In November 2025, Colombian immigration authorities and army forces raided a hotel in Yarumal, Antioquia. Following a tip from a local shop owner, authorities found nine members of Lev Tahor, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect, with 17 minors. Originally founded in Israel during the late 1980s before moving around the globe, locals claim the members of Lev Tahor arrived in Colombia in October 2025 looking to rent a property to set up a community. The news of the arrest came as a surprise to the Colombian town, but it was not the first time Lev Tahor—or other cults from the Global North—had been uncovered overseas. In fact, a combination of low-capacity states in the Global South and ambiguity in cross-border prosecution create the perfect conditions for cults to export their teachings, leaving members isolated and vulnerable.
What constitutes a “cult” is fiercely debated, but prominent definitions often feature a personalist leader who uses manipulation tactics to isolate members from the outside world. When a cult employs religion in its structure or rhetoric, a fine line appears between balancing freedom of religion and tackling abuses that take place within these groups, creating a legal grey area that hinders regulation.
The liberal tenet of religious freedom provides a legal sanctuary through which plausibly well-meaning cults can devolve into reigns of terror, shielded under the guise of “sincerely held” religious beliefs and thus avoiding state intervention. Look to the case of the Peoples Temple, a cult that was founded in 1955 professing Christian, communist, and socialist values with a focus on racial equality. As the movement gained traction, it also began engaging in dubious behavior including “loyalty tests” that involved sleep deprivation and physical pain. Founder Jim Jones relied on his close relationship with former San Francisco mayor George Moscone to avoid investigation. It was not until these violations came to light in a New West magazine exposé that Jones fled to a tract of land in Guyana.
The United States is not the only country whose legal system turns a blind eye to cults. In 2014, Grace Road Church, a South Korean cult known for its ‘threshing floor’ practice, which entailed beating adherents to expel the Devil from their bodies, fled to Fiji after mainstream churches classified it as heretical. Curiously, the South Korean government—whose constitution guarantees religious freedom for all citizens—recorded no instances of scrutiny before this point.
While the circumstances prompting Peoples Temple, Grace Road Church, and Lev Tahor to flee to the Global South vary, all three groups share a trend of mounting human rights abuses upon exodus, enabled by weak or corrupt host country governments. In Guyana, Jones compelled his group to commit ‘revolutionary suicide.’ Authorities later found over 900 Peoples Temple members—some of whom were locals—dead from mass suicide. Prior to the massacre, the Guyanese government did not conduct any formal criminal or human rights investigations into the group, likely because Jones was politically shielded by close government partnerships.
In Fiji, Grace Road Church developed close ties with former dictator and prime minister Frank Bainimarama, establishing several businesses on the archipelago and employing over 300 Koreans and 100 locals. Bainimarama allegedly threatened the local Deuba tribe to drop complaints of land infringement. When the group’s founder was arrested in Seoul on charges of “enslaving” workers in Fiji, the Fijian government did not follow suit in pursuing a criminal investigation of its own.
Cult relocation abroad not only enables unobstructed criminal violations, but also complicates legal jurisdiction. In the case of Grace Road Church, though suspicion of abuse existed in Korea, the moment the cult left the country’s borders, Korean authorities could not reach them—let alone intervene once the group was backed by the Fijian government. In the case of Lev Tahor in Colombia, a lack of a local warrant limited the possibility of prosecution, leaving Colombian authorities to focus on expelling the cult rather than tackling underlying issues.
Escalating crises have fueled public fascination with cults. As individuals face increasingly complex realities, Raphael Aaron, director of Cult Consulting Australia, says that “cults provide simple answers.” But while these answers might offer temporary solace, they also invite profound risk. Elusive and hard to regulate, these groups not only endanger their own members when exported to countries with fewer regulations, but they can also harm local communities like the displaced native Fijians and Guyanese victims of mass suicide. Groups flee due to legal action only after they have been indicted on charges outside the realm of “religious deviance”—Lev Tahor only fled Canada for Guatemala after Canadian youth protection services launched child abuse investigations. These cases show a pattern where prevention is nearly impossible, as groups can only be prosecuted after a crime has already been committed.