It seemed that the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) would finally bring justice to the victims of La Luz del Mundo. But it dismissed the case seven years after scrutinizing church leader Naasón Joaquín García and those who, according to complaints, helped him form a harem of girls to fulfill his sexual fantasies and amass a fortune from tithes. The apostle, as Naasón Joaquín García is known, confessed in a Los Angeles court that he abused three minors and is serving a 16-year prison sentence. In Mexico, however, the case silently collapsed, and President Claudia Sheinbaum herself has said she doesn’t know why, and has promised to reverse the dismissal that the Prosecutor’s Office issued this week.
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There were indications that everything would end badly. The FGR never ratified the initial statements of its star witness, Sochil Martin, the first woman to denounce the pastor in California. Nor did it execute search warrants in the Hermosa Provincia neighborhood of Guadalajara, the congregation’s headquarters. In 2019, the defunct Federal Police considered taking action, with the warning that it would be complicated to enter and exit the complex. They never entered. The worst part: the Government failed to identify more victims, despite Mexico being pointed to as the epicenter of child sexual abuse and embezzlement of parishioners.
The investigation file, with more than 1,100 pages, dismissed by the Prosecutor’s Office, compiles a large volume of incriminating information about the church’s high command. This has raised questions about the Public Ministry’s rigor and the political influence of the congregation, linked to Morena, the ruling party.
The abortion hospital
On the afternoon of June 26, 2019, three agents of Mexico’s defunct Federal Police parked in front of Guadalajara’s private Siloé hospital. In a report, they described the place: a guard booth controlling vehicle access, another closed entrance for parking, surrounded by businesses and houses. From a car, they photographed the building and left. The report is on page 617 of volume 1 of the FGR’s file on the church.
Sochil Martin had directed the authorities’ attention to the medical center, owned by the apostle’s elder brother, Benjamín Joaquín. Martin told prosecutor’s officials that Siloé was frequently visited by the maidens, as Naasón, who used to abuse them without a condom, was a vector for diseases and unwanted pregnancies.
“Abortions were performed on Naasón’s sex slaves who became pregnant, as he didn’t want anyone’s children,” Martin stated at an FGR facility in Baja California. “They inject women for birth control… They gave them ‘morning-after’ pills… Or they inject women against human papillomavirus or other diseases transmitted during the sexual acts he forced them to perform.”
A few blocks from the Hermosa Provincia neighborhood, Siloé was a practical solution for the apostle’s rampant sexual activity. Its doctors and nurses received the teenagers brought to them without asking questions. One day, the patient was Naasón’s main assistant, Azalia Rangel García, now a fugitive from justice. “Her belly looked about five months pregnant, and one day she arrived late from work at Naasón’s office and said she had been given an injection because they wouldn’t let her have babies. She looked very sad and affected,” reads the investigation file.
Siloé was an investment made by Samuel Joaquín Flores, Naasón’s father and former leader of the church. He inaugurated it on August 6, 2008, with the promise of offering low-cost medical service to his brothers in faith. “Your peace of mind is in the health of those you love,” was the motto he chose. Dozens of parishioners joined the construction without receiving payment and donated to fund the great work. But the profits remained in the pockets of the Joaquíns.
Tunnels and the tithe vault
In September 2019, when a group of undercover agents walked through the neighborhood where La Luz del Mundo reigns, they knew it wasn’t enough to point the camera at the top of the main temple; they also had to pay attention to what was happening beneath their feet.
Sochil Martin had given a precise description of a network of tunnels connecting different properties around the house of prayer: Naasón’s residence, the mansion inherited by his mother Eva García, and an office that received special guests. There was a special underground path, she said, that reached the back of the altar. It was an escape route requested by Samuel Joaquín, which ultimately conferred upon him a sense of omnipresence before his flock. His son Naasón would disappear from his golden chair in the center of the enclosure and, a few minutes later, would appear on a balcony, on the second level of his house.
“In that church, there is an underground tunnel that goes from the private office to Naasón Joaquín’s large house, and from there another tunnel that goes to the basement,” declared Martin, who warned that the passages were also used for girls to reach the apostle’s bedroom without neighbors noticing.
Tithe payments from faithful members in nearly 60 countries arrived at a secret vault located beneath the temple. “Beneath those tunnels are the areas where they keep money, documents, and other important matters,” Martin declared. “I had to count the money many times… Sometimes there was so much money that we couldn’t count it quickly.”
The Prosecutor’s Office never searched Guadalajara’s main temple or Naasón’s house, where sexual abuses allegedly occurred, as described in the FGR’s file and presented in hearings at the Los Angeles Superior Court in California.
