Grace & favour

A controversial South Korean doomsday sect has had a warm welcome in Fiji, where it now has significant business interests.

- AUBREY BELFORD (OCCRP), HYEIN KANG & MYUNGJU LEE (KCIJ-NEWSTAPA)

In August 2018, a team of 17 South Korean police officers flew to Fiji on a secret mission: to take down the leaders of a Christian doomsday sect accused of taking away its adherents’ passports and subjecting them to ritual beatings.

The roughly 400-strong group, known as the Grace Road Church, had moved to the Pacific island nation from South Korea several years earlier. Under the charismatic leadership of the Rev Okjoo Shin, they came to believe the world was heading for nuclear war and that Fiji’s tropical islands would be a safe haven where they could carry out their “unprecedented biblical reformation” to revive Christianity.

Just a few days earlier, as she arrived to visit her homeland, Shin – who styles herself the “Spirit of Truth” – had been arrested at Seoul’s main airport on charges including assault, child abuse and imprisoning church members.

Now, having assembled in Fiji, the South Korean officers teamed up with local law enforcement and began combing through the sect’s properties, starting with a night-time raid on its sprawling green farm on the south coast of the country’s main island. Over two days, the joint force arrested six members, including Shin’s son and second in command, Daniel Kim.

In one room on the farm, they came across a drawer containing dozens of passports – what seemed like clear evidence the group was controlling the movements of its adherents.

But, almost immediately, the operation fell apart. Within days, a Fijian court blocked the church members’ deportation to South Korea. Fijian police then called their Korean counterparts and told them they would take over the investigation.