A US pastor who sold a worthless cryptocurrency to his flock and collected $1.3 million, some of which he used to refurbish his home, claims he was merely doing what God taught him.
Eli Regalado, a US pastor, and his wife, Kaitlyn, are facing a civil action alleging that they marketed the so-called INDXcoin to fellow Christians in Colorado with heavenly guarantees that investors will become wealthy.
According to the charge filed by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, detectives discovered 300 people invested $3.2 million in something Regalado and his wife insisted God was backing.
That was despite the fact that the couple, who manage an online church, had no prior expertise with bitcoin, according to a news statement from the Colorado Division of Securities, the state agency that governs the securities market.
Faced with the fraud claims, Regalado reaffirmed his message of a God-given mission, even admitting to spending the money for minor home modifications, which he said was also a command from above.
“So the charges are that Kaitlyn and I have pocketed $1.3 million, and I just want to come out and say that those charges are true,” he stated in a video posted on an INDXcoin investor forum.
Out of that 1.3, half a million dollars went to the IRS, and the remaining $100,000 went to a home makeover that the Lord ordered us to do.”
According to the complaint, the pair spent money on a variety of expensive products, including a Range Rover, jewelry, designer handbags, and snowmobile trips.
Facing the legal action, which was launched in Denver last week, Regalado said that there could have been some communication glitches on his hotline to God, but he remained optimistic that the Big Man would come through in the end.
“We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit,” the US pastor stated.
“Either I misheard God… or God is still not done with this project,” he said.
“We pray for a miracle in the financial sector.” He is going to bring a miracle to INDXcoin.”
Colorado Securities Commissioner Tung Chan said potential investors in get-rich-quick scams should not take them at face value.
“We allege that Mr. Regalado took advantage of the trust and faith of his own Christian community and that he peddled outlandish promises of wealth to them when he sold them essentially worthless cryptocurrencies,” Chan told the court.
“New currency and exchanges can be easily created using open source programming. We want to remind customers to be extremely skeptical.”
Follow for more on www.instagram.com/findwhosabi_/