Shin Ok-ju is the founder of Grace Road Church - a Korean doomsday cult.
They chose Fiji as their 'promised land'. "This is the land where your heart will live in eternity
and your body will never die."
101 East reveals the inner workings of the church and uncovers damning evidence of abuse.
Follow us on the investigation.
We received this video from a confidential source.
This is the church’s ‘threshing ritual’.
Grace Road insists the beatings drive out evil.
But former members say the violence is used to control followers.
"About 7 or 8 pastors sit around you in a circle.
I was seated in the middle, and one of them would slap me on both cheeks 4 to 8 times."
- Lee Yunzae, former cult member
We follow Grace Road to Fiji and find even more disturbing evidence.
In at least two cases, Shin Ok-ju told followers with serious health conditions not to receive medical treatment.
"I left the hospital without doing dialysis. In the same evening I became paralysed. Then I did the dialysis. If I didn’t, I would have died."
- Han Sung-chan, former cult member
He tells us another church member wasn’t so lucky.
"There is someone who came here and died, I mean Kim Jeong-sook.
I am sorry to say but she would have landed in hell.
She didn’t receive dialysis, this is proof of her faith and she came to (Fiji) where she so longed to be."
Across Fiji, we find Grace Road is not just a church, it’s now a business empire.
We comb through the church’s registration documents, which show they’ve amassed millions of dollars in share capital.
But it’s come at a cost.
"They treated us like slaves, with the kind of conditions we were working under."
Former Grace Road worker Etuate Ratunawa says he was told to move scaffolding while he was standing on it.
He fell and shattered his left thigh bone.
Doctors gave him two years to recover but the church wanted him to return after four months.
Etuate says the pain was unbearable and he was eventually fired.
As the evidence mounts, we try to contact the church.
No one returns our calls.
So we go to them.
- "Sorry, sorry, who are you? Who are you?"
- "We’re on public property. We’re from 101 East."
Grace Road Church has close ties with Fiji’s government - but they won’t speak to us either.
We find the church has been awarded important contracts, including renovating the Prime Minister’s residence and Government House.
But they have even bigger plans.
We obtain exclusive footage that reveals the church’s ultimate goal in Fiji.
"We will conquer, govern and rule."
"We must protect our workers.
We must protect our people.
We must protect our country.
We must take the necessary steps as parliament, the highest authority of this land, to address this problem."
- Lynda Tabuya, Fiji MP
Source: Fiji ParliamentShin Ok-ju was convicted of fraud, child abuse and assault, among other crimes.
She’s been sentenced to seven years in prison.
She denies all wrongdoing and is appealing.