Russian cult leader linked to human and drug trafficking arrested in Argentina

Doctors at the hospital in Bariloche, a paradisiacal Argentinean city at the foot of the Patagonian Andes, were struck by the odd demeanor of a 22-year-old Russian woman who showed up at the emergency room ready to give birth. She was accompanied by two women, also Russian, who became very nervous when asked about their relationship. The pregnant woman did not speak and looked frightened. The doctors immediately reported a possible case of human trafficking. But there was much more to it than that. The police looked into the women and found ties to the Ashram Shambala sect, founded in the 1990s in Russia by Konstantin Rudnev. Rudnev was behind the pregnancy.

The police tracked Rudnev down thanks to the documents they came across following the hospital lead. They learned that he was about to travel with six Russian women to São Paulo, Brazil. Another man and six women — five Russians and one Mexican — were to join the group when they stopped over in Buenos Aires.

The police arrested all 14 in two simultaneous operations in the airports of Bariloche and Buenos Aires, over 1,000 miles away. About to be arrested, Rudnev tried to cut his own throat with a knife.

All 14 ended up in prison, accused of human and drug trafficking. The group was in possession of 130 cocaine pills, as well as a satellite phone, and $15,000 in cash. The investigators’ challenge now is to figure out what Rudnev was doing in Argentina.

Konstantin Rudnev is 57 and an engineer. In the mid-1980s, he enlisted in the Soviet Union’s military but ended up in a psychiatric hospital after a night on guard duty when he went berserk and started firing his assault rifle at random targets. In 1989, he returned to Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, and founded the Ashram Shambala sect. From then on, he described himself as an alien from the binary star of Sirius who held the secret of happiness through a mixture of Eastern religions, esotericism and shamanism. He summarized his thinking in the book The Way of the Madman, which became required reading for all cult members.

Rudnev’s followers donated their property to the group, abandoned their families and, in the case of women, gave their bodies to Rudnev in exchange for eternal salvation. Men, on the other hand, were to remain celibate. The recordings of the orgies in which he and his followers participated sold well and were a great source of income. At its peak, the sect had more than 20,000 followers and by the mid-1990s was operating in 18 regions of Russia, including the capital, Moscow. In 1999, Rudnev ended up in a mental institution again, but managed to escape. Five years later, he was arrested, but no one would testify against him.

In 2010, Novosibirsk police found a small bag of heroin in Rudnev’s trouser pocket. He then faced charges of “creating an association whose activities involve violence,” rape, and “preparing for the illegal sale of narcotics on a large scale.” It was also discovered that one of Rudnev’s strategies to control his followers involved food: in a pyramid structure, lower-ranking followers fed on the leftovers of those above them.

One man who managed to leave the sect revealed in an article published in the Russian press at the time that “one of the sect’s mottos and one of the guru’s favorite expressions is ‘eat less, jump more!’ There was indeed a lot of physical activity, but little food. My body began to wear out and I lost a lot of weight. I looked like a dystrophic alcoholic. I would literally walk and fall down.” In 2013, a court sentenced Rudnev to 11 years in prison; in 2021, Rudnev was released.

Rudnev came to the media’s attention again on October 9, 2024. Having settled in Montenegro, he was picked up in a luxury hotel in the city of Zabljak after guests complained of strange noises coming from several rooms. It turned out that Rudnev was using the hotel to record “ritual pornography,” as the police defined it. He disappeared again after that incident, until his arrest in Bariloche. He is now in prison, as are the women who accompanied him. Meanwhile, the justice system is trying to determine if Rudnev was the only criminal among the detainees, the rest being his victims. The young woman who gave birth has, however, been separated from the group along with her baby.

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