Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Filipino Cult Leader - The Apollo Quiboloy story

Episode Date: February 3, 2025

This is the story of Apollo Quiboloy, the megachurch preacher from the Philippines who is now involved in a scandal.

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And one day he's preaching in a little chapel when suddenly angels appear to him. And they come and they tell him that he's actually the son of his God. So he starts telling everyone that he is the appointed son of God. Well, I'm sure this will end well for him. So anyway, because of this, he decides to start his own church. And a few years later, after the church is founded, this guy shows up, Rodrigo. And Rodrigo's running for mayor, and he comes to speak to the congregation at the church. And they welcome him, and soon enough, he and Apollo become good friends.

And later, Rodrigo actually gets elected mayor, and he appoints Apollo to be his spiritual advisor. And so then more people find out about Apollo and his teachings, and his church starts to grow, and soon the donations start rolling in. Because, of course, they do. But these donations aren't enough for Apollo. He wants more. So, he gets the full-time working members of the church to go out at 6 a.m. every morning and solicit money from strangers for the church.

The only catch is they can't come home until they reach their daily quota of money collected. So to avoid sleeping on the street, the members of the church start playing on people's sympathy. Like they pretend to be poor college students or they pretend to be disabled. But whatever, it works. And the church makes a ton of money. And so pretty quickly, Pastor Apollo becomes a very wealthy man. He's so wealthy, in fact, that he's able to start his own broadcasting network. And this helps spread his teachings beyond the Philippines.

So now he's got followers around the world. in many different countries, including the United States. And this is where Apollo really levels up. And with the help of his innermost circle, he traffics his most obedient followers into the U.S., where they start working and soliciting donations from people full-time. So he's making even more money. Oh, and I haven't even gotten to some of the crazy stuff this guy claims.

Aside from saying he's the son of some God, he once claimed that he yelled at an earthquake and made it stop. Like, there was an earthquake happening, and he's just like, ah! And it just stopped. And he also says that the public should thank him for stopping that earthquake. Thanks, Apollo. He also claims that he talks to his God directly, not metaphorically, but like conversations

directly. He also says that he has visions of his God. He claims that he has been physically taken up into heaven on multiple occasions. I mean, this guy has said and done way to. much for me to cover in one video. But anyway, and if that's not crazy enough, here's the part of the story where things start to get creepy. Among his church workers, the ones who are young, attractive women and who excel at getting donations, they get to move up and become what's called pastoral assistants. And of course, the prettiest and most obedient

pastoral assistants, they get into Apollo's inner inner circle, and they become what are called spiritual wives. And spiritual wives, they get a special privilege. They get the privilege of smashing with Apollo. Yeah, they literally call it night duty. And these pastoral assistants and spiritual wives are anywhere between 25 years old, all the way down to 12 years old. While at this point in the story, Apollo is old as shit. He's 74. And if any of these girls or young women protest their night duty, they're then threatened with eternal damnation. So basically, if they don't smash with him, they're verbally threatened, physically threatened, or he tells them they're going to hell.

And to make it worse, these young women depend on the church for their basic needs. Like they live and work at the church, their entire social life is there. So they're kind of trapped in this. So he's basically trafficking these girls, like this is sex trafficking. And this nonsense goes on for years, not just in the Philippines, but in their US locations too. And at this point, Apollo is a powerful man, like his first Following has grown to over 6 million members worldwide. He claims he has followers in all 200 countries.

Plus, with all those donations, he's now wealthier than he's ever been. Dude now owns a private jet and a personal helicopter. He has a church compound that's so massive. It has an indoor arena that seats 75,000 people. To put that in perspective, that's literally the biggest indoor arena in the entire world. And this dude owns it. That's how rich he is. Okay, but then rumors of him essaying young women, they start to spread. And of course, his followers don't believe he's guilty of anything. They stand by him. And religious, culty type leaders always have followers who do this, so this is not

surprising. But his longtime friend, Mayor Rodrigo, he ends up running for president and he wins. And with the president of the Philippines on his side, every accusation against Apollo is basically buried. So Apollo seems untouchable by this point. He's been running this trafficking business for like 16 years and it doesn't seem like there ever going to be any consequences for it. Until, I guess at some point, some of his former church members in the U.S., they go and report him to the FBI. And the FBI starts looking into him and this investigation makes the news and Apollo hears about it and he's like, oh shit. And he allegedly flees the U.S. and he goes all the way back to the Philippines to his church compound there. And there he'll be protected by his

longtime friend, President Rodrigo. But unfortunately, his friend Rodrigo finishes his term as president, leaves office, and now there's a new president. And new president is not Apollo's friend. So all the accusations against him in the Philippines are no longer buried. So then, back in the U.S., bam, the FBI arrests some of his innermost circle. And they're officially. looking for Apollo too. And he's being accused of fraud, human trafficking, and sex trafficking. And now he's on the FBI's most wanted list. And so Apollo, he gets all mad and he's frustrated that they're after him and he starts lashing out publicly saying it's a conspiracy. And this is happening during the COVID pandemic. So he gives a sermon telling the world that if we want

the pandemic to stop, the FBI should stop investigating him. I'm warning the whole world. Listen to the voice of the appointed son. You want this pandemic to stop. Stop persecuting, prosecuting, maligning the appointed son. But then, even more women in the Philippines come forward with accusations against him. And of course, Apollo denies everything. And he insists that the people accusing him are just evil.

And he changes the homepage of his website to this, Why are evil people after Pastor Apollo? I'm guessing they're after him because of all the sex trafficking, but that's just a guess. Anyway, eventually the Filipino Senate issues a warrant for his arrest, and they raid some of his properties, but the dude is nowhere to be found. He's fled, and he's hiding out from the law, and there's like this whole manhunt looking for him, and there ends up being a huge standoff at one of his compounds between police and a bunch of his supporters, and his supporters still insist that he didn't do anything wrong,

and I don't even have time to get into that part of the story. But two weeks later, Apollo finally gives up and he turns himself in. And bam, they arrest him. Here's his mugshot. And as of right now, he hasn't actually been to trial yet. So... It's tax season. And at Lifelock, we know you're tired of numbers.

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