According to Forbes and Business Week he is continuously involved in scandals, mostly due to allegations that the UCKG illegally channeled donations of billions of US dollars intended for charity overseas, then returned the money to Brazil. The São Paulo Public Ministry said in a statement "it was proved that the money from donations, instead of being used for the maintenance of services, was diverted to serve the private interests of the accused". Macedo is accused of using the donations received from his poor followers to buy jewelry, TV stations, and other businesses for himself. The São Paulo state prosecutor said that Macedo and his associates had misappropriated more than US$2 billion in donations from 2003 to 2008 alone, and that the alleged scheme went back 10 years. There have also been unofficial charges of fraud and money laundering. As of January 2013 Macedo was still under prosecution by US and Venezuelan authorities. In 2007 Macedo was also criticized for the acquisitions by his church which include: twenty-three TV stations, forty radio stations, two major daily newspapers, a real estate agency, a health insurance company, and an airline. The church's acquisitions are suspicious due to the church's short history of about thirty years.