FBI Raids LA Cult from Netflix documentary

What this episode is about

The FBI recently conducted a dramatic raid on the 7M cult, also known as the Shikina cult, in Los Angeles, employing heavy tactics such as flashbangs and forcefully breaching the premises. The raid follows the cult's exposure in Netflix's documentary "Dancing for the Devil," which highlights the disturbing practices of its leader, Robert Shin, and the impact on families who lost contact with their loved ones involved in the cult.

Key takeaways

• When cult leaders drop apocalyptic predictions, they either sell hope or predictably implode—welcome to the cult rollercoaster.
• Netflix's 'Dancing for the Devil' proves that some real-life dramas make fiction look like child’s play—cult tales never disappoint.
• A rammed gate may symbolize freedom, but for parents, it’s just a heavy metal reminder of lost children in cults.
• It’s always ‘give me your money’ and ‘trust me’ until the flashbangs go off—cult leaders really nail the bait-and-switch.
• Shuffling cult members like real estate proves isolation is a business strategy—as every good landlord knows, keeping tenants apart is key.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Robert Shin · 2 min speaking
• Lee Sisters · 1 min speaking
• Wilking Sisters · 1 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Robert Shin, Dancing for the Devil: The 7M Cult
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Robert Shin, Jim Jones, 7M Management, Lee sisters
3. 10:00 – 15:00: Robert Shin, Lee sisters, Jim Jones
4. 15:00 – 20:00: Robert Shin, Lee sisters
5. 20:00 – 25:00: Robert Shin, Lee sisters
6. 25:00 – 30:00: 7M Management, Wilking sisters, Robert Shin, Lee sisters
7. 30:00 – 35:00: Wilking sisters, Robert Shin, Lee sisters, Shakina Church
8. 35:00 – 39:47: Lee sisters, Robert Shin, 7M Management

Notable quotes from "FBI Raids LA Cult from Netflix documentary"

• And so we're going to talk about how Robert Shin, the leader of it, how he went from running starting a Korean Bible study in 1994 and now here we are in 2025 and they're.

  about Robert Shin · at 1:42

• Stick together. Charles Manson said there was going to be an apocalyptic race war. The Heaven's Gate cult literally was it was going to be the apocalypse. the Earth was going…

  about Heaven's Gate · at 6:01

• Members and it ends up being kind of funny. And the pivot in this story where he goes from the Shikina church to 7M management where he's managing tick tock dancers has to be one of the most bizarre midway pivots in a cult story that I've.

  about Shakina Church · at 8:13

• Between or there's no reason where you could just go and do your own spiritual journey. Like Jim Jones, he would do these big dramatic healings where he would have new people…

  about Jim Jones · at 14:14

• Dancers and that's where we get the second set of sisters in this story. So the second set, it's the Lee sisters in the Shakina era and in the 7M era, I'll tell you how it becomes the 7M.

  about Wilking sisters · at 26:29

• Shin gets dollar signs in his eyes and goes, This is the pivot that I was looking for. And he starts within his church 7M management to manage essentially tick tock dancers.

  about 7M Management · at 28:45

• We're kind of desperate to get something going and she joined this up. It's a cult. It's a whole thing. And that got the ball rolling for the documentary to be made. And what's cool about this story is the Lee sisters.

  about TikTok · at 34:54

• To get charged? That's pretty interesting. And then a big lawsuit that the Lee sisters spearheaded and filed that's going down in October, so in a couple months. So that will…

  about Lee sisters · at 36:41

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Robert Shin — Person · Primary subject (alleged cult leader) · 16 mentions · first at 1:46
  Central figure of the episode; described as the leader of the 7M/Shikina group and the driver of its evolution from a Bible study into a talent-management front, with allegations of coercive control, financial exploitation, and sexual abuse.
• Lee sisters — Person · Key witnesses / survivors (as described) · 11 mentions · first at 8:56
  Presented as early members from the Shekinah/Shikina era whose experiences (financial control, isolation, and alleged sexual abuse) help explain the group’s methods and later public exposure; they are described as instrumental in reporting and legal action.
• Wilking sisters — Person · Public-facing case study (TikTok dancers) / family focal point · 6 mentions · first at 26:46
  Used to illustrate the group’s pivot into influencer/talent management (7M era). One sister is described as joining and cutting off family; the family’s public advocacy is described as catalyzing broader attention and the documentary.
• Jim Jones — Person · Historical comparison figure (referenced cult leader) · 4 mentions · first at 5:11
  Referenced as an analogy for cult dynamics (charismatic authority, apocalyptic framing, staged “miracles,” and church-style performance), used to contextualize Robert Shin’s tactics.

