From gang leader to restaurateur to crypto currency ambassador: Vince Focarelli selling Bayan Token
FROM gang leader to restaurant owner to exiled Islamic convert — former Comanchero Vince Focarelli has embraced a strange new role.
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REFORMED bikie and Islamic convert Vince Focarelli has become the face of a sharia-compliant cryptocurrency, advertising the company to his South East Asian fans.
Focarelli took to social media to spruik Bayan Token, appearing in a promotional video where he was described as a “former gang leader” and a new spokesman for the online company.
He is listed as an ambassador for Bayan Token which is still in its infancy but aims to raise millions of US dollars.
Bayan Token is marketed as a blockchain cryptocurrency which is sharia-compliant and funds projects which benefit society and are in line with Islamic teachings.
In the three-minute commercially produced video, Focarelli spruiks the aims of the crypto-token, including the plans to establish more than a thousand halal shops in South East Asia over the next three years, marketing plant extracts to fight high cholesterol and using artificial intelligence to buy and sell commodities.
I believe that when you do good, goodness will come back to you — Vince Focarelli.
“However, Allah has decreed that good deeds should be done with good intentions.”
Focarelli has also promoted books from a prominent sharia scholar and honey produced in Yemen with part of the proceeds going to support people affected by the civil war.
Earlier in July he posted an image of himself meeting the Malaysian Deputy Minister for Primary Industry Shamsul Iskandar.
Focarelli left his hometown of Adelaide in March 2017 bound for Italy, pre-empting efforts from immigration authorities to cancel his visa and deport him.
He wasn’t in Italy for long, heading instead to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia where he has built a life for himself as a social worker and speaker.
Focarelli, 43, converted to Islam in 2012 and had previously said in talks to young Muslim men and women that he plans to reopen his once Carrington St-based restaurant La’Fig Cucina in his new hometown.
He flew his mother out to be by his side but is understood to have been unable to bring his wife and daughter over to Malaysia full time.
Focarelli survived six assassination attempts while living in Adelaide as one time head of the Comanchero bikie gang.
