Colombian authorities are searching for a pastor accused of sexually abusing 27 women, most of them minors, in the southern department of Nariño, newspaper El Pais reported Wednesday.
Pastor Alvaro Gamez Torres of the Apostolic Evangelical Ministry of Salem congregation in the departmental capital of Pasto, allegedly deceived women into giving him their virginity and threatened them if they told anyone.
According to evidence Torres “told them giving him their virginity would have privileges and blessings, and that if any came to tell on him, their family would fall under the curse of Judas and the seven plagues of Egypt.”
Torres’ crimes were discovered after congregation members placed a hidden camera in the church and caught video and photographic evidence of the pastor simultaneously having sex with two teenagers in the room he named “the nursery.”
The evidence was submitted to local authorities but Torres had already fled, saying guerrillas had infiltrated the congregation.
The accusation was filed by Argentine Hector Navarro, president of the Support Network for Victims of Cults, who said that more than 50 women in Bogota, Cali and Medellin have been tricked into having sex with the missing pastor.
Although there is evidence implicating Torres in the abuse of dozens of women, only three women have come forward to file formal complaints in the case, according to the director of Legal Medicine in Pasto, Alvaro Hernandez Zambrano.