Books & papers

• Dancing for the Devil: The 7M Cult — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 1:10
  A documentary series that exposed the 7M cult and its practices, leading to public awareness and legal actions.
  The 7M cult was made known to the public recently as far as these cult stories go. Just one year ago, Netflix put out a three-part docue series titled Dancing for the Devil…

Companies & orgs

• 7M Management — Company · Business focus · 5 mentions · first at 8:21
  A management company for TikTok dancers that is part of the 7M cult, involved in controlling members' lives and finances.
• Shakina Church — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at 8:49
  The initial religious front for the 7M cult, used to recruit and control members under the guise of a Bible study.
• TikTok — Company · Case study · 1 mention · first at 34:56
  A platform where dancers gained fame, which the 7M cult exploited to recruit and control new members.

Concepts & topics

• Heaven's Gate — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 6:06
  A referenced cult known for its apocalyptic predictions, used as a comparison to the 7M cult's practices.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:04 Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Hope you're doing well. So, get a load of this. A week ago, the FBI dramatically raided the headquarters of the 7M cult in Los Angeles, also known as the Shikina cult. Wild scenes. They rammed through the big, thick, heavy metal front gate, knocked it in. It's laying on its side all mangled. This Oh, boiler kicked on. boiler. This was not a go up and ring the intercom. Yes, we have a search warrant. Can you please open the front gate? This was knocking the front gate. Flashbangs going off at 6:00 a.m. One of the poor neighbors thought it was a gunfight and took cover. Six people sitting on the curb in handcuffs while they're executing the search warrant. Oh my god.

0:54 One of them visibly crying. News helicopters hovering overhead. The 7M cult was made known to the public recently as far as these cult stories go. Just one year ago, Netflix put out a three-part docue series titled Dancing for the Devil: The 7M Cult. I'd give it a watch if you haven't seen it. I was interested through all three episodes and I've watched every cult documentary and read every book on a cult out there. I don't even know why. They're all the same. It's just some guy going, "You want a good life and to survive the apocalypse? Well, you have to give me all of your money and I get to have sex with your wife." Pretty good, right?

1:42 And so we're going to talk about how Robert Shin, the leader of it, how he went from running starting a Korean Bible study in 1994 and now here we are in 2025 and they're being violently raided and it's a whole thing. Netflix three-part docue series. It's a story for the books. One of the satisfying parts of watching the news coverage of the raid and seeing that big, thick, heavy metal front gate laying on its side is some of the most heartbreaking scenes from the docu series are parents that lost contact with their adult child after they moved to Los Angeles to work in show business.

2:30 And all of a sudden, they aren't hearing from their kid as much as they used to. and now they're not hearing from them at all and they don't know why they lost contact and they don't know what to do. Months are going by and so they think, you know what, let's drive out to Los Angeles from where we live in the Midwest and they travel all the way out to California and they go to the headquarters, the 7M house, and they go and they ring the intercom and someone picks up but doesn't say anything. It's just breathing. And these poor parents are going, "Hi, we're Nick's parents and we traveled here all the way from the Midwest.

3:10 We just want to talk to Nick. Say hi to him and give him a hug. It's been a long time." And if you we we know someone can hear this because we can hear you breathing and we just we just want to see our son and give him a hug. And if you could relay this message, whoever is hearing this to Nick that we're here and that we'll come back tomorrow and you see the big metal front gate in this horrible, heartbreaking scene. And so to see it knocked over and everybody sitting on the curb crying was a satisfying moment. But let's go way back and talk about how this happened. So, going back to 1994, Robert Shin, he's a Korean successful businessman, he's married, has some kids, and starts a Bible study essentially with his family and an extended family. And if you're going to start a cult, you have to offer something. What do you get if you join? And so what he was able to offer is he owns some properties.

