CultNEWS101 Articles: 12/11/2025
Patrick Ryan
"The trial of the head of South Korea's Unification Church started on Monday [12/1/2025], with prosecutors portraying Han Hak-ja as keen to exert political influence and accusing her of using Chanel bags to bribe former First Lady Kim Keon Hee.
The case is part of a string of investigations by special prosecutors into ousted president Yoon Suk Yeol and his wife Kim in the wake of Yoon's martial law order in December 2024.
Attending the hearing in a wheelchair, Han, 82, denied the accusations.
Han, head of the religious group now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, sought to bribe Kim with two Chanel bags, a diamond necklace and wild ginseng in return for business and political favours, prosecutors said.
Kim has admitted she received the bags as gifts from the church via a broker, but claimed there was no quid pro quo."
"Colombia said Monday it had sent 26 members of a fundamentalist ultra-Orthodox Jewish cult to the United States, where they are under investigation for alleged child sex abuse.
Authorities in the South American nation said the group included 17 children and nine adults from the Lev Tahor sect, who were detained during a Nov. 22 raid on a hotel in northwestern Colombia.
The group was then flown to New York, where the children were placed in the care of Child Protective Services pending a police investigation into the adults.
Lev Tahor, which has been described as the “Jewish Taliban,” was founded in Jerusalem in 1988 by the anti-Zionist Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Its members have moved from Israel to the United States and back, before relocating to Canada, Guatemala and Mexico, often fleeing child welfare agencies. They have also spent shorter periods in several Eastern European countries as well as Turkey.
The cult adheres to an extreme fundamentalist interpretation of Judaism, including requiring girls as young as three to wear head-to-toe black coverings."
"A Queens man and four other members of a twisted online cult terrorized and blackmailed children on gaming platforms into performing sick sexual acts on camera — then gave their terrified victims instructions on how to kill themselves, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
The five deranged men belonged to “Greggy’s Cult,” which exploited Discord, a messaging app, and gaming networks, such as Roblox and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, to prey on children as young as 11 from 2019 to 2021, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Hector Bermudez, 29, of Queens, was arrested Tuesday and arraigned in federal court.
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