The founder of the Movement for Spiritual Integration in the Absolute (MISA) Gregorian Bivolaru was arrested on Tuesday in France along with 40 other people suspected of having ties to an international organization that would commit acts of rape, kidnapping or human trafficking under the pretext of practicing yoga, writes France Press.

According to France 3, 175 police officers were mobilized throughout France on Tuesday for the operation, which is coordinated by the Central Office for the fight against violence against people.

As a result of the operation, 41 people were detained, suspected of having connections with an international sect accused of numerous abuses under the pretext of practicing yoga.

According to the quoted source, among those arrested is Gregorian Bivolaru, presented as a “71-year-old Romanian guru” and founder of the Movement of Spiritual Integration in the Absolute (MISA), which has become the Atman Yoga Federation, present in approximately thirty countries.

According to the newspaper Libération, twelve arrests were made in the Alpes-Maritimes.

The investigation into this case was opened by the Paris prosecutor’s office in July 2023 for crimes of abuse of power, kidnapping, rape or human trafficking.

A judicial source quoted by AFP said MISA, who became Atman, taught tantra yoga with the aim of “coercing victims into accepting sexual relations through mind manipulation techniques designed to eliminate any notion of consent”.

Grigorian Bivolaru, a prison in Romania

In 2013, Gregorian Bivolaru was sentenced by the Supreme Court of Cassation during a retrial to six years in prison by firing squad.

At the trial at the ICCJ, prosecutors showed that in the period from 2002 to March 2004, Gregorian Bivolaru, using the declared qualities of a “yoga teacher” and “spiritual mentor”, through abuse of power and keeping her in a state of slavery, “recruited, for the purpose of sexual exploitation, a minor, a yoga student , with whom he repeatedly committed sexual acts and sexual perversions, offering her various sums of money and other benefits.”

Also, according to the prosecutor’s office, Bivolaru involved Maria Mirona Farkasi, a yoga student, in sexual relations with a minor, providing the means of subsistence and listing other material benefits. Gregorian Bivolara was also accused of having sexual acts with two other minors between January and November 2000 and again in April 2003, using his role as a “spiritual mentor”.

Bivolar managed to escape from Romania, he was arrested on April 4, 2005 by the Swedish police in the city of Malmö. Later, the Swedish authorities granted him political asylum.

The MISA spiritual leader was then arrested in February 2016 in France. Gregorian Bivolara was brought to Romania in the summer of 2016 under escort after French judges decided he could be extradited. He was imprisoned, and in September 2017 he was released on parole by a decision of the Bystrytskyi court, which was not appealed.