I believe so. This is a theory so it’s up to the readers to decide. But before you do I recommend doing the research yourself (after reading this).
Did UBF made a business deal with the CIA? Is it even possible? Yes, it is. In fact the CIA has their own business card. https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00789r003300190003-3
The founder of Amazon has made a business deal with the CIA: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/07/the-details-about-the-cias-deal-with-amazon/374632/
If UBF has done the same thing this would explain how UBF got away with undeclared cash, illegal activity, and their diplomatic "immunity"
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“ii) Concealment of an accounting book in UBF headquarters
You never disclosed the accounting of UBF headquarters. Matthew Sohn and Samuel Lee always reported the accounting by depending on information that your wife provided. As a result, they could only forge accounting. A large amount of money has been used for obscure reasons. The accounting has never been audited. We cannot understand how one person can use such a large amount of money without an audit. Furthermore, a huge amount of money comes from abroad by layman missionaries. These offerings are very precious. Nobody, however, knows how these offerings have been used so far.
iii) Obscure expenses and expenditures
You bought a lot of real estate without discussion. When you attended the 1974 Swiss Rojan International Conference, you spent a lot of money bribing Korean religious leaders who were criticizing UBF. Your official monthly salary is 10,000 won ($100). You, however, squandered much more money than your salary. For example, you gave 1,000 won ($1.00) to sheep who came to greet you on new year’s day. Is 1,000 won meaningful to our sheep? You, as the president of leaders, must give your attention to prayer and the ministry of the word (Act 6:3-6). You, however, control all expenses and expenditures by yourself. You treat the offering money of UBF as your own. As a result, UBF becomes corrupted. You show us that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6:10)….
(ii) Forged documents and bribe
In December 1975, you wanted to change your ownership of the building of the Kwan-Ak chapter (25,000,000 won – $25,000) to the organization because of its high property tax. You changed the name of UBF to City Evangelism and appointed Joseph Lee, Nathaniel Ahn, Moses Kim and Mary Joo as committee members to obtain the alternation permission of ownership from local court. You also bribed tax collectors and notary officials to register non-registered real estate owned by the laymen mission organization. You evaded taxes. It is very sad that you, the chief leader of UBF, broke the law while keeping it secret from our sheep. Do we need to own those properties by breaking the law?—1976 reform letter
"In the early 1970s, the first group of missionaries in West Germany sent 100 % of their offering. Dr. Lee put this large amount of money in his personal account. At about the time of the ’76 reform movement in Korea, Dr. Lee opened his personal account in Benoit, Mississippi, the hometown of Shepherdess Sarah Barry. He hoarded the money there secretly excusing the future pioneering of USA. And he used this money from this account as his personal expenses, a house and car after coming to the USA. (But to the coworkers, he told a lie that the parents of Shepherdess Sarah Barry bought the car as a gift.)" https://ubfhistoryx.livejournal.com/4610.html
UBF has had several close calls with the IRS for tax evasion. Hence the need to bribe authorities and eventually become a member of ECFA. The latter didn’t happen until October 2007.
Sidenote: On the same document where the CIA file on UBF is listed there is interesting info related to this theory:
03-Aug-00 F-2000-01616 : THE DATABASE WHICH CONTAINS CONTRACTS WITH COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES AS WELL AS OTHER CONTRACT ENTITIES—Source: https://www.governmentattic.org/docs/FOIA_Logs_CIA_1999-2004.pdf go to page 33 (page 205)
As you can see CIA has connections/contacts with all universities. The CIA’s operations are not limited to the USA. This info could explain how the CIA came into contact with UBF. Notice how the file was made in August 2000. This is around the time when the 3rd Crisis kicked into gear. So the CIA would have encounter or found out about UBF as early as the 1990s.
In fact it is revealed that the CIA secret recruits students and academics since at least the 1980s:
So why would the CIA murder the founder? Lee couldn’t meet his monetary quota of paying CIA agents. During the crisis of 2000-2002 multiple UBF missionaries and their chapters left UBF. As a result UBF suffered not just a crisis (exodus) of people leaving but also a financial crisis since the main (and only?) source of income is through offering money.
“UBF World Headquarters in Chicago, the amount accumulated in the official will be only 6.1 billion won, the disclosure of the state of income expenditure,”
6.1 Billion Won converted into United States Dollars (USD) is approximately $5,762,060. That is the amount of money that was in “Chang- Woo “Samuel” Lee’s personal pocket" Source: http://ubfriends.net/ubfriends2015/korea-ubf-jongno-ubf-chapter-ubf-what-will-be-reformed-english-translation/
“Author: private eye Subject: Examples of UBF disinformation?
Recently there were some postings on the Korean bulletin boards which purported to be answers to Reformers questions. In reality, I want to ask you if they are answers or disinformation? That is answers that give absolutely no information although they pretend to.
