The spread of Coronavirus has also brought along people who will do anything to make a quick buck. When fears of virus spread through several countries, personalities such as Gregory Rigano have emerged, claiming bogus cures for the virus.
Rigano’s mystical cure for the coronavirus achieved such a popular status that it was even quoted by President Trump in one of his speeches. The legitimacy of the antimalarial drug and Rigano’s status has now been shattered as investigations revealed he was posing as a doctor from the beginning.
Rigano’s antics were revealed in an investigation conducted by the daily mail which pointed out that he falsely claimed to be an adviser to Stanford University’s School of Medicine. He also lied about consulting with the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
When Donald Trump talked about the miracle cure last week, Dr. Tony Fauci warned listeners that it had not gone through any clinical testing. When Rigano’s facade was blown open after the investigation, it was discovered that he owned a cryptocurrency firm earlier that ‘planned to cheat death’.
On his cryptocurrency firm IKU’s website, Rigano has asked for funding in connection with multiple cures. One of them included a bid for under $1 million to stop neurodegeneration, a step to prevent Alzheimer’s. Even this step has not been proven right by any scientific study. Another major project in his kitty was “It’s Time to Live Forever’, asking for $100 million in funding.
There was another request on the website that asked for $980 million in funding for repurposed drug combination tests. Other funding projects on the website included a cannabis project to cure cancer. What has allowed the fraud to continue on this path is his sheer confidence in projecting his public image.
He has come on Fox interviews multiple times where he spoke highly about the effectiveness of his coronavirus cure. It was also noticed that Rigano never corrected TV hosts during interviews when they addressed him as a doctor or part of the Stanford alumni. During one of the interviews, Rigano had claimed:
“We have a direct line to them and are waiting for them to reach out. We know that President Trump received our “white paper” within 24 hours after it being published. Dr. Fauci is doing an excellent job and we know they will make the right decision.”
Fauci, on one hand, has taken an informed stance on the so-called miracle drug. During press conferences, Fauci has repeatedly pointed out that the effectiveness of the drug can only be determined based on a controlled trial. The President of the United States, on the other hand, claimed to be a “fan” of chloroquine and wished it all the luck for its tests. Rigano’s credentials came to be questioned when the Mail found out that he was connected to neither Stanford or the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Before Rigano began his latest scam, he was a usual guest at blockchain events and conferences. He described himself as a corporate lawyer with a deep interest in cryptocurrencies and intellectual property. The ‘fake’ doctor has also taught classes on blockchain technology while hosting multiple meetups. Rigano’s past is so spotty that it begs the question: how has the President of the United States trusted his cure so blindly?
