Conviction Afro-Brazilian religious settings Salta, Argentina · 2023

Salta temple: affirmed trafficking convictions for two spiritual leaders

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Disposition and response

Material that narrows or disputes the record

Appellate history

2023-09-13

The chamber affirmed both convictions. A later federal-prosecutor report records the affirmance while reporting the court-ordered reparation for one victim.

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

spiritual leaders known as Pae and Mae, religious ministers

Organization

Salta Umbanda and Kimbanda temple

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The cited record identifies invocation of divine anger, promised prosperity for obedience, spiritual-parent authority, intimidation, surveillance, economic control, and cross-border sexual exploitation as the material spiritual doctrine, practice, authority, or pretext connected to the documented harm. The relevant authority role is spiritual leaders known as Pae and Mae and religious ministers.

Prosperity, divination, or curse-removal claim

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2023-04-19 · trial judgment and sentence

Federal Oral Court No. 2 of Salta, Argentina. By majority, the court sentenced Jorge Juan Soria Villalba to nine years and María Ester Arroyo to eight years and two months for aggravated trafficking for sexual exploitation and minor injuries involving two victims.

Documented coercion mechanisms

invocation of divine anger
promised prosperity for obedience
spiritual-parent authority
intimidation
surveillance
economic control
cross-border sexual exploitation

Cited record

Sources

prosecuting authority judgment report Ministerio Público Fiscal de la Nación, 'Salta: condenaron a los líderes espirituales de un templo Umbanda por trata de personas' (Apr. 19, 2023).: Argentina's federal prosecution service records the convictions, sentences and aggravating findings. It describes how the defendants invoked the cult's order, divine anger and promised prosperity to intimidate two vulnerable women, control prostitution proceeds and move one victim across provinces and into Bolivia.
prosecuting authority appellate and reparation report Ministerio Público Fiscal de la Nación, 'Salta: fijan una reparación por más de 12 millones de pesos para una víctima de trata de personas sometida por líderes de un templo Umbanda' (Nov. 6, 2023).: The federal prosecution service records a reparation order and states that Chamber I of the Federal Criminal Cassation Chamber affirmed the two convictions on September 13, 2023.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.fiscales.gob.ar/trata/salta-condenaron-a-los-lideres-espirituales-de-un-templo-umbanda-por-trata-de-personas/ Corpus classification: prosecuting-authority; evidentiary role: judgment-report. SHA-256 ae97d88ce8d57122b75e138e5574d5f88341a2923364f9b9f21039111b1b65be
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://www.fiscales.gob.ar/trata/salta-fijan-una-reparacion-por-mas-de-12-millones-de-pesos-para-una-victima-de-trata-de-personas-sometida-por-lideres-de-un-templo-umbanda/ Corpus classification: prosecuting-authority; evidentiary role: appellate-and-reparation-report. SHA-256 637228781ee16b0d91ced3edcf61dfaf0f75f3923822b602bfaba03eb080aaf2
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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