BRITISH COLUMBIA (NEWS1130) – Ten children from Quebec have been sent back home after fears they were part of a cult led by a failed businessman from Montreal.

Late Monday night, a van-load of 12 children and two adults tried to cross into Canada through an unnamed border crossing here in British Columbia. Two of them remain here in BC.

It’s suspected they are linked to Marcel Pontbriand, a man the watchdog group Infocult.org has been tracking since 1995.

“He came more and more to the attention, I would say… publicized, media… about 2009, [when] he left Quebec… with an entourage of about 30 odd members who followed him, went down to live in the States, in Arizona,” explains Executive Director Mike Kropveld.

He adds two children who are still unaccounted for aren’t necessarily in imminent danger. “Often, because there’s no information emanating from the group, people who went down there cut off contact with their family, cut off contact with friends; there was no way or means for people to know what was going on.”

Pontbriand has been said to believe the end of the world will come on December 12th. His whereabouts are not known; there’s no word if a search for him is underway, either.