By means of an online of economic mismanagement and corruption, officers of the Samoan Unbiased Seventh Day Adventist church in New Zealand stole hundreds of thousands from its congregation.
Numerous the stolen cash was pocketed by the officers themselves. The remainder was ploughed into OneCoin and different fraudulent funding schemes.
Investigations into SISDAC started in 2013. It wouldn’t be until 2017 nevertheless that former treasurer Elizabeth Papu could be sentenced to jail for stealing $1.6 million.
Papu blew the cash she stole from the church at a on line casino.
Papu’s conduct prompted Charities Companies to analyze ‘whether or not the church knew about Papu’s offending.’
What they discovered was damning.
As reported by Radio New Zealand;
Elizabeth Papu misappropriated an extra $766,895 that was not uncovered by the SFO probe. (Her father, Pastor Willie Papu, contends that this earnings got here from professional sources).
One other former treasurer, Joseph Stowers, took $498,997 in church funds as undeclared earnings in 2017.
Pastor Willie Papu Junior banked greater than $316,000 from the church and its World Committee checking account. (He claims they supported the church or had been private earnings that he paid tax on).
Pastor Willie Papu engaged in “critical wrongdoing” by taking $84,031 in church funds for him and his household, and influencing SISDAC to pay an extra $63,309 of his bills. (He submits that he by no means took the cash for his private profit).
Along with the cash he personally stole, Willie Papu (proper) is alleged to have
spearheaded giant investments together with almost $1m into the cryptocurrency OneCoin, and $1.7m into WFE Capital.
OneCoin we’re in fact accustomed to. WFE Capital seems to be a protracted since collapsed Ponzi scheme.
Papu was assisted by Sina Hunt, a New Zealand resident who obtained $200,000 from SISDAC.
Hunt (proper), along with Papu, funneled SISDAC’s congregation into OneCoin and Organo Gold.
In 2019 Radio New Zealand reported SISDAC had laundered hundreds of thousands into OneCoin, as a part of efforts to bypass a nationwide ban on OneCoin funding in Samoa.
Of the cash SISDAC took from its congregation and invested into OneCoin, “all the funds” have been reported misplaced.
An extra $500,000 has been raised from SISDAC’s congregation, who’re principally from Samoa, to cowl the church’s losses.
Since WFE collapsed, Willie Papu has ‘paid SISDAC $355,097 in reparations for the funds misplaced’.
Charities Service’s investigation led to SISDAC being faraway from New Zealand’s Charities Register. The de-registration is efficient for no less than six months.
Within the report, the Charities Registration Board stated it nonetheless had considerations about Pastor Papu’s affect over SISDAC’s funding choices.
Willie Papu, recognized as a key affect on the church’s offending, stays Govt Director of SISDAC’s World Committee.
When he’s not fleecing his congregation, Papu spends his time preaching hate towards different Christian denominations and New Zealand’s PM.
For his half, Papu seems to don’t have any regret for monetary injury inflicted upon SISDAC’s congregation.
I do know that Charities Companies would like to kill my affect. However affect is just not one thing you possibly can kill.
It’s a legacy, constructed upon a lifetime of service and compassion.
Seeing as Willie Papu’s legacy is herding his congregation right into a multi-billion greenback Ponzi scheme for his personal monetary profit, we’re undecided how that matches into “service and compassion”.
Why New Zealand authorities haven’t pressed felony expenses towards Papu and different recognized OneCoin leaders is unclear.
Following a report by New Zealand police detailing OneCoin associated fraud, the Commerce Fee introduced it wouldn’t be investigating OneCoin in early 2020.