Miami church brands members with '666' tattoos!

Surrounded by a mob of news cameras, a group of smiling, well-dressed church members crowded into a South Beach storefront parlor on a recent muggy evening and got matching tattoos of their prophet's symbol:666
Members of Growing in Grace, a controversial religious sect headquartered in Doral, said they were following the example of their leader, Jose Luis De Jesus Miranda, who has claimed to be Jesus and recently declared himself the Antichrist.
Critics have called De Jesus a cult leader who manipulates followers. Church members say he has brought them happiness and spiritual fulfillment.

"This is backing up what I truly believe," said Alvaro Albarracin, 38, who heads a film production company and joined the church more than a decade ago. He showed a bandage that covered the freshly tattooed "666" on his forearm. "It's like a brand. It's like a sign."
It's a sign most Christians would shun, because for centuries the numbers have been associated with Satan. But for the 30 or so church members who branded themselves with 666 and SSS - the initials of De Jesus' motto,"salvo siempre salvo," or "saved always saved" - it's a mark of their absolute faith in De Jesus.

Church members say the symbol doesn't connect them to Satan but rather to De Jesus claim that he has replaced Christ's teachings with a new gospel. Scholars and critics of the movement say the tattoos offer frightening evidence of the influence De Jesus commands over his followers.
"What is he going to do next to call attention to himself?" asked Daniel Alvarez, an instructor in the department of religious studies at Florida International University who has studied the movement. "This means that his control over people is so great that no matter what he says to them, they'll follow him."
De Jesus was not available to comment, said a church spokeswoman.
At the tattoo parlor, one woman wore a T-shirt with De Jesus picture and the phrase "The Lord Arrived" in Spanish. Others wore shirts and baseball caps marked with 666. Spanish rap music blared from a stereo in the back. News cameras circled the tattoo chair as artist Jessica Segatto, wearing pink rubber gloves and a huge silver cross, carefully inked 666 on church member's ankles, forearms, backs and one member's neck. Some members said they decided to attend the tattooing session - which was prompted by a church announcement the previous week to prove their committment to De Jesus vision. Others said they hoped the symbol would provoke questions about the movement.

"I figured if I have it on my leg, people are going to notice it, 666, and they're going to ask," said church member and spokeswoman Axel Poessy.

De Jesus, who preaches that sin and the devil were destroyed when Jesus died on the cross and that God's chosen already have been saved, has built a massive movement around his claim to divinity. Followers call him "Daddy" and "God" and lavish him with $5,000 Rolexes and sometimes 40 percent or more of their salaries.
Christian leaders have denounced De Jesus, saying he distorts the Bible. The Rev. Julio Perez of Nueva Esperanza, a faith-based community group in Hialeah, said De Jesus was promoting himself rather than helping members of his church. "What he's doing is trying to create his own sect," he said.
De Jesus had just a few hundred followers when he launched his church in a Hialeah ware house about 20 years ago. Today, he commands a global movement from his Doral headquarters that boasts 335 education centers, 200 pastors, 287 radio programs and a 24-hour Spanish-language TV network that's available to 2 million homes - including by special request from some U.S. cable companies. Only De Jesus and his right hand man, Carlos Cestero, are authorized to preach.
In his sermons, De Jesus emphasizes wealth and success as a sign of God's favour. Many of his members are business owners who give a percentage of their corporate profits to De Jesus, said Alvaro Albarracin, who oversees corporate donations to the church and holds the title "entrepreneur of entrepreneurs." Albarracin, who runs the film production company MiamiLa Entertainment, said he gave 20 percent of his profit to the movement when he sold his Web-hosting company, Dialtone, for more than $16 million in 2001.

Martita Roca, 25, a South Florida singer and actress from Guatemala, said she sometimes gives 40 percent of her salary to Growing in Grace. Giving a piece of her flesh by getting a tattoo was another way to prove her commitment, she said.
"For all of those people who pray for us to come out of this movement, this shows that this is it, there's no going back," Roca said of her tattoos. "This is to make sure that everyone relates me to that vision."

