How serious this will be is anybody’s guess. But others’ careers have already been toppled by a guilt-by-association with Nxivm. Sometimes even when the association is slight – as in someone merely taking a class or two – people have been forced out of jobs and denied housing.
This requires the most serious scrutiny since there were some 18,000 people who took classes and most of them had no idea of the inner workings of the organization. The mere fact that someone once took a course or two should not be evidence of wrongdoing in and of itself.
Now under fire is Mario Delgado, one of the top politicos in Mexico.
Juan Alberto Vazquez, in turn, is one of the top journalists in Mexico, writing for the nations’ national newspaper Milenio. He has also written the book Nxivm, La Secta Que Sedujo Al Poder En Mexico.
In a recent article, Vazquez wrote that Delgado, the leader of the Morena Party who is in charge of the party’s campaign strategy, as it tries to keep its lower-house majority and pick up governorships in the June 6 midterm elections, was once a member of the Society of Protectors [the men’s group associated with Nxivm] and took at least one Nxivm class [called an Intensive].
The Moreno party was founded by the current Mexican President, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.
Vazquez has submitted an English translation of his already published [in Spanish] article to Frank Report for publication.
Juan Alberto Vazquez
By Juan Alberto Vázquez
The National President of MORENA, Mario Delgado, belonged to the NXIVM organization, whose leader Keith Raniere was sentenced to 120 years in prison on charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and possession of child pornography.
Delgado, for example, made deposits of $50 dollars during six months in 2016, as part of the agreement to belong to the Society of Protectors (SOP), an alternate organization of the Executive Success Program (the name for NXIVM in Mexico), which in its plan of studies summarized Raniere’s teachings on virility and control over women.
On the website of that Society of Protectors (now defunct), it could be read that it helped “men to become more powerful and influential members of society by providing them with tools and a network of honorable men to support them.”
Some of the ideas Raniere imparted in SOP were that “the stronger the man, the more women he can control”, “men control the world and women are subordinate to men”, or “women act like princesses, but when they don’t listen to what they like they become hysterical babies who can’t handle the truth. ”
Many of these ideas Raniere released while “lecturing”, can be seen in the documentaries “The Vow” and “Seduced” that broadcast on the HBO and Starz channels in the second half of 2020.
Students who belonged to NXIVM confirmed that Delgado, who was Secretary of Finance and then Education of Mexico City (between 2006 and 2012), took one of the Executive Success Program (ESP) courses, at the time when the mayor from Escobedo, Nuevo León,
Escobedo Mayor Clara Luz Flores, a former Nxivm coach, [seen with her yellow Nxivm sash] is running for governor of Nuevo León.
Flores, was a yellow sash coach in said company. According to the courses that were taken, the color changed. The first entrants had a white sash, then it changed to yellow, orange, blue, green and purple.
Flores, who for much of her life was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, was anointed by Delgado on December 13 as Morena’s candidate for the governorship of Nuevo León in the elections to be held on June 6, 2021 .
Delgado, who today faces serious questions for his attempt to impose Felix Salgado Macedonio as the candidate of the party that leads the Guerrero government, was questioned on this issue, but preferred not to comment.
The former High Rank of Nxivm: L-R Nancy Salzman [standing], with Mark Vicente, Alex Betancourt, Karen Unterreiner, Clare Bronfman, Lauren Salzman and Emiliano Salinas – all wearing their colored sashes indicating their rank.
Emiliano Salinas Occeli, the most visible face of NXIVM in Mexico, boasted that of the 18,000 students from around the world who enrolled during the 20 years that the company operated, at least half had done so in Mexico. Most of them were businessmen and politicians who sought to improve their lives under the belief that NXIVM offered “the tools to achieve happiness.”A handful of them, including Salinas himself, even reached the top of the pyramid where Raniere rested and participated in some of the illicit activities required by being close to the leader. Emiliano Salinas and his partner Alejandro Betancourt were singled out in the Federal Court of the Eastern District of New York where Raniere was tried as co-conspirators in these activities.
There is no evidence that Mario Delgado was within this select group, although the Society in which he participated gave “teachings” that were denounced in the trial against Raniere.
Prosecutor Moira Kim Penza, for example, questioned the witness “Sylvie” about the teachings of the Society of Protectors, an intensive 6-day course that she, she said, forced her to take at an approximate cost of $5,000 . “We had different discussion groups,” the witness clarified. There, she said that “men were very obsessive about sex, all they thought and wanted was sex and that women were materialistic, self-absorbed, narcissistic and that everything we wanted things and that they take care of us so that we are not responsible for anything ”.
She also reminded Sylvie that another lesson was that men should have sex with multiple people or multiple partners to be healthy, while women should be loyal to only one man. ” The English witness added that they used the example of diets to show “how women lack character, we are impulsive and we cannot keep our word.”
Today Raniere sleeps in an Arizona prison after being convicted on October 27. Part of the accusation raised in the aforementioned New York court, says that he designed the scheme of a club of sex slaves to which he ordered to tattoo their initials on the waist with a cauterizing pen.
***
Editor’s Note:
A press spokesperson for the Moreno Party has stated that Delgado took Nxivm classes without knowing that Raniere or any of its leaders were involved in trafficking. The Moreno Party is trying to determine how many classes he took, the press officer said.
Delgado himself, in reaction to the controversy [occasioned by the mere publication of a prominent person attending a Nxivm course] Tweeted that the classes were taken “in good faith” and at a time when the accusations against the group weren’t known.
Frank Report originally published a list of Society of Protectors dues-paying members, from which some reporters in Mexico utilized to discover Delgado made membership payments of $50 for the Society of Protectors.
As for my own thoughts on the subject: I think Delgado may very well have taken Nxivm classes and attended Society of Protector meetings without knowing about DOS [which was in existence at the time] or that Raniere had a private life that included some aspects that some might consider scandalous such as that Raniere had lost $65 million in commodities [belying his great skills in business and finance.] Or that his previous business, Consumers’ Buyline, went bust after more than 20 State Attorneys General went after him for allegedly operating a pyramid scheme.
Had Delgado done any internet searching in English, he might have discovered these things and enough additional information that might make an educated person hesitant to take any Nxivm courses. One such online search might have led him to the Albany Times Union’s 2012 report, In Raniere’s Shadows, that alleged Raniere was a pedophile, and included on-the-record quotes from Rhiannon, a women who said she was 12 when Raniere began raping her [which she said he did some 60 times.].
That said, it is entirely plausible that Emiliano Salinas or any number of leading Mexican elites who took or taught Nxivm classes convinced Delgado that the courses [and its founder, Raniere’s genius] were so important and helpful that Delgado might not have bothered to look further than the endorsements of the rich and powerful in Mexico.
In the initial Nxivm classes, Delgado might have found substantial helpful teachings, as many people who took the courses attest they did. He very well might not have had any inkling that there was a very sexually active leader of the group, Raniere, who had an ever-shifting group of 20 -30 women with whom he had sexual relations with, who were forbidden to be with any other men [in other words, Raniere had a harem.] Or that he had a hard time letting go of them – when they wanted to leave – so much so that he was known to haunt them with lawsuits for years.
All of this, by the way, was a matter of public record before Delgado took his first Nxivm classes.
Still, if this was out there in some vague manner – on the internet on US publications he neither knew of or trusted, versus the reliable testimony of his friends, plus the value he may have gotten from the courses, it is not hard to imagine that Delgado might have chosen to judge for himself.
