Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of a Guadalajara-based church who in 2022 was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for sexually abusing three girls in California, has been indicted on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges in the United States.
Joaquín García, the 56-year-old leader or “apostle” of the La Luz del Mundo (The Light of the World) church, and five other people, including Joaquín’s mother, are charged with running “a wide-ranging racketeering and child exploitation enterprise,” according to a statement issued Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.
U.S. officials on Wednesday announced the unsealing of a New York grand jury indictment charging Joaquín García and his co-defendants “with sexual, financial, and related criminal conduct victimizing members of the La Luz del Mundo (LLDM) Church over many years,” according to the statement.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Joaquín García was “taken into federal custody earlier today in Chino, California, where he is serving a state sentence for the sexual abuse of minors.”
He was first arrested in 2019 in Los Angeles, prompting many of the church’s followers to pray for their spiritual leader.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that Joaquín García’s mother, Eva García de Joaquín, was arrested in Los Angeles on Wednesday, and another suspect, Joram Núñez Joaquín — a nephew of the church leader — was detained outside Chicago.
The other three suspects — Rosa Sosa, Azalia Rangel García and Silem García Peña — “are at large and believed to be in Mexico,” the Attorney’s Office said.
Joaquín García faces six federal charges in total. The maximum penalty for four of those charges is life imprisonment.
‘They exploited the faith of their followers to prey upon them’
Citing the unsealed indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said that the defendants “engaged in a racketeering enterprise (the ‘Joaquín LLDM Enterprise’) that exploited the LLDM Church and persisted for decades to facilitate the systemic sexual abuse of children and women — including the creation of photos and videos of sadistic child sexual abuse.”
“For decades, the Joaquín LLDM Enterprise operated for the sexual gratification of Naasón and his father, the former leader of the Joaquín LLDM Enterprise, Samuel Joaquín Flores, who died in 2014,” the Attorney’s Office said.
It also said that during a period of decades in the United States, Mexico and “elsewhere around the world,” the six suspects “abused the power, doctrine, and structure of the LLDM Church to threaten, coerce, and sexually abuse girls, boys, and women in the LLDM Church; to engage in financial crimes; and to obstruct criminal investigations into their misdeeds.”
“These defendants and their co-conspirators were part of the Joaquín LLDM Enterprise that carried out this scheme over the course of decades, abusing generations of church members and then destroying evidence to evade detection by law enforcement,” the Attorney’s Office said.
U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton said that “Joaquín García and the other members of the Joaquín LLDM Enterprise used their position in and the resources of the La Luz Del Mundo Church to sexually abuse girls, boys, and women.”
“They exploited the faith of their followers to prey upon them. When they were confronted, they leveraged their religious influence and financial power to intimidate and coerce victims into remaining silent about the abuse they had suffered,” he said.
Federal charges came after ‘yearslong investigation’
Ricky J. Patel, the top special agent in the New York Field Office of Homeland Security Investigations, said that the indictment against Joaquín García and his alleged co-conspirators came after “a yearslong investigation that spanned the country and involved the support of dozens of courageous victims.”
“… The defendants are accused of targeting individuals who gave LLDM Church their unquestioning trust and devotion and who in turn endured unimaginable crimes,” he said.
“Make no mistake, the defendants’ alleged cycle of victimization ends today. I thank the brave survivors who provided law enforcement with vital information related to these allegations, and I encourage others with helpful information to do the same,” Patel said.
What is the La Luz del Mundo Church?
The LLDM Church was founded by Eusebio Joaquín González, Naasón Joaquín García’s grandfather, in Guadalajara, Jalisco, in 1926, during Mexico’s Cristero War.
Joaquín García’s father, Samuel Joaquín Flores, was the second leader of the church, which claims to have 5 million followers around the world. In 2023, LLDM drew an estimated 500,000 people to a religious ceremony in Guadalajara.
La Luz del Mundo church gathering in Guadalajara draws 500,000
Joaquín García became leader in 2014 after his father’s death. Before his arrest in 2019, he lived between Guadalajara and California, where LLDM has many churches.
According to the church’s English-language website, LLDM is “a Christian-based faith” whose “practices are based on the biblical teachings of Christian fraternity and solidarity, teaching respect for human dignity, equal treatment, and non-discrimination.”
The church says that “the Apostle of Jesus Christ Naasón Joaquín García is the spiritual guide and teacher of our faith.”
LLDM – which doesn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, segregates sexes during services, prohibits alcohol and doesn’t allow women to hold leadership positions – has been the subject of controversy for decades and described by critics as a cult — albeit a very large one — that preys on the poor.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that each of the three leaders the LLDM Church has had to date “manipulated girls and young women by conveying that they could earn a special ‘blessing’ by serving him, which often ultimately included sexual activity, including oral sex, manual stimulation, and ultimately, penetrative sex with the victims.”
“This abuse occurred over the course of generations,” it said.
The Attorney’s Office said that Eva García de Joaquín, “Samuel’s wife and Naasón’s mother, groomed for her husband’s sexual abuse and directly herself sexually abused minors and young women, similarly for years.”
