Many churches and ministries use the name Agape Ministries. This news archive concerns a religious group with properties in and around Adelaide, South Australia, and led by Rocco Leo.
In May 2010 properties belonging to Agape Ministries were raided by Australian police. Police seized an arsenal of weapons, high-powered ammunition and explosives.
Former members reportedly claim that the religious group, referred to in the media as a ‘doomsday cult,’ promised them a haven on a South Pacific island, to protect them from microchips the government was planning to implant in all humans.
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon says South Australian authorities have made no attempt to have cult leader Rocco Leo extradited from Fiji.
Xenophon says it’s almost “Keystone Cops stuff” that police have yet to seek Leo’s extradition.
Cult leader Rocco Leo has dodged financial doomsday by staging a last-minute court room resurrection over Skype.
Leo is being sued by two former church members who claim they donated large sums to the church under false pretences.
Australian Police are not looking to extradite fugitive cult leader Rocco Leo from Fiji, after he was arrested a week ago.
“If Fijian authorities determine that they are going to deport Rocco Leo we will execute that (arrest) warrant and if Rocco Leo is deported back to Australia we will extradite him from whatever state it is back to SA to put him before the courts.”
Australian cult leader Rocco Leo, who is wanted for charges ranging from tax evasion and assault to illegal possession of firearms and explosives, has been taken into the custody of Immigration authorities in Fiji.
Leo has been on the run from Australian authorities for more than a year.
Fugitive Australian cult leader Rocco Leo may be forced to pay damages to former members of his religious group if he does not instruct a lawyer to attend a court hearing next week.
Leo and two other Agape Ministries leaders, Joe and Marie Veneziano, are being sued in the Adelaide District Court by two former members of the group.
An Agape Ministries cult member standing trial in Australia on weapons and ammunition-related charges is asking the court for permission to move to New Zealand in order to be with his dying father.
Prosecutors consider Keven Andrew Moore a flight risk.
A man arrested after raids on Agape Ministries properties has gone on trial accused of possessing more than 22,000 rounds of ammunition.
Kevin Andrew Moore, 51, has pleaded not guilty to seven weapon and ammunition related charges.
Australian Taxation Office lawyers today outlined “a very crude attempt to hide” millions of dollars received by the controversial Agape Ministries.
Rocco Leo, his confidantes and their multi-million dollar, two-state empire are embroiled in three lawsuits and a criminal prosecution.
Fallen religious leader Rocco Leo and his former church owe more than $4.1 million in unpaid taxes for 2009-10 alone, court documents claim.
Those figures are just the tip of the iceberg for the Australian Tax Office, which last month stripped Agape of its tax-exempt status as a religion.