When FBI agents raided a church compound in Van Nuys in late January, they found 80 passports, seven wedding rings and a folder labeled “Traitor.” Federal prosecutors say those items point to a decade-long human trafficking conspiracy, laid out in an indictment unsealed on Thursday.
The church is the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name, headquartered in Davao City in the Philippines. Its leader calls himself “The Appointed Son of God.” Three of its officials were charged late Wednesday with one count of conspiring to commit forced labor trafficking, document servitude, and immigration and marriage fraud.
The defendants
Guia Cabactulan, 59, was the church’s top official in the United States, the indictment says. Marissa Duenas, 41, allegedly handled immigration matters as the “human resources leader.” Investigators believe Amanda Estopare, 48, tracked fundraising and funneled money to church leadership in the Philippines. A magistrate judge ordered all three women detained after their arrests.
Attorneys for Cabactulan and Duenas did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Court records did not show whether Estopare had retained a lawyer.
Israelito Torreon, an attorney for the church in the Philippines, said earlier that the charges grew out of a campaign by disgruntled ex-members “to exact revenge” and drag the church and its leader, Apollo Quiboloy, “into a quagmire of shame, blatant humiliation and defeat.” He later said the FBI had been taken in by “a grand conspiracy of lies” from embittered former members. Quiboloy was not charged or named in the court documents. Prosecutors and agents refer only to the church’s “leader.”
What prosecutors allege
The indictment says followers were lured to Los Angeles with promises of roles in church concerts. Once there, their passports were confiscated and they were made to beg and solicit donations for the Children’s Joy Foundation, which purported to help poor Filipino children. Prosecutors say the money instead paid for luxury purchases, among them Armani suits for the church’s leader and lingerie for his assistants.
The alleged victims, whom the church called “volunteers” or “miracle workers,” raised money almost every day of the year, often by begging on the street. One woman told the FBI she sang in restaurants and sold baked goods. Another described begging outside malls, Walmarts and Home Depots. Anything they spent on food, lodging or medical needs came out of a daily cash quota, so they “often skipped meals and slept in their vehicles while fundraising,” the indictment says.
Those who missed quotas were abused, according to the indictment and an affidavit from FBI agent Anne Wetzel. Some were forced to fast and listen to the leader’s recorded sermons for days in a locked room at the compound. One victim said that after her relationship with a non-member came to light, she was paddled 100 times, made to wear an orange shirt with the letters SOS for “Son of Satan,” and had her head shaved.
Workers who proved good at raising money were forced into sham marriages with church members who were US citizens, so they could stay in the country, the documents say. Others were enrolled at universities in Hacienda Heights and Garden Grove to qualify for student visas.
The money
Agents found a memo giving the church’s 2018 “fundraising goal” for the United States as 23,050,000 Philippine pesos, or about $457,000. Wetzel wrote that $20 million in cash was deposited in the church’s bank accounts from 2014 to mid-2019, most of it from “street-level solicitation.” The indictment says Estopare and others sent cash to the Philippines rolled into workers’ socks and flown in bulk on private jets.
The FBI has interviewed at least a dozen victims, and several have received temporary immigration status to remain in the United States.
The case widened in November 2021. A federal grand jury returned a 42-count superseding indictment on November 10 that added six defendants, including Quiboloy, who is believed to be in the Philippines. An indictment contains allegations only, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Sources
- Three leaders of Philippines-based church in Van Nuys indicted on human trafficking, immigration charges
- Church Leaders Indicted in LA Over Alleged Sex Trafficking Scheme – My Christian Daily