Luz Fuentes, 51, a former Catholic who joined Growing in Grace in 1990, said she and her brother give Growing in Grace up to 50 percent of profits from their Hallandale mortgage company, Apos Mortgage. "Apos" is short for "apostle," one of De Jesus monikers. De Jesus is listed on the company's website as its CEO.
"Antichrist" is the latest in a string of titles De Jesus has bestowed on himself.
In 1988, De Jesus announced he was the reincarnation of the Apostle Paul. In 1999, he dubbed himself "the Other," a spiritual superbeing who would pave the way for Christ's second coming. In 2004, he proclaimed himself to be Jesus Christ. That claim caused some prominent members to defect from the movement - including De Jesus first wife, Nydia, and his son Jose Luis Jr., who started his own church in Puerto Rico.
In January, during a packed worship service at the church, De Jesus took off his coat and revealed the numbers 666 on his forearm.
"This is a congregation of Antichrists," De Jesus said, drawing whistles and cheers.
The number 666 appears in the Book of Revelation , a portion of the New Testament that details the prophet John's apocalyptic vision of the rise of the Antichrist,the tribulation and Christ's return. In Revelation, a horned beast appears on earth and requires everyone to get his mark 666 on the right hand or forehead.
Experts on new religious movements say De Jesus opposition to other religions, and his claim to be the only legitimate spiritual authority, resemble the teachings of some cults.
"It's clearly a personality-driven group," said Rick Ross, an anti-cult consultant based in New Jersey. "It is defined by the claimsof De Jesus Miranda."
Nick Woodbury, director of the evangelical group Christ for Miami, said most mainstream Christians would reject Growing in Grace's teachings as unbiblical.
"In the Christian evangelical sector, we would consider them asect," said Woodbury, who has served as a missionary in Colombia with the Mimai-based group Latin America Mission."They take the Bible, but their interpretation is very warped."
De Jesus' followers have lashed out against organized Christianity because they believe their prophet holds the true gospel, they say. His adherents have disrupted Catholic processions on Good Friday and protested outside an evangelical church gathering in Miami's Tropical Park. Last July, they tore up literature published by the Jehovah's Witnesses and other Christian movements during a march in downtown Miami.
Scholars who are concerned about the movement's growth say they hope De Jesus' latest claim will insert doubt into the mind of some members.
"The symbol of the Antichrist is so negative, the only good thing that will come out of this is that people will say, 'Hold on, this manis going off the deep end,"' FIU's Alvarez said.

As edited, formatted and published by 'Ucheonye Nzubechi

Hotel owners ordered to install CCTV

In the aftermath of the murder of Cynthia Osokogu, hotel owners in Festac area and environs have been given the marching order tostep up security on their premises. Particularly, they have been charged to put in place Close Circuit Camera (CCTV) without delay.
Mr. Dan Okoro, an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), officer in charge of Area ‘E’ with headquarters in Festac, who disclosed this yesterday, said failure to do so would attract severe consequence. He spoke when Mr. Tony Onyima, ManagingDirector/Editor-in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Ltd visited him in his office. Cynthia Osokogu, 24, who was a post-graduate student of Nasarawa State University, Keffi had reportedly left Abuja in late July 2012 to purchase new stock for her fashion outlet but was killed by her Facebook friends who were arraigned in a Magistrate Court on a holden charge last Monday.
The duo of Echezona Nwabufor, 33, and Ezekiel Nnechuwu Olisa Eloka, 23, in their confessional statements revealed how they drugged and strangled the daughter of a retired Major General in a bid to steal her money.ACP Okoro who led that team the cracked the riddle over the murder of Ms. Osokogwu in a hotel room in FESTAC said he would leave no stone unturned to ensure the order to hotel owners to install CCTV is complied with.
“I am going to visit them (hotel owners). I would visit them. It is not just enough to open hotels and enjoy patronage without putting in place adequate security for the lives and propertyof the clients. They must plan for it,’ he emphasized. He noted that if the owner of the hotel where Cynthia was murdered had failed to install CCTV, tracking the suspects would have been a Herculean task.
“If the man hadn’t done so, we would have been in a mess, because identifying the people would have been a major task. The fact that there was CCTV footage, proved quite useful. Apart from the call log that we were working on, there wouldn’thave been anything- at least, a pictorial evidence- that would narrow it down to the fact that these are the people who left thehotel,” he said. Apparently to underscore his seriousness,
ACP Okoro said anybody who failed to comply would not only be treated as a non-conformist, but as an accessory to crime. Before her fatal trip to Lagos, Cynthia had reportedly been chatting with some new “friends” on Facebook for a few months. In the course of their conversations, they had developed friendship and some level of trust.
The accused who paid for Cynthia’s flight ticket and her hotel accomondation as well were believed to have picked her up from the airport and drove her to a hotel in Festac. At the hotel, they tied her up, robbed her of all the money she brought to shop for her business and strangled her to death.
They then left the hotel and quickly deleted her from their Facebook friend list to remove any trace of their connection. Butwith the aid of CCTV from the hotel, the accused who reportedly specialised in luring unsuspecting young women, robbing them of their possessions before killing them were nabbed. Mr. Onyima said he decided to pay a courtesy visit onACP Okoro, being the new helmsman in charge of the Area ‘E’ Command.
“As a newspaper, we’re interested in deepening our content and adding value to what the police is doing in order to help achieve their objective,” he said. He later presented a copyof ‘Nigeria’ Golden Book’, a commemorative publication by The Sun Publishing Ltd to mark the nation’s 50th anniversary, and lauded the officers and men of the command for cracking the Osokogu murder puzzle, which he described as ‘milestone breakthrough.’
Source: Daily Sun

