Moon fortune to stay in Zug foundation  

Hyung Jin Moon (right) of the Sanctuary Church joins his parishioners for a marriage reconsecration ceremony. EPA/JIM LO SCALZO

It’s the end of a protracted legal battle. On July 3, 2025, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals put an end to one of the longest legal disputes over the will of the reverend Sun Myung Moon, late founder of the Unification Church, better known as the Moonies. The background to all of this was the transfer of a fortune amounting to several hundred million dollars into a foundation in Zug, Switzerland.

The American court turned down all the petitions by the widow of the reverend, Hak Ja Han Moon, and their youngest son, Hyung Jin Moon (alias Sean), against their rival Preston Moon, eldest son of the deceased Korean guru. The judges found that decisions of this man were an internal religious matter. Civil courts are not in a position to decide on this sort of dispute, it being excluded by the First Amendment of the US Constitution. 

Half a billion dollars stay in Zug 

In September 2022, Gotham City revealedExternal link  that the faction of the Church headed by Preston Moon had transferred some $500 million (CHF403 million) in assets to a Swiss-based foundation, the Kingdom Investments Foundation (KIF). Established in 2010 in ZugExternal link in a glass building that hosted 139 mailboxes, this entity is now immune to all control by the official Moonie Church. The Church has three million followersExternal link, most of them in Korea and Japan.  

The Church is often accused External link of having extorted funds from its adherents, by means of obligatory “tithing”, large donations, or guarantees of salvation in exchange for payment. Japanese lawyers who focus on such “spiritual sales” have documented many cases of families ruined, especially in Japan, which is the movement’s principal source of funds.

‘Life’s dream’ 

The assets placed in the Swiss foundation include investments in two huge real estate projects in Seoul – Central City Limited and Parc1, a 69-storey skyscraper – as well as a ski resort, a construction company and $2 million in cash. 

According to Preston Moon himself, this transfer of funds was to counter the Church’s poor reputation with Korean banks and to fund the Parc1 construction project, presented as the “life’s dream” of his late father. 

Yet this undertaking was launched without informing the reverend’s widow, nor the historic Japanese branch of the Church, nor Sean Moon. Convinced that Preston Moon had appropriated the organisation’s assets to use them for his own religious aims, his opponents went before the Washington courts.  

Religious freedom or abuse of power?

In 2019, the plaintiffs had an early success. A lower-level court determined against Preston Moon and his allies on the board of the umbrella organisation, Unification Church International (UCI), and ordered the return of the assets placed in the Swiss foundation. 

But Preston Moon appealed, invoking the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of religion and forbids the state from getting involved in the internal business of churches. 

The appeal court granted him a more favourable determination in 2022. It found that a civil court could not determine if Preston Moon had deviated or not from the “religious” goals of his church; nor could it determine who was the true spiritual successor of Reverend Moon. 

One point was left open, though. The plaintiffs could still try to prove that there was fraud or personal enrichment going on. This constitutes a very limited exception that can be made to the courts’ mandatory “abstention” from religious issues. 

Case closed 

In its decision of July 3, 2025, the Court of Appeal eventually closed this door completely. It found that the plaintiffs had not shown that Preston Moon had derived personal advantage from the transfer of assets to the Swiss foundation. It also found that none of the accusations of “self-dealing” in the initial submissions of the suit concerned KIF. It is too late to bring them up now. The Court also declined the plaintiffs’ request to reopen the case to include new evidence.   

This American judicial decision confirms that KIF, the foundation in Zug, retains custody of the immense fortune deposited with it in 2010, without its management having to answer before the courts. There has been no further decision affecting the role of KIF, its governance, or the current use to which the assets may be put. 

This article is based on the following court documents: 
Court of Appeal, District of Columbia – Moon v. Moon (3.7.25)External link 

Right of reply of the Unification Church

The article published on August 18, 2025 contains factual errors and uses stigmatising language. The terms ‘cult’ and ‘guru’ are scientifically vague and discriminatory.

The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification is recognised in Switzerland as a public-benefit organisation; in Austria, the Unification Church is a religious community registered with the state.

The claim that there is ‘extortion of money’ or trading in ‘promises of salvation’ is unsubstantiated. Such practices would clearly be criminal, but there have been no criminal convictions against the Family Federation or the Unification Church in Japan or elsewhere.

Furthermore, the article relies solely on the Gotham City report. There has been no contact with the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. Fair journalism requires a diversity of sources and consideration of all parties.

Finally, the image used of the ‘Sanctuary Church’ is misleading, as this group has nothing to do with the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification or the subject matter.

This right of reply was published on September 12, 2025 at the request of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.

Gotham City

Founded by investigative journalists Marie Maurisse and François Pilet, Gotham City is a newsletter of current court cases involving economic crime. 

Each week it reports on cases of fraud, corruption and money laundering that affect the Swiss financial marketplace, based on court documents available for public inspection. .

Adapted from French by Terence MacNamee/ds