Tony Ortega is a journalist who was formerly the editor of The Village Voice. He's written about Scientology since 1995, and in May 2015 released a book about Scientology's harassment of Paulette Cooper titled 'The Unbreakable Miss Lovely.' He continues to monitor breaking developments in the Scientology world from an undisclosed location in an underground bunker he shares with four cats and one of them wrinkly Shar Pei dogs. Despite his super-secret security protections, you can still reach him pretty easily by sending him a message at tonyo94 AT gmail.com (Drop him a line if you'd like to get an e-mail whenever a new story is posted.) [Header image courtesy John Rickard]
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Why Colombia’s military was fertile territory for Scientology — and one general’s stunning role

[General (retired) Carlos Ramiro Mena, the man of the moment]

While things have been exploding over Scientology in Colombia, our man in Los Angeles, Jeffrey Augustine, has been looking into the relationship between David Miscavige’s organization and that South American country, looking for clues to how things got to their present mess. We think he’s turned []

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Colombian senator cites Xenu, ‘the Hole,’ in wild televised hearing about Scientology scandal

[Senator Ivan Cepeda and Defense Minister Guillermo Botero squared off]

Our man in Bogotá, a local Colombian journalist who prefers that we not name him, sent us this wild dispatch about what happened yesterday in that country’s Congress regarding the swirling scandal involving the Church of Scientology. We can only dream that something like this was []

See the Scientology-like ad for Scientologist-owned ABCMouse, made by Scientologists!

 We seem to catch people by surprise every time we point this out, but ABCMouse is not only a hugely successful digital educational enterprise, it’s also helping its owner, Age of Learning founder Doug Dohring, funnel millions of dollars in donations to the Church of []

While the Scientology scandal swirls in Colombia, a key figure relaxes in Florida

[Col. Prado, still wearing his Freedom medal]

Tomorrow, Colombia’s Congress is holding hearings regarding the Scientology scandal that the media there has been feeding on. We told you last time that an upstart federal senator, Iván Cepeda, sparked the congressional investigation when he asked the country’s new defense minister to report back about Scientology’s infiltration of []

Oh gross: Scientology Sea Org now saluting donors who give for ‘Ideal Orgs’

 Rod Keller has a great new report on just how wacky and desperate Scientology fundraising is []

From Jon Atack’s ‘Blue Sky’: Reorganizing Scientology as L. Ron Hubbard’s life waned

 One of the truly monumental books about Scientology, Jon Atack’s A Piece of Blue Sky: Scientology, Dianetics, and L. Ron Hubbard Exposed came out in 1990 and was nearly sued out of existence. We were fortunate to come across a copy in the 1990s as we were just beginning a career investigating Scientology stories. Today, []

The Garcias won’t go down without a fight: Filing appeal of Scientology’s ‘arbitration’ farce

 The Garcias aren’t letting well enough alone. More than five years after they first filed a lawsuit against the Church of Scientology, and after three years wrestling against a ruling by Tampa federal Judge James Whittemore that forced them into Scientology’s internal arbitration, Luis and Rocio Garcia have filed a notice that they are appealing []

Stanley Clarke turns out to be as deep into Scientology as we feared, all these years later

 From time to time we’re asked if famous jazz bassist Stanley Clarke is still involved in Scientology (and the person asking is usually hoping we’ll say no). For a while there, we hadn’t seen Stanley showing much involvement in the organization, and so we weren’t sure what to say. But then, ten days ago, we []

A life connected to some of our biggest Scientology stories ends in a terrible way

[Jonathan Ramsay, 1981-2018]

We have some unfortunate news regarding a person who had a connection to a couple of different stories here at the Underground Bunker. His name was Jonathan Ramsay, and he recently ended his life in Arizona at the age of []

Whale watching: Your 2018 mid-year guide to who’s keeping Scientology alive

[Jim Bridgeforth and Victoria and Tom Cummins, Scientology cetaceans]

Thanks to the tipster who forwarded us pages from the new Impact magazine, we have your mid-year Scientology whale watching update! []