Placido Domingo ‘targeted by sex slave ring’
Opera star alleged to have visited fake yoga school in Argentina that recruited vulnerable young women
‘We’ve been trying for 30 years using these music [connections] and we still haven’t succeeded’
PLACIDO DOMINGO became embroiled in a new scandal after it was revealed he was targeted by an alleged international sex slave ring.
The “Buenos Aires Yoga School” operated in the Argentine capital for 30 years, recruiting vulnerable young women with a promise of “eternal happiness” and then sexually exploiting them, said Argentine prosecutors.
They said the group, which they privately called Cult Inc., was a criminal organisation involved in sex trafficking, money laundering and involuntary servitude. There were no yoga classes.
Former members alleged that women in it were called “geishas” and “slaves” and expected to have sex with guests at the 26-room school.
One former member, Pablo Salum, said children were made to watch orgies and themselves expected to have sex at the direction of the group’s leaders from as young an age as 11 or 12. He was brought into the sect by his mother aged eight.
Wealthy and powerful men were matched to women in the group’s “Geishado VIP” section.
Some of the women were sent to have sex in Uruguay and the United States, where the sect bought property in Las Vegas, according to prosecutors. The 84-year-old leader, Juan Percowicz, known as “The Angel” or “The Maestro”, and 18 others were arrested in raids last month.
Placido Domingo knew at least four leading members of the sect for years through music connections. Two of them were well-known pianists and composers who had performed in the US.
One former member of the group, only known by the alias “Carlos”, said he saw Domingo visit the school several times in the 1990s.
That included once as the guest of honour at a dinner party, where he sat with classical musicians who were among the leaders of the group.
Domingo, 81, was drawn into the scandal after Argentine authorities released recordings of a taped phone conversation featuring the voice of a man they identified as the tenor.
He appeared to be arranging a meeting at his hotel in Buenos Aires with Susana Mendelievich, a concert pianist, who prosecutors say was a sect leader in charge of the “Geishado VIP”. There was no evidence the meeting took place.
In a separate phone call Mendelievich discussed with another sect leader how they had tried for years, but unsuccessfully, to recruit Domingo.
El Pais, the Spanish newspaper, reported that she said in the call: “We’ve been trying for 30 years using these music [connections] and we still haven’t succeeded.”
Domingo has not been charged and is not being investigated. In the wake of the raids the tenor publicly distanced himself from the group.
Two years ago Domingo accepted “full responsibility” after being accused of sexual harassment.
An investigation into his behaviour was carried out by lawyers hired by the American Guild of Musical Artists.