The week of 8–14 June carried cult and high-control-group stories across Europe and the UK: Sweden's Maniac Murder Cult terror trial and a 764-linked arson case; modern slavery on Scottish trawlers; polygamous-family and guru abuse trials in France; Argentina's Ashram Shambala leader losing house arrest; German reporting on Kwasizabantu beatings; Switzerland's infoSekta logging record counselling demand; Austrian singer Michelle's turn to spiritual healing; Presbyterian safeguarding failures in Belfast; a Cornwall TEDx pitch on AI and coercive control; Portuguese yoga schools disputing cult coverage; conspiracy chatter around Marina Abramovic; and Pope Leo XIV warning young Spaniards against a “cult of self-image.” Summaries draw on monitored European and UK outlets; full source links follow.

Swedish MKY terror trial opens as FBI testifies on violent cult networks

Trial opened on 9 June at Attunda District Court in a secure courtroom against a 20-year-old man accused of trying to build a Swedish offshoot of Maniac Murder Cult (MKY), the neo-Nazi violent cult rooted in Russia and Ukraine. Europol testified on Tuesday that violence is central to MKY ideology: members romanticise terrorists and aim to destroy society before rebuilding it. The FBI also gave evidence behind closed doors. Prosecutor Lars Hedvall is pursuing participation in a terrorist organisation even though MKY is not formally terror-listed in Sweden; a conviction would require the court to treat the group as terrorist.

Asked why he joined MKY, the defendant told the court:

– Det var lätt att hata, säger 20-åringen inför rätten om varför han lockades till gruppen.

He told the court MKY runs a points system in which members earn credit for murders, terror attacks, chemical weapons and IT strikes, and those who fall short are punished or expelled. Worried he had too few points, he admitted spraying MKY graffiti on Uppsala facades in December 2025; weapons were found in a search. He denies founding a Swedish cell or holding a leadership role. The defendant is presumed innocent until the court rules.

In a separate case, Helsingborg District Court is hearing charges against a 15-year-old from Skåne accused of arson after burning two garage blocks in Ängelholm in November 2025. Svenska Dagbladet reports he told police he had been in a cult and that online contacts cheered him on during a live stream of the fire, urging him to throw more matches. He linked himself to the 764 network and boasted online: “I'm a kid that causes terror.” Trial dates run 9–17 June.

Scottish trawler boss fined over slavery court-order breach

Thomas Nicholson, 63, owner of Annan-based TN Trawlers, was fined £2,700 on 8 June at Dumfries Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to breaching Scotland's first Trafficking and Exploitation Risk Order (TERO). Nicholson, who remains under trafficking investigation, had been barred from moving certain vessels without supplying crew documents to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. Sheriff Euan Cameron called the breach low-level harm.

The penalty came days after his son Tom Nicholson Jr admitted failing to provide adequate food and rest to five Ghanaian crewmen in 2017 while skippering the scalloper Sea Lady. A BBC Scotland investigation identified 35 men on the fleet later recognised by the UK Home Office as modern slavery victims. At Hamilton Sheriff Court, Ghanaian crewman Joshua Amissah told jurors that skipper Tom Jr said his father had taught him to treat Black workers “as a slave.” Amissah described round-the-clock shifts, secret sleep rotas and catching fish from dredges to eat. Nicholson Sr and Jr deny trafficking charges that are still under investigation.

French polygamous-family cult trial opens at Saint-Omer

Jérôme P., 45, went on trial on 8 June at the Pas-de-Calais criminal court in Saint-Omer on rape and domestic-violence charges carrying up to twenty years. Prosecutors allege coercive control inside a household shared with multiple partners. Complainant Jennifer C. says he raped and beat her, monitored her with house cameras and phone-tracking software, and restricted her work and banking; gendarmes say cameras were used to watch the women. Two other partners are described in court papers as under relational “emprise” and dependency.

Witness Christelle, a former partner of Jérôme P.'s brother Joël, told the court the family practised polygamy and routine violence. She called it a cult:

« C'est pour moi une secte », commence à la barre Christelle, ex-compagne de Joël, frère aîné de l'accusé.

Jérôme P. conceded his home might look “a bit bizarre” from outside but denied violence. His 16-year-old son defended him; his elder daughter, quoted from a 2022 statement, said she realised at ten that “a normal couple” meant one man and one woman. Jérôme P. is presumed innocent until judgment.

