A leader of the polygamous Utah sect of the Mormon church, who is facing federal fraud charges, escaped from a GPS tracking device using olive oil or another kind of lubricant, according to the FBI.

Lyle Jeffs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) was released from jail on 9 June pending a trial on charges that he and others swindled the federal government out of millions of dollars in food stamps.

Less than two weeks after a judge released him, Jeffs violated his house arrest, according to the FBI in Utah, which issued a warrant for the 56-year-old’s arrest.

Now, federal investigators say they believe Jeffs escaped the FBI’s monitoring by pouring olive oil or a similar substance onto his ankle to allow him to remove a bracelet that was tracking his whereabouts.

“There was evidence at the home that he had used some sort of lubricant to slide the GPS tracker off of his ankle, and we do believe it was olive oil,” said FBI spokeswoman Sandra Yi Barker. She said there was “damage” to the bracelet, but “it wasn’t enough to trigger an alert to the federal agents”.

Federal prosecutors, along with an estranged member of the family, had previously urged the government not to release Lyle, arguing that he would flee.

Photo of Lyle Jeffs released by the FBI’s Salt Lake City division. Photograph: FBI website

Officials discovered Jeffs had escaped after he did not respond to an inquiry, prompting officers to visit his home, Barker said. The search remains underway.

Jeffs is one of 11 FLDS leaders arrested in February in one of the largest recents crackdowns on the controversial sect, which is based on the Arizona-Utah border and split from the official Mormon church in 1890.

Federal prosecutors have alleged that since 2011, Jeffs and other church leaders have orchestrated a sophisticated fraud scheme in which members would illegally divert food-stamp proceeds, which are meant for low-income families.

Jeffs and other leaders engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) and gave members instructions on how to avoid government detection, according to an indictment.

In one common tactic, they would allegedly buy groceries with food stamps and then give the supplies to the church’s communal “FLDS Storehouse” through which leaders would divide up the goods. Unauthorized members would also use food-stamp cards, prosecutors said.

Jeffs has been handling the daily affairs of the sect in Hildale, Utah since his brother Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting young girls. He took girls as young as 12 to be his brides.

Followers believe Warren Jeffs directly channels the voice of God, and before he was jailed, Lyle had been communicating his brothers’ orders from prison.

The US department of justice won a separate criminal case earlier this year after it sued the towns of Hildale and Colorado City, Arizona, alleging that the church controlled the communities and discriminated against residents who aren’t FLDS members.

Jeffs’ public defender declined to comment.