WATERFORD, N.Y. -- The FBI raided a home with close connections to an alleged cult in the Capital Region. This comes as the group's leader faces charges.

FBI agents were going in and out of a home on Oregon Trail in Waterford all morning Monday. According to neighbors, Nancy Salzman, the co-founder of NXIVM, lived at the home before leaving Monday, when the group’s leader, Keith Raniere, was arrested in Mexico.

Raniere is charged with sex trafficking after a federal complaint revealed sex, slavery and humiliation was all part of a secret group within NXIVM.

The complaint says slaves were recruited to perform sexual acts and required to provide damaging collateral information that would be released if they talked about the secret group. It goes on to say slaves were branded in their pelvic areas with Keith Raniere’s initials. 

Neighbors drove by the home all day. One told Spectrum News many NXIVM members own homes on the street and on neighboring streets. She says she has personally seen groups of women coming in and out of several homes and always believed there was suspicious activity going on.

“It really hasn’t changed; it’s been the same thing over and over. Many cars what appears to be meeting, it could be walking, at all hours of the night. They have an accurate description -- they’re usually younger women. They are very skinny and we’ve witnessed what we would expect people to think of sleep deprivation, unless they sleep all day and walk all night,” the neighbor said.

James Dutko, the owner of Showtime Barbershop in Clifton Park, says NXIVM owned several businesses in a local shopping center on Route 9, including a next door building called Apropos.

"I’ve been here for 4 1/2 years. Several members walk in getting haircuts, telling me about what they do," said Dutko.

Dutko says he’s known about the suspected cult ever since moving to the location.

"To have something international at the heart of Halfmoon, it's unbelievable; it's not good," said Dutko.

Raniere appeared in court Tuesday afternoon in Fort Worth, Texas.