Washington Pastor Francier Obando Pinillo faces 26 fraud charges and could face up to 20 years in prison.
A Washington state grand jury has indicted a pastor on 26 counts of fraud for allegedly stealing from over 1,500 investors through the fraudulent crypto scheme Solano Fi, which he allegedly acquired “in a dream.”
Pastor Francier Obando Pinillo was arraigned at a federal court in Washington on Jan. 9, according to the Justice Department.
He is accused of using his position as a pastor to convince members of his congregation to participate in a crypto scheme known as Solano Fi.
“Pinillo asserted that the concept for Solano Fi had been revealed to him in a dream and that it was a secure and guaranteed investment,” it continued.
If convicted, he may be sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission filed a fraud and misappropriation lawsuit against Pinillom in December, alleging that the 51-year-old stole $6 million.
Pinillo was employed as a pastor at a Spanish-language congregation in Pasco, Washington, according to the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Washington.
It was alleged that he recruited investors through the Telegram group “Multimillionarios SolanoFi” and Solano Fi’s Facebook page, which had a membership of over 1,500.
It claimed that Pinillo’s church in Washington was attended by some of his purported victims.
Prosecutors claimed that he informed potential investors that Solano Fi traded Bitcoin, Ether, and other cryptocurrencies on behalf of clients and that it staked tokens to yield compound monthly returns of a risk-free 35%.
They alleged that investors would be unable to withdraw funds, despite the fact that they would allegedly see fraudulent account balances reflecting false returns on the Solano Fi website.
According to the Justice Department, certain victims were allegedly instructed to wait until the crypto markets improved, while others were informed that they could not extract funds unless they recruited a new investor to “buy out” their account.
Pinillo and his fellow conspirators were accused of embezzling investor funds while simultaneously providing justifications.
A common tactic in pyramid schemes, prosecutors also claimed that victims were fraudulently incentivized to earn additional returns for every new investor they brought into the scheme.
Solano Fi was operational from November 2021 to October 2023.
The United States Attorney’s Office in Washington, Vanessa Waldref, has pledged to recover the maximum amount of the misappropriated funds. Nevertheless, she acknowledged that the nature of crypto accounts can make it difficult to do so in the case of alleged crypto frauds.
