Denver pastor and wife found guilty of $3.4M INDXcoin crypto fraud

Praise the Lord, crypto church. Well, not really the Lord, you know. Pastor Eli Regalado and his wife, Kaitlyn, the founders of  INDXcoin LLC, a crypto company, have been found guilty of fraud by the Denver District Court. According to Judge Heidi L. Kutcher, the coin they sold and marketed was indeed a fraudulent scheme.

According to a statement from the Colorado Division of Securities, the Denver District Court found that Eli and Kaitlyn Regalado violated state securities laws and must repay $3.39 million. On top of that, the couple has been barred from selling crypto or other investments for the next 20 years. 

“The defendants’ lack of understanding of the harm they have caused to their investors, coupled with their admitted desire to continue and expand the INDXcoin scheme, leads the court to conclude that (a ban on selling) is appropriate,” Judge Heidi Kutcher wrote.

In addition, the pastor’s friend, Nathanael Enos, who also sold INDXcoin, was found guilty. He has been charged with a 20-year ban and must pay back $19,600.

The old lie of low-risk, high-profit returns 

Eli, 45, and Kaitlyn Regalado, 32, are marketers who created INDXcoin in 2021. Regalados’ central promise of INDXcoin was that its value would be indexed: Take the price of the 100 most valuable crypto coins, add them up, divide by 100, and you would have the price of one INDXcoin. 

According to him, when Kingdom Wealth Exchange, the online marketplace where INDXcoin was bought and sold, opened, the indexed value was about $9. This showed promise of low-risk, high-profit returns. 

However,  INDXcoin did not have anywhere near enough liquidity to rebuy at $9 the coins it had sold for $1 or $1.50. So, one unidentified trader in Canada made a flurry of sales, drained the liquidity, and forced the exchange to close in 2023. 

Regalado’s crypto prophecy proved false

As reported by Cryptopolitan, the Regalados raised nearly $3.4 million between June 2022 and April 2023 from more than 300 individuals, largely from Denver’s Christian community. The couple spent $1.3 million of that on personal expenses. 

In a video, Eli Regalado admitted to cashing out the funds, saying half the money they pocketed went to the IRS, and the remainder was for a home remodel that the Lord told them to do. Evidence showed funds also went toward a Range Rover, jewelry, luxury ski and yachting trips, designer clothes, and even dental work.

However, the Regalados changed the story to say that INDXcoin is not a security and that fellow Christians bought INDXcoin to join in religious fellowship, not as a financial investment.

This week, Regalado encouraged his church members in an email, saying, “On behalf of all INDXcoin holders, our heavenly Father, in whom we serve, will deliver us […] Now, when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously.”

According to Tung Chan, the state’s securities commissioner,  “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.”

The civil ruling follows an earlier April decision confirming that INDXcoin qualified as a security under state law. Listings for a token named “INDXcoin” appear on Phantom (Solana), Bitget, and BscScan. However, the court filings do not list a contract address, so the listings cannot be confirmed as being the same token as in the Regalado case.

Separately, a Denver grand jury criminally indicted Eli and Kaitlyn Regalado on 40 counts regarding the multi-million-dollar crypto scam in July.

Also, the court determined the couple never told investors that they would be spending much of the sale proceeds on themselves, thereby dooming the Kingdom Wealth Exchange to insolvency. Unlike the civil enforcement ruling, which ordered restitution and a 20-year securities ban, the criminal case could carry prison time if they are convicted.

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