Lyon rapist who messaged Dominique Pelicot sentenced to 15 years

A 39-year-old former bodyguard was sentenced on 12 June to fifteen years in prison by the Rhône criminal court in Lyon for raping and drugging his partner between 2015 and 2023, three years above the prosecution request. The court heard he filmed assaults and circulated stolen nude images. His lawyer had asked for less than twelve years; counsel for the 40-year-old victim said she was “dehumanised” and treated “like a toy.”

Investigators found online messages in which Dominique Pelicot, convicted in the mass rape case in Avignon, offered advice and was described by prosecutors as a “seasoned guru” to a “new adept.” The defendant replied that he followed Pelicot “to the letter” and once invited him to Lyon. Pelicot is serving a twenty-year sentence in another case; this trial concerned the bodyguard's own offending.

French Loup Blanc guru Cyrille Adam's appeal sentence grows heavier

Cyrille Adam, 73, who posed for decades as a Native American spiritual leader called “Loup Blanc,” saw his sentence increased on appeal in September 2025 to sixteen years' imprisonment, one year more than the fifteen imposed in September 2024 by the Gard criminal court at Nîmes. The Vaucluse appeal court convicted him of rapes, sexual assaults and abus de faiblesse (abuse of weakness, a French offence for undue influence over vulnerable people) against followers recruited at paid retreats across southern France. Cesoirtv.com notes a TFX rebroadcast on 13 June of Chroniques criminelles tracing his luxury lifestyle, funded by cash fees, while isolating victims from relatives.

Prosecutors had portrayed him as a social danger; he has been detained since December 2021. Adam styled himself with feathers and ceremonial dress while selecting the most vulnerable seminar attendees for abuse over roughly twenty years.

Argentina revokes house arrest for Ashram Shambala leader Rudnev

La Voz reports that Argentina's Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber revoked home detention for Konstantin Rudnev, 59, leader of the Ashram Shambala cult, on 10 June. Judges Guillermo Yacobucci, Mariano Borinsky and Carlos Mahiques upheld prosecutor Fernando Arrigo's challenge, finding a concrete flight risk, weak local ties, substantial funds and links to a transnational structure; electronic monitoring at a San Vicente estate was deemed ineffective. Rudnev, recovering from surgery, must return to federal prison pending trial in Bariloche.

Rudnev founded Ashram Shambala in Novosibirsk in 1989; Russia banned it in 2014 after a 2013 conviction for sexual abuse, drug sales and human-rights violations. He fled Montenegro in 2021 amid ritual-pornography allegations and was arrested at Bariloche airport in 2025 after staff at Ramón Carrillo hospital flagged a guarded Russian woman giving birth; investigators say the group tried to assign the baby's paternity to Rudnev to secure Argentine citizenship. Charges include human trafficking, unlawful detention, drug transport and falsifying a child's civil status. Rudnev denies the allegations; he is presumed innocent until trial.

Kwasizabantu: childhood beatings recalled in German report

Adults raised in Germany within the evangelical Kwasizabantu mission community told Tagesschau on 8 June they experienced systematic beatings, “kneeling on a log” punishments and a punishing God preached by their parents, who belonged to congregations seeded from the South African mission Erlo Stegen founded in 1970. Rebecka and her brother Benni, raised near an Upper Bavaria farmhouse, recall belts, spoons and terror films about hell and the “Rapture.” Their father later told Bavarian Radio he used corporal discipline common at the time and now calls his methods “gruesome.”

Rebecka also attended a Swiss boarding school where, by her account, boys were forbidden and a leader accused her of “sexual thoughts” after a snowball fight. Tagesschau links the story to a continuing “secret community” in Baden-Württemberg.

Switzerland's infoSekta logs rising cult contacts as gurus move online

Switzerland's specialist cult-counselling service infoSekta recorded about 3,800 advice contacts in 2025, up from roughly 3,500 in 2024, Nau.ch reported on 14 June. Susanne Schaaf of infoSekta told the outlet that most of the rise reflects follow-up sessions rather than wholly new callers, but that recruitment increasingly starts on TikTok, Instagram and coaching funnels where charismatic influencers may front high-control groups. Algorithmic filter bubbles and “Christfluencers” are part of the shift, she said.

