Why Were Americans at Word of Faith Paid While Brazilians Doing the Same Work Were Not?
True Crime Today | Daily True Crime News & Interviews
Tony Brueski
4.2 • 612 Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Andre Oliveira left his Word of Faith Fellowship congregation in Brazil for the mother church in North Carolina, he expected a spiritual experience. According to his account to the Associated Press, what he found instead was forced labor. His passport was confiscated. He was allegedly made to work fifteen hours a day, usually without pay, cleaning warehouses and working at businesses owned by church ministers. Oliveira was one of sixteen Brazilian former members who told the AP they were exploited. The church maintained two affiliated congregations in Brazil that reportedly served as a recruitment pipeline, sending young people to the Spindale compound on tourist and student visas. Many spoke little English on arrival. Passports were allegedly seized. American workers performing the same jobs were compensated. Brazilian workers, according to multiple accounts, were not. Former member Rebeca Melo called it slave labor. Anti-Slavery International noted that using religion to traffic and exploit people follows established patterns of modern slavery. In 2014, three former members reported the allegations directly to an assistant U.S. attorney. A recording captured the conversation. The prosecutor asked whether the Brazilians were beaten. The former members confirmed it. She promised to look into the situation. According to their accounts, she never followed up. Tony Brueski continues a five-part investigation with the international pipeline former members say was built on stolen passports and stolen labor.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Colts, Hidden Killers Investigates. |
| 0:03.7 | Here now, Tony Bruske. |
| 0:07.2 | Andre Oliviera was 18 years old. |
| 0:10.6 | He was a member of the Word of Faith Fellowships congregation in Brazil. |
| 0:16.6 | And when the call came to travel to the Mother Church in Spindale, North Carolina, |
| 0:23.2 | come to the Mother Church. |
| 0:25.8 | He answered it, according to his account in the Associated Press of Levera, |
| 0:30.3 | expected something like a mission, a chance to deepen his faith, |
| 0:35.6 | to serve, to see America what he got, he says, was something else. |
| 0:39.8 | When he arrived at the Spindale compound, church leaders allegedly confiscated his passport and his money for safekeeping, right? |
| 0:47.3 | He was reportedly told that and then trapped in a foreign country where he barely spoke the language. |
| 0:54.5 | Olivia area said he was forced to work approximately 15 hours a day, usually without pay. |
| 1:00.6 | He cleaned warehouses for the church. |
| 1:02.4 | He labored at businesses owned by senior ministers. |
| 1:07.0 | Any deviation for the world's reportedly risked a lot of punishment beatings, public humiliation, from the pulpit or worse, Oliviera eventually fled. |
| 1:17.2 | That's how much he loved it. |
| 1:20.0 | And when he described his experience to the Associated Press, he did not use theological language. |
| 1:26.6 | He did not call it a mission or a test of faith. |
| 1:30.4 | He said they trafficked us. |
| 1:32.3 | They needed labor, and we were free labor. |
| 1:35.2 | He said they kept us as slaves. |
| 1:38.8 | Welcome to part four here of our five-part series on Hidden Kill killers as we investigate the Word of Faith Fellowship |
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