Founder of the worldwide Unification Church who presented himself as Christ’s successor but whose influence waned in later years
The history of organised religion is replete with fraud. Few individuals, however, managed to perpetrate as sustained and profitable a fraud as the Rev Sun Myung Moon, founder and leader for many years of the Unification Church, more widely known as the “Moonies”.
From humble beginnings in postwar Korea, Moon rose to lead a cult that at its height claimed the allegiance of some three million people worldwide. In recent years, however, as the mystique of the founder faded, so his congregation shrank, falling to as few as 100,000.
A reputed billionaire, with significant business interests in several continents, Moon