"Grace Road in Fiji: Investment engine or human rights headache?", 5 January 2026

FIJI faces an uncomfortable reckoning as the United States threatens to cut millions of dollars in development aid over allegations of human trafficking tied to a South Korean sect.

Grace Roads is a prominent investor with supermarkets, restaurants, and service stations but arrived in Fiji initially to set up a commune on which its members hope to escape the end of the world.

Its leader, Shin Ok-ju and three other members of the Grace Road Church were arrested at Seoul’s international airport in 2018 on charges of human trafficking in Fiji and the US.

Shin was later convicted of assault, child abuse, and fraud.

Since its arrival in Fiji in 2014, Grace Road Group has woven itself into the fabric of the nation’s economy. Its investments span supermarkets, restaurants, beauty salons, and ambitious agricultural projects…

The US State Department’s latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report highlights mounting evidence that some 300 Grace Road members in Fiji have faced forced labour, physical violence, confiscation of passports, and unpaid wages, classic red flags for human trafficking.

The report notes that members have been compelled to work gruelling hours, sometimes without rest days.

Further testimonies from former members, including US citizens who fled the group, allege beatings, ritual humiliation, and near-slavery working conditions in Grace Road’s Fijian businesses…

Between 2024 and 2025, the Fiji Police forwarded four human trafficking investigation files involving Grace Road to the country’s Office of the Director of Prosecution (ODPP). Two of those cases involve US citizens.

Sources within the ODPP confirmed that the files were being reviewed…

Despite these moves, Grace Road continues to expand, recently announcing plans for a new hotel in Fiji’s Western Division…

If the US finds that Fiji is involved with, influenced by, helping or protecting Grace Road, this could lead to Tier 3 status, $USD6.5 million in annual aid, and trigger pressure on institutions like the World Bank and the IMF to suspend funding.

Fiji is also in the running for a coveted Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) development grant—a much-needed opportunity amid tightening Pacific aid flows.

“With financing for development tightening, an area that’s been a case of optimism is getting sort of snuffed out,” said Riley Duke, an aid expert at Australia’s Lowy Institute…

The group has previously denied any wrongdoing.