Winners Chapel New York Under Investigation for Forgery, Identity Theft

Bishop Oyedepo

This is not the best of times for the Living Faith Church (Winners chapel in New York as US authority is beaming searchlights on the church’s activities over alleged bank forgery and dentity theft.

The investigation is sequel to a petition written by the founding pastor of the New York church, Pastor Olakunle Onaleye who has been having issues with Bishop Oyedepo and the leadership of the church in Nigeria for failing to comply with their orders.

In the petition, Onaleye alleged Identity theft, Money laundering and immigration frauds.

Pastor Onaleye in an exclusive interview said after he registered the New York church without any financial support from the headquarters, he was then chased away from the church by Bishop Oyedepo’s emissaries --- senior pastors, who came to New York to forcefully hijack the church and enforce the Bishop directives.

According to him, Bishop Oyedepo did not send him to the US to establish the church stressing that he came to America through the green card lottery in which Oyedepo himself has preached against in the past describing it as “modern day slavery.”

Because the Bishop did not believe in the green card lottery, Onalaye stated that the headquarters did not support his relocation to the US, noting that he came on his own, registered the church

with his money but when the church began to make money, they became interested.

“They (headquarters) borrowed $31,000 from me; they said they wanted to use it to repair their aircraft in Houston, Texas.

"They returned only $15,000. The problem then started when I asked them to return the balance of the money they borrowed that is all I said, but what I will hear is that Bishop Oyedepo called me to say, in his usual anger, “Onaleye, I hear you want to report to government go ahead, you are playing with your destiny.” Onaleye explained.

After the threat, the Bishop sent his senior pastors to New York to hijack the church. And without his consent, they took over the church’s bank account, changed the account’s mailing address and now operate the church bank account in which Onaleye is the sole signatory.

As a result of this apparent fraud Onaleye said, “the New York Police told me to go and ask Bank of America, how did the people get into the account that I’m the sole signatory and how did they change the mailing address of the account and who authorized it.”

He continued “These are the things that even Bank of America can’t explain and they are carrying out their own investigation now for the past one month.

Pastor Olakunle Onaleye, now founder Conquest Church Worldwide

“These are part of what I am saying that they are fraudulent people. I entered a bank recently to open an account, when they ran my information; they asked me if I’m affiliated to a church that has to do with credit cards?

“Investigation is going on at the highest level and I have written to the government about the issues.

“They have some people who are fraudulent in that church, some of them went to jail when I left the church in New York. I know the extent they can go."

According to Onaleye, before he was chased away from the church, Bishop Oyedepo had told him that some members are complaining that his messages are injurious.

His words: “I was only preaching against credit card frauds and womanizing in the church and because he (Bishop) is looking at the number of people that bring money to the church, he told me my message was injurious, and I said they were not, and that he should go and listen to my messages.”

Pastor Onaleye has since left the church to establish a new one, Conquest Church Worldwide at Queens in New York but wanted the authority to ensure that the winners chapel, New York is not using his personal information for credit card frauds, money laundering and immigration frauds.

All efforts to get both Winners Chapel New York and Nigeria to react to the allegations are unsuccessful.

March 11, 2013