Nakoula Basseley Nakoula claims role in the Innocence of Muslims saying it was intended as a provocative statement

The hunt for the maker of the anti-Islamic video that inflamed mayhem in Egypt and Libya and triggered a diplomatic crisis has led to a Californian Coptic Christian convicted of financial crimes.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, 55, who lives outside Los Angeles, confirmed on Wednesday he managed and provided logistics for The Innocence of Muslims.

Nakoula, who pleaded no contest to federal bank fraud charges in 2010, told AP in a brief interview outside his home that he considered Islam a cancer and that the film was intended to be a provocative political statement assailing the religion.

He denied being Sam Bacile, the pseudonym for the video's purportedly Israeli Jewish writer and director, but AP said the cellphone number it called for a telephone interview with Bacile on Tuesday matched Nakoula's address.

His outing solidified growing evidence that members of Egypt's Coptic diaspora, who complain of persecution by Egypt's Muslim majority, were behind the making and promotion of the video.

Morris Sadek, a conservative Coptic Christian in the US, promoted it on his website last week. Within days it was fuelling outrage in Arab countries horrified at the depiction of the prophet Muhammad as an illegitimate, murderous paedophile.

An anti-Islamic activist and self-described "consultant" on the film, Steve Klein, has worked closely with Coptic groups over the years, according to Jim Horn, a fellow activist. "He's been helping them to stand up for themselves against Islamic terror in Egypt. That's what he does," he told the Guardian.

Klein, who claims to have led a "hunter-killer team" in Vietnam, helped to found a conservative Christian group and calls himself a counter-terrorism expert.

Another evangelical connection was the Koran-burning Florida Pastor Terry Jones, who had no involvement in making the vide but has promoted it. He said the film's director, whom he knew only as a voice on the phone, was "shook up" over the deaths in Libya.

Details of the film – supposedly a $5m production funded by Jewish donors – remained as murky as those of its makers. The one undisputed fact was that in July a video in English was posted on YouTube under the pseudonym "Sam Bacile".

The blasphemous, 13-minute video – purportedly a trailer for a full-length film - comprised clumsily overdubbed and haphazardly-edited scenes. "Among the overdubbed words is 'Mohammed', suggesting that the footage was taken from a film about something else entirely. The footage also suggests multiple video sources — there are obvious and jarring discrepancies among actors and locations, " wrote Buzzfeed's Rosie Gray.

That analysis appeared to be bolstered when a statement in the name of cast and crew was issued, distancing them from the footage. "We are 100% not behind this film, and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic re-writes of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred."

Cindy Lee Garcia, an actress from Bakersfield, California, who had a small role in the video, told Gawker she had no idea she was participating in an offensive spoof on the life of Muhammed when she answered an agency's casting call last summer. The script was titled Desert Warriors, she said, and contained no mention of Islam."It was going to be a film based on how things were 2,000 years ago. It wasn't based on anything to do with religion – it was just on how things were run in Egypt. There wasn't anything about Muhammed or Muslims or anything."

The character who on the YouTube clip was called Muhammad was in filming called "Master George," Garcia said. The words Muhammed and apparently all offensive references to Islam and Muhammed were dubbed afterwards.

The actor said she was horrified that four US embassy employees, including the ambassador, died in Benghazi. "I had nothing to do, really, with anything. Now we have people dead because of a movie I was in. It makes me sick."

She said the director, who went by the name Sam Bacile, claimed to be an Israeli real estate tycoon, but later told her he was Egyptian. He had white hair and spoke Arabic as well as English. He was keen that Master George – aka Muhmmad – be depicted in the worst possible light, she said.

Hollywood agencies said they had never heard of the film. Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, dismissed claims from Bacile – made in his interview on Tuesday with AP – that he was a Jewish Israeli.

"Nobody knows who he is," Palmor told reporters in a telephoned statement: "He is totally unknown in filmmaking circles in Israel. And anything he did — he is not doing it for Israel, or with Israel, or through Israel in any way." He added the filmmaker was "a complete loose cannon and an unspeakable idiot."