Pastor Eli Regalado, of Denver, speaks in a Victorious Grace Church video. (Facebook)
Speaking to followers online on August 22, 2022, Pastor Eli Regalado had a divine message.
“Last October, the Lord brought me this cryptocurrency. He said, ‘Take this to my people as a money transfer.’ It’s been confirmed a hundred times since,” the pastor said, according to a lawsuit filed in Denver this week.
“It’s coming, people,” he said. “Part of paving the way for his people is to train them and teach them how finances work in the Kingdom because very soon many of you will have more money than you have in your life by participating in this cryptocurrency.”
Regalado, a Denver native, runs the online-only Victorious Grace Church alongside his wife, Caitlin, and is also the creator of cryptocurrency. INDXcoin The Kingdom’s Tharawat Stock Exchange is the only electronic market through which INDXcoin can be bought and sold. Both INDXcoin and the exchange were shut down on November 1, leaving investors scrambling for answers.
On the same day, Regalado said God asked him to convey a message to investors.
“Stay where you are. Stay in INDXcoins. Stay where I tell you to go. I will make a way,” the Lord said to cryptocurrency investors, according to Regalado. “Just take this Word as gospel truth and put this Word into practice and don’t worry about how you get On the money. I truly believe that you will see a miracle in a very short time.
State organizers say no miracle has occurred. So, they file a lawsuit against Eli and Kaitlyn Regalado for securities fraud.
The Regalados sold $3.4 million in “worthless” INDXcoins in 2022 and the first half of 2023, Tong Chan, the state securities commissioner, wrote in the lawsuit filed Tuesday. Chan, whose office subpoenaed the couple’s bank records, claims At least $1.3 million of that went directly to the Regalados, who spent it on a Range Rover, jewelry, luxury handbags, cosmetic dentistry, boat rentals, snowmobile adventures, home renovations and a babysitter.
Eli and Kaitlyn Regalado hold their ordination certificates in a photo shared by Victorious Grace Church. (Facebook)
“Defendants have asserted that investors will never get their money back because they took the investment money for their own benefit,” the lawsuit filed this week said.
They also sent another $290,000 to their church, which has no specific location. The church is a non-profit owned by the Regalados.
“The defendants told the investors that they would pay tithes and ‘plant’ in causes that would help widows and orphans… .
Phone calls to the Regalados’ listed phone numbers were not answered Wednesday and an email to Kingdom Wealth Exchange was returned. The Church of Triumphant Grace website has been removed. A message to the church on Facebook was not responded to.
Local accountant Mark Mergo, who was named INDXcoin’s chief financial officer in Chan’s lawsuit, did not respond to BusinessDen’s phone call and email on Wednesday.
The Colorado Division of Securities says Eli and Caitlin Regalado ran a now-defunct marketing company, Grace Led Marketing, before creating their cryptocurrency in 2021. They marketed INDXcoin as unusually stable, because it would be tied to the world’s most valuable cryptocurrency. . That wasn’t true, according to Chan’s lawsuit.
Before the cryptocurrency shutdown, INDXcoins were sold for $1.50 each, payable to Eli Regalado’s Venmo account or via wire transfer to Grace Led Marketing’s bank account. Investors were told that each INDXcoin was worth at least $10, according to the lawsuit, and that there were 30 million of those coins in circulation, meaning the company should have received $300 million to back the coins. Instead, state investigators found $30,000.
Chan claims that although “Eli and Caitlin were skilled and experienced marketers who had raised millions of dollars for others, they were not experienced programmers.” The result was a cryptocurrency and exchange that was “suffering from catastrophic technological deficiencies.”
One ad encourages cryptocurrency enthusiasts to download the Kingdom Wealth Exchange app. (Facebook)
Hacken, a cybersecurity firm, has reviewed the cryptocurrency, according to the INDXcoin website. State investigators, who obtained copies of Hacken’s audits, say the Regalados did not mention that Hacken gave them a “zero out of 10” rating.
As a result of its lack of liquidity, the Regalados were forced to periodically close the Kingdom’s wealth exchange to avoid the equivalent of a bank run. When the stock exchange closed for good in November, Eli Regalado claimed the couple were “literally on the threshold of poverty right now.” We pay mortgage payments, vehicles, etc.
In addition to securities fraud, Chan accuses the couple and their companies of selling investments without a license and selling unregistered securities. Her claims are civil rather than criminal, meaning they are punishable by fines rather than jail time.
On Wednesday, Judge David Goldberg ordered the bank accounts of Regalados, INDXcoin, Kingdom Wealth Exchange and Grace Led Marketing to be frozen for 14 days, at Chan’s request. He also ordered the Regalados to temporarily stop selling securities in Colorado.
Since INDXcoins can only be traded on an exchange that no longer exists, investors have no way to recoup their losses. Chan hopes to recover some of their money in court.
What’s next for the Regalados remains to be seen. But during a video update for investors in 2022, Eli Regalado sent out a great reminder about INDXcoin from above.
“God is reminding Eli and Caitlyn that it’s impossible to screw this up,” he said at the time.