FOUKE, Ark. — State and federal authorities are investigating the possible sexual abuse of minors at a 15-acre evangelical compound run by a convicted tax evader whom critics describe as a cult leader.

The Tony Alamo Christian Ministries complex in southwestern Arkansas was raided Saturday by more than 100 federal and state police, and six children have been placed in temporary state custody and are being interviewed.

No one was arrested, but U.S. Attorney Bob Balfe said prior to the raid that he expects a warrant to be issued for Alamo, 74, who has a long history of tangling with law enforcement.

State police spokesman Bill Sadler said if the children in state care need to be held long-term, the matter would have to go before a judge.

The raid, the culmination of a two-year investigation into child-abuse and pornography allegations, was moved up on the calendar after an e-mail about plans for an October raid was inadvertently sent to media late last week.

Alamo told The Associated Press in an interview Saturday no child pornography was generated at the ministry but that age of consent is puberty when it comes to sex. Alamo, who said he was in the Los Angeles area, said the government is trying to harass him.

Alamo was convicted of tax-related charges in 1994 after the Internal Revenue Service said he owed the government $7.9 million. He served four years in prison. Prosecutors in the tax case argued before sentencing that Alamo was a flight risk and a polygamist who preyed on married women and girls in his congregation.

In 1991, Alamo and his followers disappeared when U.S. marshals stormed his complex near Alma in western Arkansas — taking with them the remains of Alamo's late wife Susan, who had died in 1982 and from whom Alamo anticipated a resurrection. As a condition of his release from his four-year sentence from the tax convictions, Alamo had to turn over his wife's corpse to her family.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors the activities of extremist groups in the U.S., describes Alamo's ministry as a cult that opposes homosexuality, Roman Catholicism and the government.