Guatemalan Officials Raid Compound of Jewish Sect and Remove Dozens of Minors

Guatemalan officials raided a compound on Friday belonging to Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect with past links to child exploitation. Prosecutors said they had removed at least 160 children and teenagers from the site who they believe were the victims of human trafficking and other offenses.

No arrests were made, officials told reporters in a news conference, but a regional prosecutor, Dimas Jiménez y Jiménez, said that the authorities were considering charges including human trafficking, forced pregnancy, mistreatment of minors and rape.

“We suspect these crimes were committed by a member of the community,” Mr. Jiménez y Jiménez said. His colleague, the special prosecutor against human trafficking, Nancy Lorena Paiz García, added that officers also found bodies that had been buried on the premises. The authorities say that they have no information that the sect has used the local cemeteries, but have been made aware of possible deaths of minors that must be investigated.

Friday’s raid took place after four non-Guatemalan minors ran away from the community in November and alerted the authorities. From their statements and evidence available to officials, including medical examinations, “we could establish that these minors have indeed experienced forms of human trafficking,” Ms. Paiz García told reporters.

A group of nearly 480 police officers, soldiers, prosecutors and psychologists showed up at the gated community early on Friday to secure and remove the minors, officials said. Agents also seized electronic devices, including computers and cellphones, searched for any evidence of child pornography and explored the area with dogs to detect buried human remains.

The raid is the latest effort by Guatemalan authorities to investigate the reclusive Lev Tahor community, made up of about 500 members living on a farm surrounded by walls and a padlocked gate in the Santa Rosa department, close to Guatemala’s border with Mexico.