French Police Arrest Yoga Guru Accused of Human Trafficking
Interpol Red Notice: Gregorian Bivolaru.
A total of 41 people, including Romanian yoga guru Gregorian Bivolaru, were arrested on Tuesday in a series of coordinated police raids in France.
Bivolaru is the guru of the Atman Yoga Federation, also known as the Movement for Spiritual Integration into the Absolute (MISA). French authorities are set to charge him with human trafficking, organised kidnapping and rape, as well as “organised abuse of weakness”.
French officials have reported that the operation, which involved 175 officers, was carried out in Paris as well as in Seine-et-Marne, Val-de-Marne, and the Alpes-Maritimes. It targeted locations where the organisation housed women set to be initiated into tantric yoga practices. French officials have said that the women housed in these locations were indoctrinated and coerced into sexual practices.
The French investigation began in July 2023, as former members of MISA reportedly approached authorities with allegations of psychological manipulation and sexual exploitation within the organisation. The Atman Yoga Federation, which has its headquarters in England, has long maintained that there is an international conspiracy against Bivolaru as well as against the school.
In late October, the group released a statement saying they were expecting a media campaign “planned by those ‘enemies’ of genuine spirituality, who are taking their machinations to a larger scale”.
The scope of the group’s alleged abuse goes well beyond French borders. Bivolaru, who founded MISA in 1990, is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice on behalf of Finland. The charges included five counts of “aggravated trafficking of human beings”. Bivolaru was also convicted in his native Romania for the sexual abuse of a minor in 2013, but fled the country upon his release.
