Top Chaldean Catholic Church Leader Arrested at San Diego Airport While Allegedly Attempting to Flee on International Flight

A senior leader in the Chaldean Catholic Church was arrested Thursday at San Diego International Airport while allegedly attempting to board an international flight.

Bishop Emanuel Shaleta, head of a Chaldean Catholic church in El Cajon, California, was detained by deputies as he was reportedly trying to leave the country, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The Chaldean Catholic Church is an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church, with roots in ancient Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq).

Bishop Emanuel Hana Shaleta (Bishop Emanuel Shaleta) was born in Fishkabour-Zakho, Iraq.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Shaleta, 69, was arrested at the airport Thursday and booked into jail on suspicion of eight counts each of embezzlement and money laundering, along with an enhancement for aggravated white-collar crime. Authorities set bail at $125,000.

According to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office:

On August 19, 2025, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by a representative from St. Peter Chaldean Church, which is located at 1627 Jamacha Way in Unincorporated El Cajon.

The church representative provided a statement and documents showing potential embezzlement from the church. Upon completion of the initial investigation, the case was forwarded to and investigated by the Sheriff’s Fraud Unit.

On Thursday, March 5, 2026, Bishop Emmanuel Shaleta was contacted and detained at the San Diego International Airport attempting to leave the country. He was arrested for eight counts of 508 PC – Embezzlement, eight counts of 186.10(a) PC – Money Laundering, and one count of 186.11(a)(1) PC – Aggravated White Collar Crime Enhancement.

Shaleta was transported and booked at the San Diego Central Jail for the aforementioned charges. He is currently being held on $125,000 bail and a hold under Penal Code section 1275.1 was approved by the court.

The arrest stems from an investigation launched by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Fraud Unit in August 2025, after church representatives reported potential financial irregularities.

Authorities allege that Shaleta misappropriated hundreds of thousands of dollars from St. Peter Chaldean Catholic Cathedral in El Cajon.

Documents reviewed by investigators indicate that rental payments for a church-owned property were directed to Shaleta in cash, which went unaccounted for, and he later attempted to reimburse the funds using checks from the cathedral’s charity account signed by himself. Estimates of the missing funds range from $427,000 to as much as $1 million.

More from The Pillar:

A private investigator’s report sent to the Vatican last year recounted allegations that the bishop had regularly visited Hong Kong Gentlemen’s Club in Tijuana, flagged by human rights journalists as “a brothel where trafficked women and girls are forced to work in the sex trade.”

That retired FBI special agent Wade Dudley told The Pillar that the bishop’s car had been observed “in a parking lot exclusively for patrons of Hong Kong, and we have seen him walking to the border and across the border, and we have seen him get picked up by a third-party ride share that exclusively takes customers to that establishment.”

The report also documented an unusual and longstanding situation in the bishop’s personal life.

Shaleta has held for years a joint personal bank account with a woman who was the parish secretary when Shaleta was a pastor in Michigan.

In 2025 the bank account’s balance was in excess of $40,000, and appeared to receive regular deposits from Shaleta.

When Shaleta became in 2015 the eparch for Chaldean Catholics in Canada, the woman “started making frequent visits to Toronto, staying either at a nearby hotel or at his house,” the private detective noted.

In 2017, Shaleta was appointed to lead the Chaldean Eparchy of Saint Peter the Apostle of San Diego.

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