Home World News Fugitive Televangelist Wanted by F.B.I. Is Caught in the Philippines

Fugitive Televangelist Wanted by F.B.I. Is Caught in the Philippines

The Appointed Son of God, as his followers call him, favors satiny white suits. The young women who surround him in photos are often clothed in the same virginal hue.

Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, the 74-year-old founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name, is a charismatic doomsday evangelist who claims millions of followers in about 200 countries. His sermons have drawn the faithful in Ukraine, Hong Kong, Brazil and New York. He served as spiritual adviser to Rodrigo Duterte, the powerful former president of the Philippines.

And now Mr. Quiboloy, who is also known as The Owner of the Universe, is in custody after a manhunt in the southern Philippines that enlisted thousands of security forces. On Sunday evening, Benjamin Abalos Jr., the interior secretary of the Philippines, announced that the fugitive preacher had been caught. The pastor’s lawyer said that Mr. Quiboloy had voluntarily surrendered. The police said that security forces had negotiated the surrender from the pastor’s compound.

Mr. Quiboloy is on the F.B.I.’s most-wanted list. He faces charges in the United States and at home of masterminding a human trafficking and child sex abuse ring. He has been accused of rape, including of minors. Through his lawyers, Mr. Quiboloy has denied all the charges.

The search for the fugitive pastor, to serve him a Philippine arrest warrant, is also about a megachurch that American and Philippine prosecutors say has depended on labor exploitation and the deception of people least able to afford the financial burden placed on them.

And Mr. Quiboloy’s fate exposes an array of rifts in Philippine society: between a Roman Catholic majority and a growing evangelical population; between a moneyed elite from the Philippine capital and power brokers from the country’s periphery; and between the president of the Philippines and his vice president.

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