Reported by
Two American women who escaped a doomsday sect in Fiji say they are ready to return to the Pacific island country to testify against the group, seeking to revive a long-stalled human trafficking investigation.
The two women separately fled Fiji for the U.S. after enduring what they allege were years of violence and abuse — including slave-like work conditions — at the hands of Grace Road. They filed separate complaints with local police in late 2024, and early 2025.
Among the most sensitive claims in the complaints is an allegation by one of the victims that she gave free treatments, such massages, to prominent local Fijians while she was in the cult. The clients allegedly included former Prime Minister Frank Bainimiarama.
OCCRP has previously reported how Grace Road, a 300-strong organization largely made up of ethnic Koreans, had tapped political connections to become one of Fiji’s most powerful business conglomerates.
“I want Grace Road to know that I’m not afraid of them anymore,” one of the women told OCCRP. “They have no power over me.”
A lawyer for Grace Road, Nilesh Prasad, said the group “categorically denies… any allegation of human trafficking, slavery, servitude, forced labour, unlawful compulsory labour, debt bondage, assault, or any cruel, degrading or coercive practice.”
Grace Road “further denies any claim that any person was compelled to provide unpaid services to any public official including those that you name,” he added.
OCCRP reported in December that Fiji has until March to show progress on dealing with human trafficking or face an automatic downgrade to the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report’s lowest tier. That could put at risk millions of dollars a year in U.S. development aid.
Both American women told OCCRP they are prepared to travel back to Fiji and assist law enforcement in bringing charges against Grace Road. They declined to be named out of concern for their families’ privacy.
The case was forwarded by police to Fiji’s director of public prosecutions last year, but no charges have yet been filed. The agency did not respond to questions about the status of the case.
The first woman alleged in a criminal complaint filed to local police in November 2024 that she was forcibly separated from her children, subjected to public beatings, and forced to work for long hours for no pay in the cult’s network of businesses.
“I’m ready to go back to Fiji as soon as possible to give evidence,” said the woman, who fled Grace Road in late 2024 and eventually managed to win custody of her two children.
The woman’s complaint to police included the allegation that she gave treatments to former Prime Minister Bainimarama while living and working at a cult-owned beauty salon. She told OCCRP the gift was given on the instruction of Grace Road leaders.
“The ex-prime minister, Frank Bainimarama, I gave him a free facial [treatment] and obviously he didn't pay jack squat,” she said. “Facial and a little foot massage, if I remember correctly.”
She has also alleged that she was made to give free treatments on at least three occasions during the same year to the country’s then-minister of agriculture, Vatimi Rayalu, and his wife.
Bainimarama, who was convicted in 2024 in a separate case of perverting the course of justice, did not respond to questions sent via his lawyer. Rayalu died in mid-2025. His wife did not respond to a request for comment.
The second American woman originally fled Grace Road in 2017. But she found herself trapped in the group again early last year after she had returned to Fiji to try to get her mother out. She told OCCRP that she now plans to travel back to Fiji with a cousin — whose mother is also in the cult — to attempt to bring both of them home.
“My hope is that their eyes will be opened to the reality of the situation they are trapped in. I want them to be freed not only physically, but also psychologically and emotionally from the control Grace Road has over them,” she said.
A second lawyer representing Grace Road, Dennis Miralis, said in a letter that the group “has not been presented with any independent evidence to support the allegations made by these two complainants.”
