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Chapter 1: What led Ashleigh Freckleton to join a yoga community?
This is Australian True Crime International with Michelle Laurie. Twisted Yoga is a brand new short documentary series on Apple TV. It takes us into the world of Gregorian Bivolaru, who is the spiritual leader of an international tantric yoga movement and who was, for many years, one of Interpol's most wanted fugitives.
Bivolaru is now in custody in France, thanks in part to our guest, Ashley Freckleton. She joins us to talk about it. This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.
I actually, like a lot of people, I guess, saw the ad for this documentary and I thought it was going to be another documentary about Bikram yoga. Are you getting that a lot or are a lot of people going, I can't believe it's a second kind of yoga?
Yeah, not necessarily Bikram, but everyone's going, oh, another yoga one. Yeah. It's another story about yoga.
Yeah. It's surprising to us, isn't it? I've never been a big yoga person, but we have this, but I am Buddhist, I suppose, so they probably intersect in our imaginations. We think of yogis as chilled out, fantastic people, don't we? We do. They're chill. Yeah. And good, normally. Good-hearted, kind-hearted, vegetarian kind of, you know, good people around the place.
Yeah. Non-violence, you know, they've got these, what are they called? Like ahimsa, like non-violence and all of these principles that underpin yoga, which are all very humanistic and kind and loving.
Yeah. So I could understand why you, like so many other people, were attracted to yoga and then thought... I'm going to actually take yoga real serious. I'm going to turn this into my lifestyle and my identity, I guess. Can you tell us about that period of your life, please, when this all started?
Yes, I was living overseas and I was on a bit of a spiritual journey and I would really kind of... think about it being a situation of vulnerability because I'd just moved overseas. I was 25. I was exploring my spirituality, my identity, what I believe in. I was in a new city going through a breakup and And I also really enjoyed yoga.
And I was just looking for a really good yoga practice to start with. I wasn't looking for a spiritual yoga school. I was just looking to go to India. And then I got linked in with my brother's friends and they'd found this amazing spiritual yoga school that was going to change my life. And it just snowballed from there.
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Chapter 2: How did Ashleigh's experience in Romania escalate?
But my initial suspicions... When I did some reading up on him online, I sort of wondered about it. And then I spoke to a friend who had nothing to do with the school. She was completely external of the school, studying psychology, really valued her opinion. And I said, does this look strange, suspicious to you? What do you think?
And she looked it up and she goes, oh, it kind of looks like a human rights issue. It looks like he was persecuted. It'll kind of, you know, it seems okay to me. And I was like, yeah, good. Okay. I'm just being paranoid. Everything's fine.
So I was also seeking external validation or reassurance that things weren't because that uneasy feeling was there for a really long time and it was always there. And I was just constantly kind of squashing the doubts.
And also because you're not stupid. So I think, you know, there's always a tendency for victim blaming in these situations for people to say, oh, well, how bloody stupid. What did you think was going to happen and all of that? But you are a classic example of just a normal, smart young woman who did have alarm bells and then went and checked them out, asked other people what they thought.
You know, due diligence, it seems like to me. Yeah. Yeah.
And there were smart people around me in the school. The people in the school were not stupid. I mean, one of my tantra teachers that I really looked up to was a psychiatrist working in the NHS.
Yes.
Highly educated people.
So it's, you know, there's no stupid people. No. So when did you, I got the impression there was a moment where you really wanted to go and meet the leader, GB. How does that, how does that happen? How does, how do you enter that inner circle?
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Chapter 3: What is Gregorian Bivolaru's role in the yoga movement?
And I'm not sure how I came to that conclusion, but I knew that it was too risky for me to say no. And so when they pitched that question to me, and it's, you know, a very vulnerable situation, I felt sick at the thought of it. I had absolutely no desire to meet this fugitive in hiding, but I was too scared to say no. And I said, oh, you know, how would you feel and what would you say?
And I said I would feel really nervous and extremely anxious at the thought of that, but, you know, of course I would say yes. even though internally all I wanted was to say no.
Can I just take you back to an important point that you've made there, which was that he was still a fugitive and in hiding. He wasn't in a tent out the back. He wasn't conducting yoga sessions at this retreat. No one knew where he was. It was still, that was part of the allure, but also, yeah, I can understand what does that mean if I got to meet him? Where would that be?
It scared me because I was like, what sort of position does that put me in legally? What if I have been to see this person who's in hiding? What does that mean for me? I was terrified. I didn't want to get caught up with the law. I didn't want to go and meet this fugitive.
I was terrified. Yeah, that's a weird question to be asked when you've rolled up for a yoga retreat. So you said yes, I guess, with most of the other women who were there. Two said no and were sent packing. Then what happens? How long is it then until things escalate?
So they make you write down dates within, it has to be within a 12-month period. Oh, like when you can go? When you would be available, theoretically, to meet him. And this was in copious amounts of paperwork that we had to do, and I can barely recall it because there was so much of it. And I remember the men's ashram didn't have any of it.
We had pages and pages of rules we had to read, forms we had to sign. vows on the Bible of secrecy. And I don't think the men's ashram had any of that.
So where, did you know where the founder was at this stage? It sounds like a Simpson character to call him the founder, but everything sounds weird about it. The whole thing's weird. Yeah, it's crazy. In retrospect, I do understand how it unfolded though. It was weird and crazy at the time as well.
I was like, this feels weird and icky, but I just kept squashing it.
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Chapter 4: What red flags did Ashleigh notice about the yoga group?
Yeah, sorry. You know, I won't go into detail. I won't be graphic about it, but it was just really graphic, really awful, uncomfortable watching. And when I told people what I'd watched, I said, oh, yeah, I had to watch, you know, the one called Pissing Competition. And they said, oh, yeah, this one is really challenging.
