ALBANY — For years, numerous people with connections to NXIVM made troubling reports about the Colonie-based self-help group to a host of law enforcement agencies. They shared allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, immigration fraud, kidnapping plots and perjury.
Despite the litany of complaints, no criminal charge has ever been leveled against the secretive organization or its leader, Keith Raniere.
Rather, on several occasions, it is critics of NXIVM who have found themselves subject to investigation and damaging lawsuits.
But recent scrutiny by national media, including reports that some women loyal to NXIVM were secretly branded with Raniere’s initials, may have changed the equation.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office has begun examining NXIVM’s dealings, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. The new interest comes after multiple law enforcement agencies, including Schneiderman’s office, had for years brushed aside the concerns from Raniere’s critics and others about the murky inner workings of NXIVM, which one expert has characterized as an “extreme cult.” A spokesman for Schneiderman did not respond to questions about the investigation.
The agencies that have fielded complaints but declined to pursue deep investigations of NXIVM also include the U.S. attorney’s office in Albany, the New York State Police, the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency, the Internal Revenue Service and the FBI, according to interviews with law enforcement sources and people who said they provided information to those agencies.
Questions have also been raised about the response of state health officials to a complaint filed in August against a NXIVM-connected doctor who allegedly subjected multiple women to brain-activity studies that apparently did not follow standard research protocols. Gov. Andrew Cuomo last month ordered a review of the Health Department’s handling of the complaint.
NXIVM officials and associates have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and dispute any allegation they are a cult. They did not return calls seeking comment for this article.
Aides to Schneiderman met this week with actress Catherine Oxenberg, who has been waging a high-profile battle to get her 26-year-old daughter, India, to leave NXIVM. Oxenberg said she suspects her daughter was one of those branded. She declined to discuss her meeting with officials from Schneiderman’s office.
“I have one goal, which is to get attention from the authorities,” Oxenberg said, in an interview with the Times Union. “It seems like things have slipped through the cracks. … Nobody has taken responsibility.”