WP:

Six weeks after fleeing Guatemala with their mother, 14-year-old Yante Teller and her brother Chaim Teller, 12, stepped away from the house where they were staying in Woodridge,a small Catskill Mountains hamlet about 130 kilometres northwest of New York City. It was just before 3 a.m. on Dec. 8, 2018. A car was waiting to hurry them away.

Two days later, the New York State Police issued an alert about the missing children, noting that the Tellers were “not believed to be in any imminent danger” and were “believed to have traveled to New York City.”

But according to a series of federal indictments, the Tellers were actually headed for a much farther final destination: Mexico, where they’d be back inside the tight embrace of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect their mother had tried to escape. Within the cloistered group, Yante was already the wife of an older man.

Formed in Israel in the late 1980s, the Lev Tahor group sits on the extreme edge of the Jewish tradition; the 200 or so members have a white-knuckled embrace on an uncompromising interpretation of religious doctrine, one that allegedly includes child marriage.

Their strict practices have put them in conflict with authorities in four countries, prompting the members to hop the globe for safe haven. Recent court documents allege children in the group have been the targets of “physical, sexual and emotional abuse.” According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the country’s press has dubbed Lev Tahor the “Jewish Taliban.”

Three weeks after their disappearance, the children were discovered outside Mexico City by local authorities working with American law enforcement. According to a news release from the Justice Department, three male members of Lev Tahor — Nachman Helbrans, Mayer Rosner, and Jacob Rosner — were also arrested at the house and transported back to the United States. A fourth man, Aron Rosner, was arrested in New York City. All four were charged with kidnapping.

But Lev Tahor’s efforts to reclaim the children did not stop, according to allegations outlined in a new federal complaint filed last week. Federal authorities now say that a second plot to reclaim the children unfolded while members were behind bars. Last week, a fifth member of Lev Tahor, Matityau Moshe Malka, was arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap.

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