Well, here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write:  Famed opera singer Placido Domingo was being recruited with a criminal money-laundering yoga sex cult in Argentina that police just broke up.  Yep, that’s the story, according to the Associated Press.  Nothing to see here.  Move along.

Okay, if you insist on more details:  a popular high-end yoga school in Buenos Aires operated as a front of an organized crime operation involving sex trafficking, money-laundering, involuntary servitude and illegally practicing medicine.  How do we know it was a front?  Because the studio, the Buenos Aires Yoga School, doesn’t actually teach yoga.  It holds no classes whatsoever.

The leaders of the school/cult recruited members with promises of eternal happiness before exploiting them financially and sexually.  The victims were then made available to high-profile VIPs, with the most sought-after victims being called “Geishado VIP,” or geishas for VIPs.  The group sent women to clients in the United States and Uruguay, particularly to men in exchange for money, or in some cases, legal assistance to avoid questions. 

The allegations are horrific:  children forced to watch sexual activity, then forced to participate at the age of 12 or 13.  Members of all ages were shopped out for sex; other were forced to do menial labor around the group’s compounds and the residences of VIP members and leaders.

A police wire tap recorded the group’s leaders talking about recruiting new VIP members, putting the 81-year-old Domingo near the top of the list.  Members talked about taking Domingo to “the museum,” the code named they used to refer to the floor of their compound used for sexual liaisons.  Domingo denies being a member of the group.

Police have arrested at least 17 leaders of the group, and they’ve identified offices the group ran in both the United States and Uruguay, but Argentinian officials have not ruled out a much larger operation.