As edited, formatted and published by 'Ucheonye Nzubechi

Late Miss Cynthia Valerine Osokogu: The full story!

Emotions ran at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters, Ikeja, following startling revelations by two university students on how Cynthia Osokogu, the only daughter of a retired General was strangled inside a hotel in Festac area of the state.
While parading the suspects, the police displayed 18 handsets, one brown Louis Vuitton bag, a black suede shoe belonging to the deceased, seven drivers licences, an unopened Ribena drink, two sunshades, two used syringes, eight wrist watches, four stamps from different banks, one chain and padlock, one international passport bearing the deceased name and over thirty complimentary cards, over fifty used and unused sim cards of various networks and an Identity card bearing Sunday Briggs which they said, were recovered from the suspects.

Late Cynthia-Osokogu and back view of the suspected killers when they were paraded.

The undergraduates, Nwabufo Okwumo, 33, and Odera Ezekiel, 23, discovered to be cousins, claimed their intention was never to kill the 25 year-old post graduate student of Nasarawa State University but to collect her money and jewelries.

One of the suspects, Nwabufo, a 300 level Accounting student of the University of Lagos, admitted to have been chatting with the deceased on the blackberry for sometime. In the process, she revealed her true background including the fact that she owned a boutique.

But unknown to her, Nwabufo who hails from Nnewi, Anambra State had a sinister motive. Along the line, the deceased, according to him, informed him that she was coming to Lagos to buy wigs and attachments for her saloon. The suspect then paid for the air ticket.

HOW THE DEED WAS DONE!

Vanguard gathered that the deceased arrived Lagos on July 21, 2012, and she was picked at the Murtala Mohammed Airport by Nwabufo and driven straight to a hotel called Casmilla on 6th Avenue, Festac town where Nwabufor had earlier made reservation with a fictitious name.
Inside the hotel, Nwabufo reportedly offered a bottle of Moet to Cynthia which she reportedly declined on the ground that she does not take alcohol. The suspect thereafter, asked her to take a Ribena drink from the fridge. But unknown to her, the three packets of Ribena had been drugged. He confessed that she took three; one in the afternoon, another in the evening and the third, the next morning.

Next day, she reportedly became tipsy. Even at that state, it was reliably gathered that Cynthia did not allow Nwabufo to sleep with her the previous night.

It was learnt that in the morning, the second suspect, Odera came in. At that point, Cynthia who apparently had started feeling the effect of the drugs asked who the visitor was. Rather than getting an answer, she was reportedly pinned down by Nwabufo, with her hands and legs tied. At that state, Nwabufo allegedly raped her twice. His cousin, Odera reportedly took over and used a sex vibrator on her.

I did not mean to kill her

But in his confessional statement, Nwabufo who was dressed in an ash-coloured suit, said his intention was never to kill her. He admitted however, that Cynthia was not his first victim, disclosing that all he did was to propose to them through blackberry and later invite them to the hotel,where he drugged and dispossessed them of cash and other valuables.

According to him: “It was a mistake, I never meant to kill her. I invited her from Abuja as my friend on July 21. I was trying to dislodge her by tying her hands and I hit her in the process. I tied her because I did not want her to know I was escaping from the hotel. We had a mutual agreement for her to come over. I met her from BB (blackberry) group chat. She came to buy some things for her boutique in Abuja. We had a disagreement. I did not rape her. It was the devil’s handwork.

