Tom Cruise and John Travolta are Scientology’s most famous members, but now they’ve been linked to a secret FBI probe of the controversial religion, according to a sensational report in US magazine National Enquirer today.
The publication says it has discovered a 285-page confidential FBI report that reveals how the US federal government started up an investigation into claims that the church was involved in illegal activity including human trafficking, physical abuse, statutory rape, forced abortions and other crimes.
Although the FBI has refused to acknowledge that the investigation took place, The Enquirer published what it says are official documents.
“I don’t think the timing could be worse for Scientology,” Tony Ortega, journalist and SciTi expert, tells The Enquirer.
Leah Remini’s A&E series ‘Scientology and the Aftermath’ and HBO’s Scientology documentary ‘Going Clear’ were enough to cast serious doubt on the church, but “this is going to be devastating,” Ortega says.
Some of the alarming allegations uncovered by the FBI include: women being forced into having abortions, staff having sex with minors, verbal abuse, beatings, workers being forced to clean up human faeces and scrub dumpsters with toothbrushes, communication monitored and restricted, members “brainwashed” into thinking they couldn’t leave, the list goes on.
Experts wonder if Tom Cruise and John Travolta were aware of what was happening.
The Enquirer reveals the atrocities actually “got WORSE” as Cruise and Travolta began praising Scientology in the media.
“In the late 1990s … Scientology was going through a big push to go mainstream through celebrities,” The Enquirer quotes one report in the file. “Rules had become more stringent [and it became more difficult] to leave the base for any reason.”
The stars have yet to respond to the Enquirer’s allegations.
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