Callers include people leaving groups, relatives watching someone withdraw, and survivors trying to make sense of abuse.

Austrian schlager singer Michelle plans career as spiritual healer Wakan

Austrian schlager star Michelle (Tanja Hewer), 54, told Bild on 14 June she will leave the stage after a farewell concert in late June and work as a spiritual healer under the name Wakan, Krone.at reported the same day. She described years in a small “spiritual circle” singing in the dark and offering online afterlife contacts and healing conversations; she insisted it is “not a sect” and “so much love.” Michelle, who has spoken publicly about a past suicide attempt, trained as a healer and medium more than a decade ago.

Presbyterian Church in Ireland faces safeguarding rebuild

Rev Richard Murray, moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, told the general assembly in Belfast on 10 June that the denomination faces a “torrid” period after safeguarding failures that forced his predecessor Trevor Gribben to resign in November 2025. Murray said many members were “disheartened” by lapses between 2009 and 2022, including cases the church's own safeguarding team said were inadequately handled; Police Service of Northern Ireland inquiries continue.

Rev Philip McClelland, clerk of Armagh Presbytery, also urged delegates to treat “spiritual abuse” by leaders who bully or manipulate as seriously as child protection. Gribben had been general secretary before becoming moderator in June 2025. Murray returned to the moderator's role after Gribben stepped down.

Cornwall TEDx speaker pitches AI to detect coercive control

Dr Lisa Turner told TEDxPorthtowan Women on 8 March, reported locally on 10 June, that pattern-recognition tools could help people document gaslighting and coercive control that is deliberately hard to prove. CornishStuff quotes her citing research that 97% of cases escalating to physical violence followed psychological abuse, and that the UK sees 58 reported coercive-control offences for every conviction. Turner, described as a forensic AI pioneer, argued technology can surface behavioural markers in communications so survivors can “trust their reality.”

The event was Porthtowan's first TEDx, with twelve speakers chosen from 150 applicants under the theme Breaking the Mould.

Portuguese yoga schools dispute cult reporting in Observador

Observador’s investigative podcast Os Segredos da Seita do Yoga (Secrets of the Yoga Cult), narrated by Daniela Ruah and available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify , traces the rise and fall of Romanian guru Gregorian Bivolaru, known to followers as “Grieg.” The show describes a global yoga movement that promised spiritual evolution but, according to survivors interviewed across six weekly episodes, led to sexual exploitation and human-trafficking allegations — with Lisbon as the Portuguese entry point for many recruits. Bivolaru is portrayed as having commanded a cult for decades beneath a network of yoga schools; he became one of international policing’s most wanted figures, spent years underground and, at the time of the series, was detained in France awaiting trial on sexual, labour and psychological exploitation charges.

Episode descriptions say Bivolaru began teaching yoga in Bucharest in 1971 under Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorship and, after the regime fell, founded MISA (Movimento para a Integração Espiritual no Absoluto), opening schools and ashrams across Romania and abroad. Former Lisbon students tell the podcast that missing women were not on silent retreats but working in internet sex chats for the guru; others describe escalating dependence, family estrangement and submission at the tantra school’s constant events. Interviewees recount moving from initial enchantment to what they call an invisible prison:

… ao pesadelo de perceberem que estavam, afinal, dentro de uma “prisão invisível”.

The final episode reports that French police detained Bivolaru in a major November 2023 operation on suspicion of human trafficking, kidnapping, rape and abuse of a vulnerable person; top organisation members were detained in subsequent months. Natha, the Lisbon yoga and tantra school, publicly distanced itself from the guru and said Bivolaru had no connection to the school — but the podcast cites material and testimonial evidence to the contrary. More than two years later Bivolaru remained in preventive detention in France while schools, tantric temples and academies continued to operate despite denunciations, complaints and lawsuits.

Two Lisbon-area tantra and yoga organisations published rights-of-reply pieces in Observador on 12 June challenging the podcast and interview series headlined “Seita do Yoga” (“Yoga Cult”) about recruited women. ArtExtasia Portugal denies refusing to comment and says reporters attended its events without identifying themselves as journalists. Natha, Escola Espiritual de Yoga e Tantra de Lisboa, rejects the cult label, says no Portuguese court has classified it as criminal or sectarian, and argues negative testimonies cannot stand for hundreds of students’ experiences.

