When FBI agents raided the Van Nuys compound of a Philippines-based church late last month, they found 80 passports, seven wedding rings and a folder titled “Traitor” — the makings of a decade-long human trafficking conspiracy, federal prosecutors said in an indictment unsealed Thursday.
Officials with the Davao City, Phillipines-headquartered church — whose leader calls himself “The Appointed Son of God” — had lured Filipino followers to Los Angeles, where they were promised roles in church concerts, the indictment alleges.
Israelito Torreon, an attorney for the church in the Philippines, previously said the U.S. charges stemmed from a campaign, waged 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.” Victims who did not meet quotas were abused, according to the indictment and an FBI agent’s affidavit. Some were forced to fast and listen to the church leader’s recorded sermons for days in a locked room in the Van Nuys compound, the documents say. One victim told the FBI that after her relationship with a non-church member became known, she was paddled 100 times, forced to wear an orange shirt with the letters SOS for “Son of Satan,” and her head was shaved.
At the Van Nuys compound, agents found a memo listing the church’s “fundraising goal” for the United States in 2018 as 23,050,000 Philippine pesos, or about $457,000 dollars. Estopare and other church officials sent cash to the Philippines, rolled into the socks of church workers and flown in bulk on private jets, the indictment says.
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