4:18 And so if you join up, you got to give control of your bank account over. Let me open this door so it doesn't get too hot. You got to give control of your bank account over and they take all your money. But what you get is he owns a couple businesses, a number of businesses like a mortgage company and a real estate company. So you get to you get a job and then you get to stay at one of the houses with other members and every six months or so you have to move to a different house. They probably don't didn't want people hanging out with each other too much and talking like hey this kind of sucks.

4:56 Should we just leave? And so they're always shuffling people around. You get your next housing assignment and the whole thing. You're working at the mortgage company. You got a place to live. You got a spiritual leader. He sets it up that he's close to God or closer to God. Kind of a Jim Jones thing. But first, before we get into the story too much, I want to talk about an underrated comedy moment in a lot of these cult documentaries or cult books where about halfway 34 of the way in, there always has to be a pivot because to start one of these cults, you have to have a apocalyptic prediction or some sort of dire world view that the only way to survive it is to join your cult.

5:47 So Jim Jones, he was trying to start the socialist utopia and he was saying the fascist capitalists are going to come in and ruin everything and so we got to stick together. Charles Manson said there was going to be an apocalyptic race war. The Heaven's Gate cult literally was it was going to be the apocalypse. the Earth was going to recycle. And if you didn't want to recycle with it, you wanted to move up to the next phase of consciousness, you had to be in the cult. But the problem is, you make one of these big predictions, it's going to be an apocalyptic race war. You have no idea.

6:30 Or the planet's going to recycle or the fascists are going to get us. But inevitably, the prediction doesn't come true. There's no race war. The planet doesn't recycle. The fascist capitalists don't show up. So, in all of these stories, about halfway, threearters of the way through, the cult leader is forced to make a pivot or make a new prediction or add to the old prediction. And this is the point the cracks start to show a little bit. Maybe they're starting to lose some members. And also by this point they're probably drunk with power and on drugs and wearing sunglasses inside and have slept with everybody's wives so all the husbands hate them and they're starting to lose their mystique because the prediction didn't come true. It's like, "Hey pal, what happened to the the big prediction?" And so they're forced to make a pivot. The hard thing about that for the cult leader is they had

7:34 their whole life to put their first world view together. A lot of them take things from churches. Like both Robert Shin from this 7M cult and Jim Jones, they kind of copied the energy of a black church and then put their own spin on it. So maybe you they study another cult, take a few things, maybe a couple religions. Oh, I like that. Oh, that seems to work, but they have all this time. They have their whole life to come up with the first one. And then with the pivot, they got to hastily come do it when they're at their lowest. And so it it usually they start to lose some members and it ends up being kind of funny. And the pivot in this story where he goes from the Shikina church to 7M management where he's managing tick tock dancers has to be one of the most bizarre midway pivots in a cult story that I've seen. But anyway, so let's go back. It's 1994. He starts his Korean Bible study.

8:43 People are starting to join. So the documentary follows two sets of sisters. Two in the Shakina church era and then two once it turns into the 7M era. And how the first two sisters, the Lee sisters, ended up in is a sad story and really understandable. So they're young, I think 12, 13, 14 years old. Their dad abandoned their family. He's he's still in Korea. They're Korean. And so it's the Lee sisters. Dad abandons them. The mom brings them to the United States. The mom is a alcoholic and gambling addict and disappears for months at a time. So they're just kids dealing with their mom. The dad's gone. The mom's gone for a month. And they somehow found this Korean church, Korean Bible study. So they feel at home. The pastor's Robert Shin, he's Korean. All the family is Korean. And they're going to the Bible studies and it's at a nice warm house with meals on the table. The the shins take them in as their own two

10:03 daughters. They're thinking this is the greatest thing. And Robert Shinn, some of his teachings are the big teachings are you reap what you sow. He really hammers that, which isn't bad advice, but he kind of spins it on his h head and makes it horrible. And later on when it's more of a cult, he's doing anything that makes you feel like yourself, it has to die to you. and you you have to die to your family and your friends and and it just gets so sad because like there's this one dude, he's being a good father to his son and Robert Shinn's telling him, "You have to die to your son. You have to cut him off. You can't see him." And then once the relationship completely disintegrates and it's over, then you can rebuild it better than it was before. So you got to break contact with your parents. You have to die to them. Anything that made you happy or that made you feel like yourself, you have to die to it. Your sister, your