But you've already given us this really intriguing context about seeing women's sexual energy and how free they are with it and that way of trying to get young women to look at porn. Well, in actual fact, you know, as I've said, I think it's about sexualizing them, breaking down boundaries, all of that kind of stuff and setting up an environment.
Desensitizing.
Desensitizing. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So that's a lot for you to walk into. Tell us about your stay in the house in France. What happened? So my stay lasted about a week.
I was... going through the process of, everyone's going through this same process where they're given the rules to read, they're given time to settle in, they're given a big bag of gifts from him, grooming. Also some cash to go and buy yourself something nice, like a nice dress. I think I got about a hundred euro for no reason, just in an envelope. It also happened to me in Romania as well.
I got given an envelope of cash from him just to buy myself something nice. And then they give you the readings and the list of videos that you have to watch. So it's sort of like a bit of a training program that's all about desensitizing and learning about the initiation.
And it became clearer to me the more that I read the compulsory reading, the more it was clear that all of these readings were about initiation and about the world being at your feet if you go through with it. And if you don't go through with it, then you're destined for a life of suffering and negative karma and your soul will just keep devolving. You might go into a state of poor mental health.
You might go into a state of delirium. And all of these horrible things that will happen to you and not just to you in this life, but also to your soul if you say no.
And future lives. As a Buddhist, it's interesting for me to hear what you're saying because I can hear the bastardization of Buddhism and Hinduism and everything here and these descriptions and these warnings. And it reminds me of the way Christian cults bastardize the message of Christianity and the messages in the Bible. So same thing.
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Chapter 5: How was Ashleigh's experience in the women's ashram?
Like, is this the death of my soul? Like, what does this mean? And, yeah, I just collapsed onto my luggage. I just remember being on the floor and having what I would imagine a mental breakdown looks like. You know, I was just beside myself.
Well, so far from home and all alone and had this bizarre experience and your brain's completely rattled. I just can imagine you must have been exhausted. You've been up all night terrified and you've still got such a long way to come to get home.
Yeah, and I didn't know what was real anymore. And I didn't even know if I was going to go home because I was meant to be going to Romania and to Budapest actually as well to meet up with this friend to do more stuff involved with the school. And I was in this tension of, do I just go to Romania? Do I go to Budapest? Or do I just get a flight home? That's crazy. What just happened?
And I didn't know what was real anymore. And I really thought... I was in a nightmare and I wondered if I was in a state of psychosis. I genuinely thought, am I going to wake up in a hospital? Am I even in France? Is any of this real? And I was physically pinching myself, going, am I in a dream? This feels too horrible, too confusing to be real. I must be in a nightmare.
And I was just pacing the city and I went and sat with a view of the Eiffel Tower and it was just so surreal. I was like... Here I am in Paris. This doesn't feel real to me. And I just wanted someone I knew to kind of walk along the street and just see me and, like, pull me out of the lie, pull me out of this nightmare.
And eventually I just made a snap decision to book a one-way flight back to Australia and got on that flight and...
never went back oh god thank god thank god i can't imagine the relief of getting home all the way back down the bottom here to australia so far away from all of that and back home with your family and your familiarity okay so i'm imagining a lot of repair a lot of you know a I can't imagine. Did you tell your parents? Did you tell people what had happened? Did you seek help?
Not immediately. I took a month or so just back at my parents' house and I didn't work. I was just trying to
collect myself I had to lie to everybody and tell them that I had gone to a retreat in Denmark because they have a retreat center there so I'm going on a silent retreat which was something I had done before with the school I'd gone and done a silent retreat turned my phone off for a week and I wasn't reachable and I said yeah I came home I just you know I just wasn't feeling it I just kind of started to feel a bit overwhelmed with it all and yeah I just gave them a very vague response for why I came home
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Chapter 6: What tactics were used to control members in the group?
Like where do you... Yeah. How do you, if you have been trafficked internationally, who do you call? That's a good question.
You know, I didn't know who to call and... I tried multiple avenues before I finally felt like we were heard and we got linked in with the relevant authorities that actually could help us. The first thing I did was lodge a complaint with Crime Stoppers International because he was, or maybe it was through Interpol, you know, because he was wanted at the time. Nothing ever came back from that.
I never heard back.
That's crazy. He's an international fugitive and you've just been in the same house as him or, you know, you've got really good information about where he is and they didn't call you back.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I'd given them a tip or, you know, lodged something and nothing happened. And the other thing I did was contact the Royal Charity Commission in the UK because they're a registered charity and they get all sorts of benefits for that as well as credibility. You know, oh, they're a registered charity. Well, you know, they must be all right.
And I reported to them what had happened. But because I wanted to remain anonymous at the time, they said, we can't really do anything with it. And it sort of just got put into a file, I think. I think they approached them, maybe asked them about it. Of course, they would have denied everything. But nothing came of it. Later on, I approached them again and said, I don't care about anonymity.
I'm quite happy to put my name to this. I'm lodging a complaint. And again... I don't recall anything happening that I could see from it. And I mean, understandably, it's not under their jurisdiction. They can't take legal action against them. But I at least hoped maybe they would be stripped of their charity status, which they weren't. And then the police in the UK...
Through the Yoga Teachers Union, they had said that they were going to open a case. And I said, great, who do I get in contact with to take my testimony? And the person that I had been given the contact that was meant to link me in with them didn't get back to me. And then I sent about one or two other emails back. Again, saying, you know, I'm here. I'm ready.
Can someone take my testimony, please? Nobody ever contacted me. No one ever took my testimony. So that was another dead end. By this point, I... was thinking the only other place I could think of going was the media because sometimes having your story public can then put pressure or actually give information and then maybe something might come of that.
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