The "patients" were recruited for the most part in the United States and sent to Buenos Aires for "treatment."
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