11:06 whole family, everything. And just be in the shakina world and then you will rise like a phoenix and your relationship with your family will even be better. And so that was it for a while. He's going, you have you have to die to your family and everything. And but then it backfired because you with kids that cut off their parents, all of a sudden the parents are showing up ringing the doorbell going, "Yeah, we just want to see our son. We miss him so much." And then Robert Shin pivoted. And this is, you can hear him talk about this. It's on tape from one of his sermons or whatever you call it. And he's going, "All right, well, that was not the way to do it. You can't totally cut off your parents. You have to still see them and you almost have to be a con man where you're pretending everything's fine because we have to keep what we're going with the church and not be involved with them but we can't have

12:05 them showing up ringing the doorbell. So you got to give them a little something pretend everything's okay. But then the problem is is now the people start meeting with their family that they hadn't been meeting with. But it's this superficial don't talk about anything real conversation and the parents are going, "Are you all right? What is going on?" So, in a way, it kind of helps because the parents are like, "All right, well, they're back in our lives, but they're sure weird now." All right. So, anyway, the Lee sisters, they join up. They're young kids. Their mom and dad aren't in the picture. It makes sense. This Korean family takes them in as their own. They're all of a sudden living in a nice house.

12:54 And Robert Shin, he really drove in that if you don't follow me, I'm I'm a man of God. I'm close to God. If you don't follow me, you end up you will go to hell. The only way not to go to this horrible hell. and he would really paint a picture of hell that was very scary. So, these young Lee sisters are in there and one of them talks about that she thought if she didn't follow Robert Shin completely and totally, she would end up in hell. And what hell would look like for her is she would like burst into flames and a bunch of maggots would fall out of her mouth and out of her eyes and it would be the worst thing ever. And then she would pop back to normal and then it would start over with the maggots out of the mouth and eyes and just that would happen over and over again. And probably as a control, wanting to be in control of something because both her parents bailed on her.

14:00 She became obsessed with that. And then another thing that the cult leaders have to do, they have to somehow convince people that they are not merely a man but not totally God. Like somewhere in between or there's no reason where you could just go and do your own spiritual journey. Like Jim Jones, he would do these big dramatic healings where he would have new people come to one of his speeches and they would travel around with the guts of a chicken. And he would say, "All right, so this person has cancer." And he pull out the chicken guts and hold it up. Look, it it's the disgusting cancer. And everyone's going, "Oh my gosh, he healed." But see, that's a little bit risky because one, who wants to live their life toting around chicken guts, keeping them in a cooler?

14:50 Kind of a nightmare. But also, he had to let some of his followers in on the whole show. Because if you're doing a big show to pull out the chicken guts, you got to have your followers go get the chicken guts, hide them, and then you have to explain to them in a way of like, "Listen, we're putting on a big show. We're trying to get new members. I know it's a little bit fake, but I do really have healing ability and but we're just kind of showing people really quickly that I do by putting on a show, but it is real. But that's risky because you don't want your followers sitting around talking to each other going, "Yeah, it's just chicken guts." I don't know. Is this whole thing just kind of stupid? But what Shin did, I guess one of the stories that got some of his members to really go allin was one of the members had a really bad skin rash and it just happened to coincidentally coincide when

15:48 he was going to baptize the person and he did his baptisms out in the ocean. They're in California. So they go out to the ocean. He dunks her in the ocean and the skin rash clears up and everyone goes, "Oh man, this he really is the man of God closer to God and if I just follow his teachings, I won't go to hell." But skin rashes go away on their own if you just stop doing whatever was causing them. Or it could have been the salt water. my skin always feels great after going to the beach. So, it could have been that.

