The cult was a secret one, practiced by men and kept secret from the women. Members were Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, and all were skilled in strangulation by the ruhmal, a yellow and white cloth that represented the Nepalese god of destruction. Instead, members were profiled as a religious society, dedicated to a goddess whose reappearance on Earth would be put off another 1,000 years with each "deed" that was performed.

Large sects, numbering upwards of 200 men, would operate in various regions, unhampered by Indian rulers. The society as a whole were called Thuggees, the origin of the English term "thug", meaning a criminal with violent tendencies.

The most famous, although his claim to fame has been questioned, was Thug Behram, a member of the cult who at one time claimed to have personally murdered 931 people between 1790 and 1830, when a British crackdown on the society put an end to their profession.

Behram's victim total was taken from a manuscript on the Thuggee cult, written by an employee of the East India company in 1830, one James Paton. What it apparently states, is that Behram admitted to being present for that number of murders, not actually doing them all himself. He also recanted the number later in Paton's record, when he said that he had murdered around 125 victims and been present for another 250.