'I felt like I was in hell': Dynasty actress Catherine Oxenberg says she was bombarded with death threats and feared for her life as she rescued her 27-year-old daughter India from 'sex slave cult' NXIVM

• e-mail

Catherine Oxenberg is revealing the hell she went through to rescue her daughter from the clutches of alleged sex slave cult NXIVM. 

The Dynasty actress, 56, says she risked her life to rescue her 27-year-old daughter India who she says was starved and branded in the cult posing as a female empowerment group run by Keith Raniere.

Oxenberg said it took her 18 months to rescue her daughter and she was bombarded with death threats, lawsuits, and letters saying she'd go to prison.

Her rescue mission started after she received a letter from a defector who unearthed the dark secrets of the group.

Catherine Oxenberg, 56, says it was 'hell' to rescue her 27-year-old daughter India from 'sex-slave cult' NXIVM

Her daughter India, pictured right in 2007,  joined the NXIVM after attending a course in California in 2011. She was just 20 at the time and worked up the ranks into the group's secretive inner circle called DOS - where women are allegedly starved and branded

'I wasn't happy with India's involvement in NXIVM, but I had no idea what was really going on beneath the surface until a young woman, a defector, who reached out to me and said "You have to save her,"' she said to The Sun. 

'She started to explain the dynamics of what was going on, that there was this slave-master hierarchy that these women were being recruited, under the pretext of being involved with the female empowerment group and that actually Keith Raneire was orchestrating the whole thing as their ultimate master,' she added.  

She and India first attended a NXIVM seminar in 2011 in Venice, California thinking it was a business skills class. India was just 20 at the time and was hooked, joining the group and splashing out thousands of dollars on NXIVM courses.

India eventually moved to Albany, New York near the cult's headquarters and made it into the secretive inner circle of NXIVM called DOS, where recruits are allegedly beaten, starved, and branded with the initials of cult leader Raniere and his deputy, Smallville actress Allison Mack.

The women are also allegedly forced to hand over naked pictures, make vows of obedience, and taped confessions about their family members.  

Oxenberg, who rose to fame on the show Dynasty, launched a 18-month rescue mission, helping other girls in NXIVM escape along the way as she collected evidence against the group's leader Keith Reniere and his alleged deputy actress Allison Mack

India, pictured right, is now living in Malibu and is doing well as she rebuilds her life following her rescue from the cult

The damaging collateral was threatened to be used against them if they left the cult. 

The women were also reportedly placed on strict 500 to 800 calorie diets and told to have sex with the leader Raniere to achieve 'enlightenment'. 

'I want to make very clear to people is that this was no 50 Shades of Grey. This was not consenting adults. This was a coercive, exploitative, dangerous group that was abusing women and it needed to be stopped,' she said. 

The mother-of-four did everything she could to get her daughter out, working with Frank Parlato, NXIVM's former publicist who turned away from the group and later exposed them as a cult. 

'I didn't care what it costs me because I wouldn't stop until I knew she was safe. This whole journey for me, the burden, the weight that I felt not knowing if my daughter was going to be okay. I felt like I was in hell,' she said. 

They tried to expose NXIVM for what it really was, helped women in the group leave, and collected evidence that could be used towards the arrests and indictment of the cult's leaders. 

Raniere and his alleged deputy Mack were arrested on sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit forced labor charges relating to the cult earlier this year. Raniere is currently in jail while Mack is on house arrest awaiting trial in October. 

Oxenberg collected evidence against the cult's leaders to be used for their arrest. They were arrested earlier this year 

Cult leader Keith Raniere is pictured above. Women who made it into NXIVM's inner circle DOS were allegedly told to have sex with him to achieve 'enlightenment' 

The women in DOS were also reportedly branded with the initials of Raniere

Oxenberg says the rescue mission wasn't easy. 

'I heard through the grapevine that they were planning on suing me and that I was going to be put in jail,' she said.

'I was warned not to go to Mexico because I would get killed. I received threat letters from Mexican attorneys and a Mexican state attorney general that were issued by Emiliano Salinas who runs NXIVM, Mexico. And a lawsuit accusing me of fraud and extortion,' she added. 

Her rescue partner Parlato said they were told they'd be assassinated if they even stepped foot in Mexico.

'We were Raniere's public enemies number one and two,' he said. 

But the British actress was able to rescue her daughter India who has now found love and is living with her family in Malibu, trying to rebuild her life. 

'I'm really proud of India. She's in a really good place. She's moving on with her life,' she said of her daughter.

At the end of the day, her 18-month rescue effort resulted in saving several NXIVM members from being branded. 

'It was terrifying but that was dwarfed by the joy we got from all these women who were escaping the cult and coming to us one after the other and saying thank you,' Oxenberg said. 

'We stopped many women from even being branded - once we started exposing it they started cancelling the branding,' she added.