16:28 But anyway, little things like that he would really try to capitalize on like, "Look at that. The skin rash is gone." And everyone goes, "Oh man, this is real." And so, as the Lee sisters are become young women and then women, they're both smart. You can tell by listening to them talk, they're both smart, good-looking ladies. and Robert Shinn made a lot of money using them to run his businesses. So, one of them was running the mortgage company and then I think if I remember right, the mortgage company and the real estate company that Robert Shin owned merged and she was running both of them. And how he would do it with the salaries is so say you're running his mortgage company, they'll put in 50,000 bucks in your account.

17:18 It's like, all right, this is all right. I'm doing well. I'm I'm running a company. It makes sense. I got a little money. This is all right. But then Robert Shin's wife would have access to your account. So, they put in 50 bucks to be like, "Hey, look at that. You're doing pretty good." And then 10,000 gets deleted because you got a chip in for this. And then another 10,000 and then 20,000 for this. And it goes all the way down to 200 bucks. And then that's when it comes in where it's like you reap what you sow. He would hammer into him, the only way to get bad things, good things coming to you in life is you have to be generous. The more generous you are with your money, basically saying you got to get you're going to work for free and the money that we make, we're going to pretend to give it to you and then we're just going to take it back and you just get to be generous. Look at that. Everybody's

18:12 happy. And so it would you'd get a nice paycheck or something for working and then it would all go to tithing and the whole thing down to nothing. And there was a hierarchy where it's like your mentors above you and then someone's above them and then it goes all the way up to Robert Shin. But you would have to ask the person above you for anything. Say your shoes are getting ratty and your feet and back are starting to hurt a little bit. It's like, "Oh man, I need new shoes." So you go to the person above you. Is it okay if I buy new shoes? And they say, "Well, let me check with who whoever is above with me and I'll get back to you." And they might just get back to you and say, "Nah, you can't." Right? Not it's not a good time. You can't buy new shoes right now. You need to toil away with the shoes you got. And imagine being an adult running a mortgage company and not being able to buy your new shoes. It

19:12 would be a strain. But then you're like, "Oh, well that he's the man of God and I don't want to go to hell, so I'll just slog through it." So the Lee sisters become women. And one of them he start he brings her in and says, "You're going to start giving me massages." And then the massages turn into naked massages. And then the naked massages turn into her him raping her. And so that goes on for a while and she's miserable. And the the straw that breaks the camel's back for her. Oh, wait. I'm getting slightly ahead of myself. So, as he's sexually assaulting her, she's going, I got to get out of here. This isn't right. This has gotten so bad. And so she talks to a friend that's not in the church. She has this big black dude friend who she actually brought once to one of the church sermons and he was the one that was like, "Ah, he's copying like a black church and adding his Korean spin to

20:15 it." And but it wasn't his thing. He's like, "I'm not joining this thing." But they stayed friends. So she calls her big black friend and goes, "I got to get out of here." Tells him what's happening. They make a plan like, "All right, we're gonna wait for everybody to be gone. I'm gonna come and get you and then we're going to head for the hills." Well, Robert Shinn, the leader, calls her before the date that they had planned to leave and he said for the first time, "I want you to have sex with another guy and it's part of your journey so you don't go to hell and it's something that you need to do." And she goes, "I want 10 days to think about if I want to do that or not." And he said, 'Well, you have three days to think about it. And then she she said, ' Okay. And then called her big black friend and goes, "You got to come get me. We're going early. I can't be here anymore." So he gets a

21:09 baseball bat in a van. She waits till everybody in her house, the roommates and everybody are gone. He comes in, pulls up the van. They're throwing her stuff in like, "We got to get out of here." And then someone got word of it, drove a car, blocked the driveway, got out and was like, "What are you doing? Where are you going?" And her friend pulls out the baseball bat and goes, "Get out of the way." And the church member goes, "Okay." And got out of the way. And she's out of there. But her sister, I think it's her little sister if I remember correctly, her little sister's still in the church.