First, concerning UBF finances a letter from UBF’s Chicago Bank: *************** Devon Bank 6445 North Western Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60645-5494 (773) 465-2500
Date January 4, 2001
To Whom it may concern:
This is to certify that University Bible Fellowship Overseas who resides at 6558 N Artesian Ave. Chicago, IL. 60645 opened a Business Account at Devon Bank, Chicago, Illinois on October 12, 1990. This account has been maintained in a satisfactory manner from that date and currently carries a balance of $341,384.44
Sincerely Devon Bank
______________________ STATE OF ILLINOIS COUNTY OF COOK
Subscribed and sworn to before me this 4th day of January 2001. **************
This is only a balance statement for a single account. Of what value is this? Let’s see the real books…how much came in….and how it was EXACTLY spent. Let’s see the accounting for chapters, individuals, steak dinners, cars, personal expenses, salaries, housing expenses, etc….. There should be a COMPLETE DETAILED accounting of all money that came in and out. Where is it?” Source: http://www.voy.com/63135/49.html
In the Korean article made in mid-2000 it says that UBF HQ has close to 6 million USD. But the Devon Bank in Illinois says in a statement in January 2001 that UBF HQ has less than half of one million??? This is a contradiction. This is what was overlooked.
If both above are true that means UBF HQ (Mr. Lee) lost a little over 5 million dollars in less than a year???
It's not impossible but to me it's not too likely.
Part of my theory is that this is around the time maybe a bit earlier (1990s) that the FBI and CIA started taking notice of UBF. The CIA indirectly took advantage of Lee's criminal activities to have him make a deal with the devil by offering him the deal of staying out of prison in exchange for monetary tribute through black market salespeople and double agents. I believe that Lee gave into temptation rather than being forced.
The CIA say that Lee can be beneficial financially and for staying hidden since UBF wasn't really known much at that time.
It has been report that UBF made so much money that they have converted it into gold bullion (or gold bars). How much gold bars are worth? You can check that out on this website: https://www.jmbullion.com/charts/gold-price/# .
Here’s the reference of UBF having gold bars:
"Anyone with common sense knows this is all bogus. Do any of you remember the constant bragging by Samuel Lee that the UBF bank accounts were unlimited because it was "Heavenly Father's money". I can't even remember how many times I heard him say that while visiting Chicago, or attending a conference. I wish I knew where all the Chicago offering monies went after Sarah Barry converted them to gold bullion. I would imagine Little Sarah Kim has the answer to that mystery!" Source: http://www.voy.com/60734/7364.html
Why on earth would UBF (Mr. Lee) need to covert the offering money into gold bars? To bribe authorities and pay his tribute to the CIA. Brian K. you are right UBF having gold bars supports this theory. It turns out the CIA has connections and business in the gold market and may even have been involved in gold manipulation:
The CIA killed Lee for the following possible reasons:
· Lee didn't pay them enough
· They thought Lee is no longer any use to them.
So when they killed him they made it looked like a suicide. The CIA has done this before covering up murders/assassinations as suicides or accidents:
The circumstances surrounding his death were bizarre as noted in the past:
"I have read everything I could find on this forum about Lee's death and I am still a little confused. How did he die, from the fire? Or from pnuemonia? Did the firemen find him in the bathroom and carry him out? Did the firemen find him dead? If any knows the answers will you please inform me? It seems that there is a dispute between current ubf members and ex-ubf members. I have already heard ubf's version. I would like to know the truth." Source: http://www.voy.com/60734/8083.html
Here is some interesting intel from a news reporter:
"Date Posted: 12:54:11 01/08/02 Tue
Author: Roving Reporter News Network
Subject: Samuel Lee reported Dead
January 8, 2002
Chicago, IL
Driving by the UBF Chicago Center this morning, one could see a complete lack of activity. It is a beautiful day in Chicago, temperatures in the mid 40's and 50' predicted for tomorrow. In the beginning of January it looks like spring is in the air. A new beginning is near.
Just around the corner at 6510 N. Campbell, a solitary worker for a board-up company puts the finishing touches on a fire damaged house. The man, a muscular Hispanic man who may have played college football, wore an "FDNY" baseball hat in tribute to the real heroes of September 11th.
The man informed our news service that Samuel Lee passed away this morning. The board-up man made a comment 'that bad people die in a bad way.' He then finished his job, put his tools back in the truck and headed for the next fire damaged building." Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20070821171509/http://rsqubf.fortunecity.net:80/discuss/archive/slee_dead.html
What is very odd is that this info is not referenced or in any article on the internet. I am not saying that the Roving News Reporter or the hispanic worker are undercover CIA agents but it is suspicious that such important information has been kept hidden.
There was one news article about Lee's death but what's odd about it is that Lee's cause of death is not mentioned at all. Here's the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2002-01-14-0201140183-story.html
Once Lee was killed the CIA indirectly approached Lee's right hand man, his inner and the current leaders (the oldest UBF "missionaries" with the same temptation and deal. Hence why UBF has been able to avoid and get away with the prosecution of the IRS, building violation, black market visas, smuggling, illegal adoptions, etc.
Here's a case of an illegal adoption: https://rsqubf.livejournal.com/155261.html
Building Violations: http://apartable.com/buildings/6558-n-artesian-ave-chicago-il
The CIA’s file on UBF:
August 14, 2002 F-2002-01385 SAMUEL LEE AKA CHANG WOO LEE; THE UNIVERSITY BIBLE FELLOWSHIP IN CHICAGO IL. Source: https://www.governmentattic.org/docs/FOIA_Logs_CIA_1999-2004.pdf It's on page 31 (page 122) in the pdf file.
This theory is quite a stretch but it is still quite plausible.