NEW YORK—The umbrella organization known as NXIVM presented itself to the public as a company with noble goals: offering self-help courses to those seeking to improve their lives both personally and professionally. But its facade fell away after the group’s founder and leader was arrested in 2018 for recruiting members of the organization into a secret society to be branded and made his sexual “slaves.”
At least 17,000 people enrolled in NXIVM’s self-improvement classes throughout the course of its two decade-long history. Founded in 1998, the company, which used the structure of a pyramid scheme, would continue to grow until its peak membership in 2016. Then, in May 2018, the company put out a statement on their now-defunct website stating that they were suspending all operations.