21:49 They don't talk anymore because her little sister isn't ready to leave. She thinks if I leave, I'm gonna go to hell and maggots are going to fall out of my face over and over again for all of eternity. So, you can't blame me for not leaving. And so, they aren't speaking anymore. The sister, the Lee sister that's still there, she's running the businesses forum. She was a real she was a big key part in the success of the whole thing just being smart and business savvy and running the businesses. And then the situation that she ends up in, no exaggeration, might be the most disturbing story I've ever heard. Somehow he moves her. It's like your new thing is you're going to stay in this little room. There was two black light um like curtains that block all the light. Two of them blocking the light in the window. So, it's a totally dark little square room with all of the walls from floor to ceiling from wall to wall

22:56 had Bible verses printed out and posted on the wall. not framed with a classy matting, just printed out on an inkjet printer and taped on the wall totally every every space on the wall has a Bible verse on it. So, she's in this dark little square of a room with Bible verse wallpapers tacked up everywhere. And he would come, she said he would come in whenever he wanted and just do whatever he wanted to her sexually and then leave in that little dark room. And that went on for 10 years. And then one day, Robert Shinn's wife, she either got fed up that he was having an affair with her or just learned about it or became fed up with it. But she barges in the room, starts slapping and kicking the Lee sister, tearing down the Bible verses, screaming at her. The Lee sisters sitting there.

24:02 She said she was just saying to herself, "Please let this end. Please let this end." And then Robert Shin comes in and he's just watching it happen, not putting a stop to it or anything. And that's the moment where it clicked in her head where she said, "I would rather go to hell and have the maggots fall out of my face over and over again than stay here." And she finally left. But think of the road to recovery that that poor lady has to go through and who is going through right now having that be your situation for 10 years. You get in there at 14 and that's how it all that's where it ends.

24:40 And so that gets to the part of the story where you have that pivot because it became I think apparent to Robert Shin is that he needed something to keep membership growing the whole thing to keep it going. And so his first attempt was to make one of the try to make one of the members a music star. Didn't work. Then he tried to make one of the members a movie star. Didn't work. Which that's in a way Scientology's strategy is they get these young actors. And a lot of people that move to LA to be actors have no business being actors. They wouldn't get a part at the local community theater in whatever town they're coming from. And then they get to LA and they're desperate and they're they're not even close to getting any jobs. And then a Scientologist goes, "Hey, you know who Tom Cruz is? You want to be like that?"

25:41 M and so this is where this interesting pivot comes in because Robert Shinn's son is doing production work and he ends up doing production work for Tik Tok dancers which in the last I don't know five years really became a thing. I didn't even know until the documentary, but dancers on Tik Toks get berserk numbers and you can get brand deals and a lot of them are like two sisters will do a choreograph dance together or a man and a woman are do a chore dance together and they get millions of views and so dancers move to Los Angeles to be professional dancers and that's where we get the second set of sisters in this story. So the second set, it's the Lee sisters in the Shakina era and in the 7M era, I'll tell you how it becomes the 7M.

26:46 The Wilking sisters who are very good dancers, very good-looking, very athletic looking, have been dancing together their whole life. They started a Tik Tok channel. As the Tik Tok dancing fad got going, it became very successful and they it's all the same basically where they're standing right next to each other. They do the same choreographed dance and it's successful. So, they get to the point in their life where it's like, "All right, it's time to make make moves on our dancing career. Let's move to Los Angeles and become professional dancers." So they they got their Tik Tok channel. Things are going pretty good. They got a great look. So they moved to Los Angeles and they're trying to be professional dancers. But out of I've been in show business now for about 15 years. I would say out of all of the types of show business to be successful in, dancers have it the hardest because you only have such a small little window

27:53 to get jobs and make money before you're not cute anymore and you're old and you're not a good dancer, you're not as mobile anymore. And so this such a short little window And so the Wilking sisters move to Los Angeles. Other dancers are trying to do the same thing and they're in Los Angeles. They're not getting any jobs. They're still doing the Tik Tok thing, but it's really hard. And they meet Robert Shinn's son who's doing production work, filming and lights and everything for them. And Robert Shin's son tells his cult leader dad, "Hey dad, there's this thing like tick tock dancers. It gets a bunch of views.

