Days after 17 minors were rescued from the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect Lev Tahor in Yarumal, a municipality of 44,000 inhabitants in northern Colombia, the news continues to raise questions.

Journalists, investigators, and curious observers are wondering how 26 members of the group accused of child trafficking and abuse were able to enter the country, settle in a hotel, and reside there for a month before being detected by the authorities. They are also questioning whether the individuals were just passing through or planned to settle in Colombia, as they had done in the past in other Latin American countries. Since his founding in Jerusalem in 1988, Lev Tahor has been dogged by controversy. They have faced legal problems in virtually every country where their members have settled, mostly for child exploitation crimes. Their search for destinations where they can evade the authorities is, in part, what has defined their itinerant nature. Lev Tahor: More Than a Decade in Latin America. Colombia is the fourth Latin American country where Lev Tahor has been detected, after Guatemala, Mexico, and El Salvador.

Due to their nomadic lifestyle and isolation, it is difficult to quantify their exact number of members.

According to AFP, authorities estimate that the community is made up of around 50 families from the United States, Canada, Guatemala, and other countries.

They settled in Guatemala in 2013, shortly after being accused of child neglect by social services in Canada, where they had established themselves in a small town in the province of Quebec.

They had previously had legal problems in the United States, where they settled after their founding.

In the Central American country, the first reports of their presence came from the town of San Juan La Laguna, inhabited mainly by Mayan indigenous people.

After months of disagreements, The council of elders expelled the group, alleging that its members rejected the locals, refusing to speak to or mix with them. The sect then relocated to Guatemala City,where its headquarters were raided by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which was investigating cases of child abuse. In 2016, they moved to El Amatillo, Santa Rosa, a town 80 kilometers from Guatemala City. According to a 2019 BBC Mundo report, there were about 350 members living there at the time. Legal setbacks: The first news of Lev Tahor in Mexico came in 2017, when the Israeli press reported the death of the sect's founder, Shlomo Helbrans, allegedly while he was performing a religious ritual in a river in Chiapas. Five years later, in 2022, a Mexican police operation rescued a group. of minors at a group camp deep in the jungle, about 17 kilometers from the city of Tapachula, near Guatemala.

Two leaders of the sect were arrested and about twenty members rioted, protesting what they denounced as religious persecution against them, a common argument used by the sect's spokespeople.

Several escaped during the riot.

Perhaps the most publicized blow suffered by Lev Tahor came in December In June 2025, El Salvador extradited two men from Lev Tahor to Israel and Guatemala, after being detained. in January when they entered Salvadoran

As a result of recent legal setbacks, especially in Guatemala, Gloria Arriero, the director of Migration Colombia, revised downward the current number of members of the sect.

“A little over 90,” she told Caracol Radio, although without clarifying whether the figure corresponds to a regional or global statistic.

In addition to these Latin American countries, Lev Tahor has attempted to establish himself in recent years in Eastern European and Balkan nations, such as Romania, Turkey, and Macedonia, from where they were deported.

What Lev Tahor was looking for in Colombia

According to Gloria Arriero, speaking to Caracol Radio, the group planned to rent a farm in Colombia where they would settle and there “do what they have done in other regions of the world: a process to maintain their sect and for the young people to procreate.”

Arriero denounced that the young people They marry each other, “cousins,”From the age of 12 and 13," and that was what they intended to do near Yarumal.

Among the rescued minors were five Americans with Interpol yellow notices.

In total, seven families belonging to the sect reportedly entered the country on October 22 and 23.

Colombia's immigration authorities had received alerts from counterpart agencies against members of the sect for alleged crimes against minorities, including convictions of some leaders for kidnapping and child sexual exploitation.

They also had "indications that they could establish a new colony in Colombia to continue the crimes attributed to this religious community."

Arriero told Caracol Radio that, so far, the presence of Lev Tahor in other Colombian regions is unknown, although they are investigating.

No announcement has been made regarding the fate of the detected members, all of whom are foreign nationals.

Colombia, a potential location for isolation

Lev Tahor practices many of the customs of Hasidism, an orthodox and mystical branch of Judaism, but they are much stricter.

This, combined with their striking attire in a predominantly Catholic region, has hindered their settlement.

Marcos Peckel, professor of Diplomacy and International Relations and director of the Colombian Jewish community, clarifies that the sect has no connection whatsoever with his community and that it is “contrary to Jewish law and traditions.” we trust in the work of the authorities,” Peckel told BBC Mundo.

For decades, vast areas of Colombia have been isolated And remote areas have experienced a limited government presence that has been exploited by armed and criminal groups to establish illegal governance and control illicit profits. In recent years, these same characteristics have attracted foreign religious groups. Since 2016, Mennonite communities have expanded their presence in the country, purchasing tens of thousands of hectares, which has brought them into conflict with local communities and prompted investigations by the National Land Agency into the legality of their acquisitions. Various press reports speak of hundreds of families from this Christian religious group of European origin in Colombia, who have found a kind of promised land in this and other Latin American countries.