According the Frank Report -- the blog run by Frank Parlato:

Parlato, who once worked briefly for NXIVM and has been involved in a long-running legal battle with the cult, is being credited in numerous media accounts with spurring the probe by the U. S. Attorneys’ office in Brooklyn, leading to the arrest of cult leader Keith Raniere last month in Mexico on sex trafficking charges and forced labor conspiracy.

A federal complaint alleges Raniere turned his female followers into slaves who were branded with his initials and coerced into having sex, activity that was first brought to light by Parlato’s reporting last June in the Niagara Falls Reporter and on several of his websites.

In a report on March 28, shortly after Raniere’s arrest, the New York Post identified Parlato as the reporter who first broke the story last June of women being forcibly branded as part of the NXIVM “sorority.” Parlato had worked for NXIVM in 2007 and 2008, and for some time has been relentlessly pursuing the shocking activities of the self-help group’s abuse of women once he learned from members and former members the extent of the slave-like branding and forced sexual activity.

In addition to the Post, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, and numerous other publications and broadcast media have frequently quoted Parlato’s reporting in their coverage of the Albany group which first gained national attention last October with a New York Times story headlined “Inside a Secretive Group Where Women Are Branded,” the first in a series of stories that followed Parlato’s lead from months earlier.

As for NXIVM, Raniere took Parlato to court, alleging he had been defrauded in a Los Angeles real estate deal. Parlato counter-sued and the civil action is still pending. But Parlato not only fought back in court, he used his dogged reporting skills to ferret out the inner workings of the cult and expose their deeds in story after story until the federal investigation was finally commenced. A lesser effort would not have succeeded.