Scientology's latest drama in Russia: The mystery woman who infiltrated an org - 2016-10-15

Scientology's latest drama in Russia: The mystery woman who infiltrated an org October 15, 2016, Tony Ortega, Underground Bunker

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Our thanks to Danil Tylevich for making us aware that numerous Russian media outlets are carrying stories about a woman named Darya Varnovskaya, who spent more than a year working at Scientology's St. Petersburg org in order to secretly gather information about it.

Varnovskaya insists that when she joined the St. Petersburg org in April 2015 she was a journalist working on assignment to secretly film the church. But at least one news outlet there has characterized her as simply a member who became disgruntled and left the church after it was raided by law enforcement earlier this year.

Either way, she was there long enough that she was hired on staff as an ethics officer and later became a registrar, a person whose job it is to get people to sign up for more courses and to give more money. While doing that job she used her smartphone to capture quite a bit of footage. At one point, for example, she catches the supervising registrar as he tells her colleagues that they've only brought in 4 million rubles that week (about $64,000), but he expected 5 million rubles.

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{{cite news | author = Tony Ortega | title = Scientology's latest drama in Russia: The mystery woman who infiltrated an org | url = https://tonyortega.org/2016/10/15/scientologys-latest-drama-in-russia-the-mystery-woman-who-infiltrated-an-org/ | work = Underground Bunker | date = October 15, 2016 | accessdate = August 21, 2017 }}