The US Wants to Extradite the Filipino Preacher Who Calls Himself the “Appointed Son Of God”

07 Aug 2026, 13:04 by Jerome London · Thought Catalog

Reuters/Eloisa Lopez

Updated 7 minutes ago, August 7, 2026

The US is seeking to extradite Filipino preacher Apollo Quiboloy on sex-trafficking charges, and the Philippines must now decide whether to hand over a man millions still follow.

Federal prosecutors say Apollo Quiboloy ran a sex-trafficking operation that coerced young followers with threats of eternal damnation and physical abuse, and now Washington wants him extradited to face those charges.

Apollo Quiboloy, founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ church, appears before a Philippine Senate hearing in Manila on October 23, 2024, where he faced accusations of human trafficking and sexual abuse of a minor. Photo by Jam Sta Rosa / AFP via Getty Images.

The 2021 California indictment charges Quiboloy and eight others with conspiracy, sex trafficking of children, sex trafficking by force and fraud, bulk cash smuggling, marriage fraud, visa fraud, money laundering, and labor trafficking. Girls and young women, some as young as 12, were recruited as “pastorals” and required to have sex with him on a scheduled basis victims called “night duty,” which he framed as a privilege and God’s will for the “Appointed Son of God.” Hesitation, prosecutors say, was cast as having “the devil in them.”

The indictment also lays out a parallel scheme: members brought to the US on fraudulent visas and forced to solicit donations for a bogus charity tied to the Children’s Joy Foundation, with the money funding church operations and leaders’ lifestyles. In one allegation, Quiboloy himself carried more than $335,000 in cash on a private flight from California to the Philippines in 2018. He’s been on the FBI’s most wanted list for human trafficking since 2022.

Apollo Quiboloy — face obscured by a helmet and balaclava, wearing a tactical vest — is escorted by Philippine National Police officers to the Pasig Regional Trial Court for his arraignment in Metro Manila on September 13, 2024. Photo by Eloisa Lopez / Reuters.

Philippine ambassador Jose Manuel Romualdez and Manila’s foreign ministry confirmed Thursday that the formal request has reached the Department of Justice, according to Reuters. Under the 1994 US-Philippines extradition treaty, Manila can defer surrender until local cases finish or temporarily hand him over for US trial and take him back after. The justice ministry has to review the request first, then petition a Philippine court.

Quiboloy founded the Kingdom of Jesus Christ in Davao in 1985 and styles himself the “Appointed Son of God.” He was arrested in September 2024 after a more than two-week operation involving roughly 2,000 officers at the church’s 30-hectare compound in Davao, and he’s been detained since. He’s already facing qualified human trafficking and child sexual abuse charges in the Philippines and has pleaded not guilty.

His lawyer said they couldn’t comment on the extradition request because they hadn’t yet received formal notice, and noted there’s no urgency since he’s already in custody. Quiboloy has called the cases politically and religiously motivated.

Rodrigo Duterte gestures while testifying at a Manila senate hearing on his administration’s drug war crackdown, October 28, 2024. Photo by Jam Sta Rosa / AFP via Getty Images.

He’s a longtime friend and acknowledged spiritual adviser to former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is himself now detained, and commands a following of millions in a country where church leaders carry real political weight.

Thanks for spending time with Thought Catalog. Connect with us on Facebook and browse the rest of our website.