Luz del Mundo Leader Naasón Joaquín García Pleads Not Guilty in New York to Racketeering and Sex Trafficking Charges

A ranch in the Jalisco-Michoacán border region was raided by soldiers and state police last week. At first it appeared to be a narco training camp, with tactical vests and rifles, but most of the guns were replicas. The 38 detainees, one of them American, did not have cocaine or cartel insignia. They wore t-shirts bearing the logo of La Luz del Mundo, or Light of the World.

Michoacán police claimed that the church was using the camp to train a paramilitary group known as the Jahzer. When police asked Jahzer members what they were doing, they replied, “We are preparing for the end of the world.” They said this apocalypse was being provoked by the prosecution of the church’s leader in a United States court case.

Two days later, a federal judge in Michoacán released the 38 detainees, ruling that police had entered the camp without a search warrant and that the arrest was therefore illegal. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded that authorities are still looking into the paramilitary group. The source notes that La Luz del Mundo has followers among elected politicians and judges in Mexico.

The raid came the day after Naasón Joaquín García, the church’s leader, pleaded not guilty in a New York court to charges of racketeering, sex trafficking and child exploitation. He faces the case alongside five others, including his mother, Eva García. In a release announcing the indictment on September 10, the Justice Department said the defendants had engaged in a racketeering enterprise “for decades to facilitate the systemic sexual abuse of children and women,” including the creation of images of child sexual abuse. A lawyer for Joaquín said in a statement that he denies the charges and rejects “the grotesque portrait painted by the government.” The source also reports that Joaquín, 56, is serving a 16-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2022 in California to three counts of sexual offenses with minors.

The church grew from its base in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second-largest city, into a large movement with congregations around the world. It has temples in Houston, Honduras and San Salvador, and its flagship temple in Guadalajara has smaller replicas in Alaska and Chile. The church claims five million adherents worldwide, including 1.5 million in Mexico, though the source cautions that these figures should be treated carefully. Joaquín is known within the church as “The Apostle,” and the source states that the church believes he was directly chosen by God. The church is alleged to teach that “the desires of the apostle are commandments” and that “nothing the apostle does is sin.”

The indictment includes organized crime charges, alleging that La Luz del Mundo operates as an international criminal conspiracy. In Guadalajara, questions have been raised about how the church coexists with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful criminal groups, and there are accusations that the church has paramilitary units involved in criminal rackets. Protecting those who cannot defend themselves is the lesson at the heart of the child abuse allegations (Proverbs 31:8-9). The indictment has also sent a shock wave through Mexican politics, where the church has members across the political parties.

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