28:35 They're famous. I do the camera work and the lighting and the editing for them and it gets crazy numbers. And Robert Shin gets dollar signs in his eyes and goes, "This is the pivot that I was looking for." And he starts within his church 7M management to manage essentially tick tock dancers. So, I don't know how many he ended up managing. 10, maybe more. And the the big the big sell was you sign with us. We handle management. So, we'll get you jobs dancing in movies and hopefully on tours for pop stars and stuff. We'll do the filming, the costumes, the makeup. We'll handle the copyright for music. We'll do everything production-wise. And all you have to do is just dance. Show up and dance. And that's really attractive to someone that moved to Los Angeles, did a couple auditions, didn't get them, aren't making any money. Are thinking, man, this is going terrible. I'm getting depressed. I thought I was going to be a

29:51 professional dancer, and I'm out here in Los Angeles wasting away, not getting a single job. And all of a sudden, 7M management, we'll take care of everything. Yeah, they talk about the Bible at the dinner, but that's all right. I could use a little Bible in my life. That seems all right to me. And so, one of the Wilking sisters, remember, their whole thing was dancing together since they were little girls and that's on their own Tik Tok channel, dancing together. One of them meets another Tik Tok dancer that's already in the Shakina cult or the Shakina church I should say. So she all of a sudden meets this guy. They start to really get along and start to like each other. He's going I go to this church. It's called Shakina Church. It's really good. It it it helped me a lot. And also he runs a management company for dancers. Can you believe that? And so for one of the Wilking sisters, it just felt like the

30:56 right fit. She was looking for a church out in Los Angeles. All of a sudden, she's got management. All of a sudden, she's got a production staff. She's got her new boyfriend who's in the church. It's going great. The other Wilking sister, it's not going so good. She goes to one of the dinners. Felt a little weird. And then they have to they have to invite you to the church service. And so it's just some day and she had told one of her friends, "Yeah, I'll drive you to the airport." Well, I think it was Robert Shinn's wife calls her and goes, "Robert Shinn, he wants you at the church service today. I know you're supposed to bring one of your friends to the airport, but can you tell them take an Uber to the airport? I have something really important." and then come to the service.

31:47 And the sister was like, "No, why? Why? No, I'm going to take my friend to the airport. Whatever is so important, it can wait. I've never heard anything like that about church." So, yeah, you know, it's fine. I'm just going to take my friend to the airport. And so, she does. So, that was kind of the end of that was probably an obedience test for that sister and she failed. So that was kind of the end. But then all of a sudden as the other sister is getting more involved in the church and the management and everything, she cuts off her sister. But they had this successful Tik Tok dancing channel business. And so the the sister that wasn't in didn't join is now dancing alone on the channel, but all of the comments are like, "Hey, where is your sister?" She's pretending. She's telling their audience, "Yeah, everything's great."

32:45 Uh, what's her name? Miranda, that's the sister that joined the cult. Miranda is just, she's doing her own thing right now, taking a break, but everything's good. But no one in the comments believed her. It's like they're not speaking. Something is going on. What's going on? And all of a sudden, Miranda, the sister that joined, cuts off her family. So her sister, they had danced together, they had the successful channel, cuts her parents off. And so they're thinking, "What the hell is going on?" They're one of the parents that went out there and rang the intercom. Can you just h please tell her that we're here? We traveled all the way here. Just please. And as parents started showing up, as I mentioned earlier, Robert Shin said, "Okay, totally cutting off contact isn't working. They're showing up. They're going to the police. This isn't working.

33:38 So, get back into their life, but just kind of trick them that everything is okay. Of course, the parents know that not everything is all right. They look different. They act different. And if if Miranda's parents would bring up like, "Who is this guy? What are you doing? What is with this church?" She would say, "If you're going to ask me about this stuff, I'm not going to hang out with you and all anymore. We" And so, they just wouldn't talk about it. She'd come home for Christmas and they'd have this superficial hang and just no one would speak about it and it would feel terrible and then she'd leave and they'd all sit around depressed going, "Well, at least she's in our life. It's better than when we didn't speak to her." But then the Wilkings family blew the whole thing up after talking to the Lee sisters from the Shikina era that were both out and told them, "No, you can't just pretend everything's okay. They're

34:30 in danger." They, the Wilkings family went live on their big Instagram channel or maybe I think it was their Instagram, but they had a lot of followers from their dance videos and so they go live and talk about it for real where she's going, she's in this church group and management company. We moved out to LA. We're kind of desperate to get something going and she joined this up. It's a cult. It's a whole thing. And that got the ball rolling for the documentary to be made. And what's cool about this story is the Lee sisters now are grown, strong women that are recovering. They're working with the Wilings family. And so they helped the Wilings family like, "No, you can't just pretend everything's okay and hang out with her and just not talk about it or it'll just keep going." So they switched gears and went a different direction.

