Pastor and his wife found guilty in $3M crypto scam
One of the two pastors charged in separate crypto scam schemes has finally heard his sentence: guilty.
The Denver District Court said that Eligio Jr. (Eli) and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, defrauded more than 300 people of $3.3 million by selling their token, INDXCoin, according to the Colorado Division of Securities (CDS).
The Regalados targeted Christian communities in Denver and made numerous misrepresentations and omissions to lure investors, CDS added.
For example, the pastor and his wife hid from investors the fact that an auditor they hired gave the token a security score of 0 out of 10, while they continued promoting it as “a low-risk, high-profit investment.” Moreover, they promised to list the token on their own platform, Kingdom Wealth Exchange, which reportedly collapsed after just one day of trading.
However, “the Lord” apparently had bigger plans. According to CDS, the couple also spent investor money on jewelry, luxury ski and yachting trips, designer clothes, dental work, and even a Range Rover.
As the scam unraveled, Eli Regalado Jr. went viral on YouTube with a video in which he admitted to using investors’ money to pay outstanding taxes and for a “home remodel the Lord told us to do.”
“The Regalados are 21st-century false prophets who leveraged the new and promising technology of cryptocurrencies to run an old-fashioned scam, victimizing their own congregants and others,” Colorado Securities Commissioner Tung Chan was quoted as saying.
Meanwhile, another pastor still awaits sentencing. As reported by Cybernews, in December 2024, the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged Washington state pastor Francier Obando Pinillo with fraud and misappropriation in a multilevel marketing scheme targeting 1,515 customers, including members of his own Spanish church.
The commission alleges it was a fraudulent crypto multilevel marketing scheme worth at least $5.9 million. According to the US Department of Justice, Pinillo claimed the idea for his crypto project had come to him in a dream and that it was a safe and guaranteed investment.
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