The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has filed a suit against Florida based Francier Obando Pinillo for involving his congregation in a financial scheme. The CFTC accuses the Pasco, Washington, pastor of defrauding ” not fewer than 1,516 U.S. customers.” Pinillo supposedly extracted a $5.9 million Spanish-language congregation, Tiempo de Poder Church.
According to the CFTC complaint, Pinillo used the trace placed in his position as a pastor to gain the trust of his victims. He lured in his congregation with claims of guaranteed profits and risk-free investments. He told his customers that their money was invested in Bitcoin through three separate businesses collectively referred to as Solanofi Entities.
The scheme featured an online ‘dashboard‘ where customers could view their balances and profits. He offered a 15% referral fee to customers who brought in new business. He had planned to release a cryptocurrency specifically for Christians called “ShekkelCoin.” Pinillo spoke to multiple churches about his scheme and often touted the scheme as a way to escape poverty.
“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 CFTC complaint reads. According to the pastor, customers could withdraw their funds within three months of depositing money.
According to the government agency, the entire pitch was a made up. He never invested customer funds. His businesses did not exist. His software did not exist. ShekkelCoin was never brought to reality and investors lost their money. The CFTC said, “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.”
They went on to say, “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 misappropriated assets of later-in-time customers like a ‘Ponzi’ scheme.” Regulators believe that 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” instead of investing the funds.
The CFTC explains in a press release that they seek “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.” When customers complained, Pinillo made excuses, blaming technical difficulties or claiming assets were frozen because of the FTX bankruptcy. Sources indicate that none of the embattled pastor’s funds were even invested in FTX. Like many of his other claims, this was a complete fabrication.
Pinillo has taken to social media to address criticism. He 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.” He identifies as Apostle Francier Obando. The websites used for his scheme, solnaofi.com and for Tiempo de Poder Church are both offline. He has not made an official statement yet.