Agents of the National Police and Customs Surveillance officials of the Tax Agency have arrested a psychologist and his wife who ran a company through which they promoted alleged psychological treatments. Specifically, they offered “heterosexualizing” therapies to reverse homosexuality, which they considered an illness. The arrests took place on December 16 on a large farm in a municipality in the province of Cáceres.
The detainees are accused of their alleged participation in crimes against public health, injuries, against sexual freedom, against workers’ rights, professional intrusion, coercion, against moral integrity, money laundering and illicit association.
In the operation, two searches were carried out: one at the detainees’ home, located on a large property in a municipality of Cáceres, and another at a location located in Madrid, where they carried out therapies one day a week. In addition, more than 100,000 euros in cash, different narcotic substances, as well as various computer and documentary material were confiscated.
The couple, under the protection of one of them’s degree in Psychology, carried out different pseudo psychotherapies despite the fact that they did not have authorizations for this purpose. To do this, “they used coercive manipulation techniques, with which they managed to subdue the will of the followers, ultimately victims of different criminal specialties, putting their physical and mental health at risk, who on many occasions abandoned conventional medical therapies. supported by scientific evidence, causing a risk to their health in addition to economic fraud,” says the National Police in a statement.
Likewise, it was common for detainees to provide different types of narcotic and psychoactive drugs during the development of pseudotherapies, “with the objective of inducing specific states of consciousness that lead to the introjection of the expected norms of social and individual behavior.”
Added to this is that they maintained hate speech regarding homosexuality and claimed that it was a disease that could be reversed. “His cure consisted of abstinence and forced sexual relations with the leader of the group,” details the police. For his part, the detained psychologist endorsed these foundations and “consented” to sexual relations with his wife.
The alleged sect had been developing this type of activities for more than 20 years, during which they had been gaining new followers, sometimes bringing together more than 50 people whom they isolated from their family, social and professional environment, urging them to dedicate themselves to the functions that they were ordered within the group and to follow its guidelines, reaching the point of exercising total control over them, to the point of not having the ability to discern where to live, what studies to pursue, and who to marry. Furthermore, the statement states, “the financial demands by the detainees were constant, without receiving any type of invoice or proof of payment in return, enriching themselves through allegedly illegal practices.” Researchers continue to analyze and collect economic and patrimonial information.