35:27 And they're telling the Wilkings family is telling the Lee sisters, I know it's rough to relive it, but you got to go in and file a police report for this stuff. Or he's just going to do it to more people. And the Lee sisters are going, "Yeah, but I don't want to go in there and just get grilled by a cop that barely believes me and have to relive the horrors." But slowly but surely, they support each other enough where the Lee sister that was locked in the little sex dungeon room for 10 years. She goes and files a report. A couple other people that had left file go in and file a report. And the whole thing together, they file lawsuits and the whole thing together leads to the documentary with just a short year later. A lot of times it takes way longer for these cult stories for finally something to happen. A short late year later, a week ago, the whole thing got raided. And so now it's going to be interesting. What

36:28 charges do does the leader, Robert Shin get if he, as of right now, he was detained, but no charges. And it was been a week. I've been waiting to do this episode. Like, all right, what the hell is going to happen? So, is he going to get charged? That's pretty interesting. And then a big lawsuit that the Lee sisters spearheaded and filed that's going down in October, so in a couple months. So that will be interesting. So hopefully that made sense. We're all learned up on it and now we can follow the cult story to the bitter end. But that's all I got. Oh, actually I do have a few things more. So, one of the interesting things about this story is like the family members that are in the 7M management that they don't have contact with their family. Their job is to post on social media. So their family that can't talk to them can see her dance videos and they can tell that she's got this sadness to her that she

37:30 didn't have and her she has a totally different hairdo that she didn't that she never doesn't seem like her and it just the whole thing feels so bizarre and weird but as the documentary comes out everybody knows Miranda is in this and so for the past year Miranda they'll Miranda and her husband now will post a dancing video and the comments are like, "I hope you can get out. I hope you're all right. You seem depressed." And now since the raid, she's posted a couple time like promos on social media like, "Do you smell at brunch?" Well, this new women's deodorant is for you. And people in the comments are like, "Are you not going to address that?

38:17 group that you're in that your family spearheaded this documentary which finally led to the raid. Are you not going to talk about it? And so it'll be interesting what happens with Miranda. I can't remember her new sheed her name when she got married, but it was Miranda Wilking, but it's going to be interesting. And her husband has like six million followers on his Tik Tok or maybe his Instagram on one of them. though together they're pretty well a pretty well-known couple. He's the one that was in the group before when before they met. He was already in the group. So, he brought her in the group. So, it's probably going to be a lot of recovering when it hits them if it does. Like, damn, I brought my wife into this life ruining group. We abandoned our families.

39:10 She did make Miranda did make one statement when the documentary came out essentially saying like, I can't believe my parents did this. Do they think this is going to help our relationship? Everything is fine. And now here we are a year later and it got dramatically raided and it's going to be interesting how they navigate that. Is she going to address it on her social media? Is the family going to get back together? Wild stuff. Okay, so I'm going to cut it off there. I love y'all. See you soon. Why? Sting Y. Shamita.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "FBI Raids LA Cult from Netflix documentary"?

Robert Shin, Lee Sisters, Wilking Sisters.

What is "FBI Raids LA Cult from Netflix documentary" about?

The FBI recently conducted a dramatic raid on the 7M cult, also known as the Shikina cult, in Los Angeles, employing heavy tactics such as flashbangs and forcefully breaching the premises. The raid follows the cult's exposure in Netflix's documentary "Dancing for the Devil," which highlights the disturbing practices of its leader, Robert Shin, and the impact on families who lost contact with…

What is mentioned in this TRUE CRIME Loser episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Robert Shin, Lee sisters, 7M Management, Wilking sisters, Shakina Church, Dancing for the Devil: The 7M Cult. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "FBI Raids LA Cult from Netflix documentary"?

The episode runs 40 min; the transcript is about 6,524 words in 43 timestamped sections.

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