Mexico’s Attorney General, Ernestina Godoy, is supporting the victims of the La Luz del Mundo church to have the case reopened after just a few days ago, through a brief statement, the same Attorney General’s Office of the Republic (FGR) confirmed its decision not to pursue criminal action. This case had targeted the spiritual leader of the church, Naasón Joaquín García, some of his family members, politicians, and ministers from his closest circle for seven years due to allegations of maintaining a dark system of child sexual abuse and illicit enrichment. President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed this Thursday that Godoy and some of the victims will have a hearing: “The prosecutor’s goal is for the judge to reopen the case; the closure was last year with prosecutor Gertz; I do not know the reasons, but I know that the prosecutor approached the victims and is requesting the case to be reopened,” she defended.
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The broadest investigation against the current leaders of the religious cult was the one led by the FGR since 2019. Over these years, testimonies and investigations revealed that the congregation enjoyed impunity thanks to its economic power, political influence, and ties with Mexico’s elites.
Until Thursday morning, following the president’s statement, the reason why the agency had decided to shelve the case was not understood, as it mentions charges similar to those the United States government filed in courts in Los Angeles and Manhattan. Naasón Joaquín, its leader, is serving a sentence of nearly 17 years in prison and faces new federal charges of organized crime conspiracy, sex trafficking, and other crimes, for which he could remain behind bars for the rest of his life.
U.S. justice defines the congregation as a sect and links it to money laundering activities. In Mexico, however, the FGR claimed it found no elements to prosecute any crime. The victims of the Apostle of Jesus Christ, as his followers call Naasón Joaquín, immediately reacted and said they received the news as a slam. “I feel deceived. They stole my hope,” Sochil Martin told this newspaper in a phone interview. “The problem is that in Mexico there is a marriage, a pact, between the government and La Luz del Mundo,” she reproached.
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Martin and her husband, Sharim Guzmán, aged 40 and 41, were the first to denounce the crimes committed by the leaders of the evangelical congregation. Their accusations have reached the authorities and also come to public light; they have supported other victims, encouraging them to report; they have exposed the links of church members with the political and judicial apparatus; with constant travel between Mexico and the United States, they have devoted much of their lives to seeking justice in both countries. For this reason, they felt the decision announced by the FGR as a betrayal, just days after Godoy, an official close to Sheinbaum, took office as head of the agency.
The FGR had notified Martin in January of its resolution not to pursue criminal action against the church leaders accused, confirming the mantle of impunity they have enjoyed in Mexico for decades. The accusations in the U.S. portray how La Luz del Mundo operated based on the financial and sexual exploitation of its believers, who were instilled with unwavering obedience to the church leader, from Naasón’s grandfather—the founder—through his father and finally to himself.
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