Both groups say they were not contacted before broadcast for the podcast Os Segredos da Seita do Yoga.

Marina Abramovic and the Hollywood Satanist conspiracy

According to Dangerous Minds, a US culture blog, thousands of social-media users now claim Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic leads a Satanic Hollywood network, a narrative that spread from “Pizzagate”-era forums after leaked emails showed Hillary Clinton staffers donating to Abramovic's Kickstarter, including tiers offering a “Spirit Cooking” dinner based on her 1996 work painting a gallery with pig's blood. The blog calls the theory baseless and ties it to grifter documentaries such as Out of Shadows.

Dangerous Minds notes Abramovic's endurance pieces, including a 1974 work where an audience could use objects on her body, and argues shock art was mistaken for proof of elite child abuse. Abramovic is not charged with any offence; the piece dissects online misinformation.

Pope Leo warns young Spaniards against cult of self-image

Pope Leo XIV told about 40,000 young people at a prayer vigil in Barcelona's Olympic Stadium on 9 June that profit, performance and the “cult of self-image” numb conscience, Vatican News reported. Responding to testimonies on depression, domestic violence and forgiveness, he urged silence and Gospel reading amid distraction. On 11 June in Gran Canaria he met migrants at Arguineguín port, denouncing trafficking and saying “human dignity has no passport.”

America Magazine notes a cooler civic reception in secularised Barcelona than in Madrid, including a teachers' strike during the visit.

Source citations

Dagens Nyheter (Sweden): “FBI vittnade i tingsrätten om nazistisk våldssekt” , 9 Jun 2026.

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden): “Våldssekt hejade på när 15-åring brände bilar” , 9 Jun 2026.

BBC News: “Fishing boss fined for breaching human trafficking court order” , 8 Jun 2026.

BBC News: “He told us we were slaves - The fight for justice on a Scottish fishing trawler” , 9 Jun 2026.

actu.fr (France): “Pas-de-Calais. « Une secte » : un homme d'une famille polygame jugé pour viols et violences” , 8 Jun 2026.

franceinfo (France): “Viol par soumission chimique : un homme en contact avec Dominique Pelicot écope de 15 ans de réclusion criminelle” , 12 Jun 2026.

cesoirtv.com (France): “Cyrille Adam : reconnu coupable de viols et d'agressions sexuelles, le gourou Loup blanc a été condamné plus lourdement en appel” , 13 Jun 2026.

La Voz (Argentina): “Caso de la secta rusa: Konstantin Rudnev deberá volver a una cárcel común” , 10 Jun 2026.

tagesschau.de (Germany): “Missionsgemeinschaft Kwasizabantu: Gewalt im Namen des Glaubens” , 8 Jun 2026.

Nau.ch (Switzerland): “Sekten-Gurus locken Schweizer zunehmend im Netz” , 14 Jun 2026.

krone.at (Austria): “Schlager-Star Michelle wird spirituelle Heilerin” , 14 Jun 2026.

The Irish Times (Ireland): “Presbyterian assembly told reputation will ‘need to be rebuilt’ after safeguarding failures” , 10 Jun 2026.

CornishStuff (UK): “Porthtowan TEDx Speaker on Using AI to Detect Coercive Control” , 10 Jun 2026.

Observador (Portugal): “Os Segredos da Seita do Yoga” , Apple Podcasts listing (series premiered 27 Jan 2026).

Observador (Portugal): “Os Segredos da Seita do Yoga” , Spotify listing.

Observador (Portugal): “Direito de resposta da ArtExtasia Portugal” , 12 Jun 2026.

Observador (Portugal): “Direito de Resposta da Natha - Escola Espiritual de Yoga e Tantra de Lisboa” , 12 Jun 2026.

Dangerous Minds: “Why idiots think Marina Abramovic leads a global Satanic cult” , 7 Jun 2026.

Vatican News: “Pope in Barcelona: We are made for the infinite” , 9 Jun 2026.

America Magazine: “Pope Leo tackles depression, domestic violence and the ‘cult of self-image’ in dialogue with young people” , 9 Jun 2026.

Vatican News: “Pope Leo in Gran Canaria: ‘Human dignity has no passport’” , 11 Jun 2026.