Pastor accused of $3M scheme to rip off parishioners says perhaps he 'misheard God'

A pastor says he may have misunderstood his divine instruction after being accused of a scheme to defraud his parishioners out of $3.2 million, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Eligio Regalado, who goes by Eli, and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, are being charged by the Colorado Securities Commissioner.

According to the legal filing, the Regalados invented their own Christian cryptocurrency which they sold through the Kingdom Wealth Exchange, an online body they also created. The cryptocurrency went under the name INDXcoin.

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"The action, filed in Denver District Court, seeks preliminary and injunctive relief, damages for investors and for a constructive trust to be placed on the Defendants’ property," described the release from Commissioner Tung Chan.

From June 2022 to April 2023, INDXcoin scored nearly $3.2 million thanks to investments by more than 300 people in the "Christian community," the legal filing states. Regalado, who is based in Denver, said that God directly told him investors would be wealthy if they threw all of their money into INDXcoin.

"The Lord said: I want you to build this,” Regalado told individuals, according to the filing. “We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit.”

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Now he has another story.

“Either I misheard God, and every one of you who prayed and came in — you as well. Or two, God is still not done with this project,” Regalado said, implying that it would still deliver.

The couple had no experience in cryptocurrency, the Washington Post reported. A third-party audit called the effort "unsafe, unsecured and riddled with serious technical problems." The legal filing called it practically worthless.

“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,” said Commissioner Chan. “New coins and new exchanges are easy to create with open source code. We want to remind consumers to be very skeptical.”