Sexual predator
There are 25 photographs taken of a mobile phone screen. This is how a private conversation between Naasón Joaquín and Sochil Martin was saved, who went from being his partner and personal secretary to a sex slave and then a recruiter of girls. The FGR document includes photos showing a 16-year-old teenager, originally from Baja California, whom the pastor wanted to have in his harem.
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— Hadn’t we agreed on the photos with (minor’s name)?”, the apostle asked his secretary.
— Ok, then I’ll do naughty things with…, Martin promised him.
— I like playing with you, sending you to do sexy things, mischief, etc… Azalea also asked me if we’re going to fulfill my fantasy of going to the swinger club, remember?
The series of images includes the selfies Martin took in underwear with the teenager. “Take a photo with her too, without a bra,” Naasón asked. Upon seeing the photographs arriving on his phone, his messages became more suggestive: “Mmmm,” “Beautiful,” “What a hot photo,” “I like them a lot.” Fortunately for the young woman, her mother called, and she had to leave.
Martin declared to ministerial agents that she chose that teenager from the Ensenada temple considering the evangelical minister’s preferences: thin, light-skinned, and, above all, virgins. “Naasón told me he wanted (minor’s name) to masturbate at my house and for me to record her and then send him the video.” The apostle got angry because he never received the recording. “He started telling me that I didn’t love him… that I was useless.”
The Joaquíns’ bodyguards
Three men in white shirts pose next to a young man with glasses. The Mexican Prosecutor’s Office identified these three individuals as part of the dangerous group of bodyguards protecting the Joaquín family. The young man accompanying them is Adoraim Joaquín Zamora, Naasón’s son. If the tradition of direct succession—from great-grandfather to great-grandson—is maintained, he would be the heir to the throne.
In the image gallery included in this case file, Mexican authorities included members of the congregation’s praetorian guard. Sochil Martin stated in her declaration that two of Naasón’s main bodyguards, brothers César and Jessie Camarena, originally from Los Angeles, participated in the sexual abuses.
“’The Servant of God’ asked me to have sexual relations with the two of them, while he recorded us in the suite of his private office,” Martin declared. “That day I didn’t go, because I was afraid. I didn’t want to perform that activity.”
The secret escort calls itself Yasser or Jahzer. It was formed by Naasón to replace the previous group, the Jericho Guard, created by his father Samuel. Their dark activities came to light in September with the arrest of 38 faithful members who were on a property in a rural area on the borders of Michoacán and Jalisco, a region dominated by drug trafficking. It was reported that “armed civilians” participated in “tactical-operative training.” They seized a pistol, 19 replica assault rifles, as well as knives and tactical equipment. They were accused of criminal association and possession of firearms. But a judge ordered their release due to alleged procedural flaws.
The apostle’s politicians
A 28-year-old man with a black beard refused to be searched by federal agents in the boarding lounge of Mexico City’s Benito Juárez airport and ended up handcuffed. Angrily, he said his nickname was “Pocas Pulgas” and stared intently at the camera for his mugshot. “The detainee stated he had just received a public office and did not wish to provide further information,” reads a report prepared by the Federal Police in August 2015. That defiant man was Hamlet García Almaguer, who would eventually become a federal deputy for Morena and one of the most influential politicians of La Luz del Mundo. He recently aspired to be attorney general.
A copy of the report of that arrest is in the FGR’s investigation file. The agency collected personal information on several politicians from the congregation, most of them Morena militants. Their passport applications, driver’s licenses, and vehicle registrations are in the file. Notable figures include Senator Emmanuel Reyes Carmona; former federal deputy, Favio Castellanos Polanco; former senator Israel Zamora Guzmán; Guadalajara councilwoman Kehila Abigail Kú Escalante; Jalisco’s Director of Road Safety, Jonadab Martínez García; and former Xalapa councilman, Silem García Peña.
Sharim Guzmán, who was a political operator for the church in Baja California, declared to the FGR that the apostle asked him to create the association “Uniting Wills for my Society”, saying that these were “a springboard for politics.”
One of Naasón’s closest associates was the church’s spokesperson and former federal deputy candidate in Veracruz, Silem García Peña. His wife, Zabdy Quezada Valdez, is a Xalapa councilwoman and a Morena militant. Since September, he has been a fugitive from U.S. justice. The Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office accuses him of being part of a dangerous conspiracy of organized crime, sex trafficking, and child exploitation led by the apostle. García Peña, the indictment states, was responsible for eliminating evidence, harassing victims, and coordinating the kidnapping of a complainant in Guadalajara. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
One of García Peña’s romantic partners, Sibia Orozco, a cult devotee, was shot dead in front of her family inside her home, a few steps from Guadalajara’s main temple, in November 2020. That crime, in the hands of the Jalisco Prosecutor’s Office, remains unsolved.
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