I wanted to run because I knew I had committed a serious offence against her. I thought she had money on her that I can collect. So in the process, I tied her with cellotape to make her not to shout. I was not the only person, it was I and my cousin, Odera that did it. We tied her together and beat her together.

Yes, I invited her and in the process we felt like robbing her of all she had. The condom the police saw on me is what I used personally. I used it on her based on the sex toy with her. She came with a vibrator sex toy, so I inserted the condom on the sex toy and later dropped it there. I did not make love to her. If they test the condom forensically, it will prove that I did not use it on her.

I drugged her with RAFINOL through Ribena drink. I bought three packets of Ribena and when she took it, she became weak. It was my cousin that drugged the drink, he used a syringe and administered ten tablets of it inside the drink.

This is the first time someone died in the process. I have done this say like, four times before now but none of the girls died. Whenever they take the drink, I will sleep with them and they will just lose memory of all that transpired. Usually, I use hotels in Festac. I have used Opera mini Hotel, Benny, Chelsea and Concilia. I feel bad because I did not bargain for this – to kill her in the first instance. It is just unfortunate and it was an accident,”he stated.

His alleged partner in the crime, Odera Ezekiel, said: “ I am also an Accounting student of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The morning it happened, my brother called me to come to the hotel to help him bind the girl so that he can dispossess her of her belongings.
My mission at the hotel was to come and help him bind the girl. In the process of trying to bind the girl, she put up struggle and we assaulted her and in the process, she passed out. I did not hit her with any hard object and we didn’t have any weapon with us. My brother only told me he wanted to take her money. I have not done it before. He asked me to buy the drink for him”.

HOW THEY WERE ARRESTED

Vanguard gathered that after the evil deed was done, Odera left the hotel first with the lady’s belongings. Moments later, his cousin Nwabufo then left. But at the reception, one of the receptionists asked if he was checking out but he said he was coming back. Two hours later, they reportedly called the hotel telling them to ”go into the room and remove the corpse of the bagger.” On getting to the room, Cynthia was said to have been discovered stone dead with her hands and legs tied to the back and with series of bite marks on her back which she apparently sustained during the struggle for dear life.

Police sources hinted that investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of the girl proved a hard nut for them initially. However, the first trace that gave the suspects out was the number with which they contacted the hotel. Their task was made more difficult because the fleeing suspects threw away the sim card they used in calling the hotel. The detectives, however, went an extra mile and succeeded in using the same number to get all the suspects’ contacts and it was from there that the bubble burst.

The investigation took detectives to Cotonou and Nnewi where Odera who is in his final year was arrested in the school premises. His confessional statement, as gathered, led to the arrest of his cousin, Nwabufo. Over 40 persons, as gathered, were arrested in the course of the investigation. But gradually, most of them were released when operatives could not link them to the crime.

Another thing that helped the police in identifying the deceased was her Yellow Card, which her assailants reportedly forgot in the hotel room. But the telephone number of the card was discovered to be different from her original number. The Immigration was reportedly contacted in the course of the investigation which was described as a rigorous one.

The command’s boss, Mr Umar Manko who paraded the suspects before newsmen disclosed that the footage of the Close Circuit Television, CCTV, in the hotel also assisted the police in their investigation.

He said: “From the footage, we discovered that the two young men came into the hotel, went into the room and came out after a while, so we started from there”. Emphasizing the importance of CCTV in crime detection, the elated police boss said the police was working towards installing it around the state.

“We are talking to the Lagos State government and the Force Headquarters. We have been meeting with bankers but with this development, we do not have more option than to meet with hoteliers.

It has become necessary to mandate hoteliers to install CCTV in their hotels because security is a fight against crime and it is not a fight for the police alone but everyone. People who run such businesses must put in place facilities that will make those who come feel safe.”

He, therefore, advised young ladies to learn a lesson from this, saying, “youths have to be more careful. Social media network is good but some criminals are trying to make something criminal out of it”, adding that the suspects will be charged to court soon.”

Meanwhile, the pharmacist who reportedly sold the tranquilizer to the suspects is still in police custody. Although he was not paraded alongside the suspects whose faces the police insisted, should not be photographed, Vanguard gathered that he might be charged to court because he was not supposed to sell the drugs without prescription.

Source: Vanguard

As edited, formatted and published by 'Ucheonye Nzubechi