The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed suit against a Pasco, Washington, pastor for allegedly roping his own congregation into a multilevel marketing scheme.
Video screenshot from Dec. 13 Instagram post by Francier Obando Pinillo
A CFTC complaint accuses Francier Obando Pinillo of bilking “not fewer than 1,516 U.S. customers,” including members of his former Spanish-language congregation, Tiempo de Poder Church, out of at least $5.9 million.
According to the Dec. 9 complaint, Pinillo used his position as a pastor to gain victims’ trust and lured them with claims of risk-free investments and guaranteed profits. He told customers their money was being invested in cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin through his three businesses — collectively called Solanofi Entities — and he directed them to an online “dashboard” to view their balances and profits. He also announced plans to release a Christian token called “ShekkelCoin,” and he offered a 15% referral fee to customers who brought in more investors.
“Defendant guaranteed customers profits of up to 34.9% per month by purportedly trading digital assets via the ‘Solanofi platform’ which he claimed used a proprietary ‘bot’ or software program controlled by the Defendant,” the complaint reads.
Pinillo, who lives in both Pasco and Miami, carried his sales pitch to multiple churches, including a Florida megachurch, where he reportedly spoke on the importance of escaping poverty and then advertised his trading scheme and promised potential customers they could make withdrawals from their accounts after three months.
But according to the CFTC, Pinillo’s pitch was entirely fictitious. He never invested the money, his businesses did not exist, the dashboard was a ruse, the bot software did not exist, ShekkelCoin was never released, and many investors never saw a dime.
“The Solanofi Entities were sham entities and their alleged profitability and trading track record were non-existent; profits cannot be guaranteed in the commodity markets,” the CFTC said. “Defendant misappropriated all assets he received from customers; and, payments sent by Pinillo to earlier-in-time customers in the form of sham ‘profits’ and/or MLM ‘referral’ payments were actually misappropriated assets of later-in-time customers in the nature of a ‘Ponzi’ scheme.”
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The CFTC believes that instead of investing the funds, Pinillo “misappropriated them by transferring at least $4.05 million in digital assets to 23 private digital wallets in Colombia with no known connection to trading commodity interests.”
When customers attempted to withdraw funds, Pinillo allegedly made excuses, blaming technical issues or claiming assets were frozen because of the FTX bankruptcy. However, the complaint noted there is no evidence that Pinello ever invested in FTX.
In a press release, the CFTC explained it is seeking “restitution to defrauded customers, disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, civil monetary penalties, trading bans, and a permanent injunction against further violations of the Commodity Exchange Act and CFTC Regulations.”
Pinillo is active on social media, where he identifies as Apostle Francier Obando and recently posted, “Don’t fret, don’t despair about it, listen to me dry your tears, I assure you that provision is on the way.” The website of Tiempo de Poder Church is currently offline, as is the site he used for his scheme, solnaofi.com.
Earlier this year, another pastor and his wife fell afoul of the law for a crypto-related scheme. Colorado’s Securities Commissioner sued Eligio and Kaitlyn Regalado over $3.2 million raised through sales of a INDXcoin, a crypto token issued through an online church and marketed to Christians.
Decrypt reported that the Regalados said God guaranteed the success of INDXcoin, but the state took a different opinion and froze their church’s assets on suspicion of fraud and selling unregistered securities.
Main photo: Video screenshot from Dec. 13 Instagram post by Francier Obando Pinillo
EDITOR’S NOTE: Why does MinistryWatch report on financial fraud in the church? We report on them because one in three churches will be victimized, according to the Center for the Study of Global Christianity. We also report on them because these crimes have real victims and cost taxpayers and other stakeholders billions of dollars every year. Even small crimes in small churches have huge consequences. We also report on them to remind our readers that they do not have to be victims. There are steps you can take to prevent financial waste, fraud, and abuse in your church or ministry. To find out more, click here.