Peruvian police have rescued 19-year-old Patricia Aguilar, missing for more than a year and a half, from the hands of a doomsday sect in a remote jungle area.
Patricia Aguilar, two other women and five children were discovered in a hut in San Martín de Pangoa in the center of the country, Peruvian police announced on Thursday.
According to José Antonio Capa, head of the anti-trafficking police unit, sect leader Félix Steven Manrique considered himself an envoy of God and called himself “Prince of Gurdjeff.”
He managed to groom Aguilar and other women through a Facebook group he set up, painting himself as a messiah on a mission to repopulate the world and one who would save his followers from the apocalypse.
In fact Manrique ran a harem of women who submitted to him. He forced them to have sex and consume Ayahuasca, an indigenous drink that causes hallucinations and anxiety attacks.
Aguilar was found in an emaciated and unhygienic state, holding a one-month-old baby.
Initial investigations suggest it is hers and Manrique’s child.
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