On September 1, 2026, AlixPartners, the independent administrator appointed to process refunds to GSPartners victims, revealed something investors had not been told in sixteen months of waiting. Determination of the claims they submitted had not begun. Not stalled, not partially completed. Not started.
The claims filing period closed on May 22, 2025. Investors across the settling North American jurisdictions had been told to submit whatever supporting records they held. AlixPartners, described by the Texas State Securities Board as a firm of more than 3,000 personnel drawn from the FBI, the IRS, the Securities and Exchange Commission and other bodies, was to review and determine them. Josip Heit and the GSB entities were to pay its costs. Sixteen months later the process had not reached its first step.
The Arizona Filing Says Who Is Responsible
The clearest account of why comes from the Arizona Corporation Commission, whose Securities Division issued a securities fraud cease and desist against GSB Gold Standard Bank and Heit in November 2023. That case was effectively put on hold by the 2024 settlement, and the Commission directed the parties to file periodic Joint Status Reports. The Fifth Joint Status Report, filed on July 15, 2026, sets out the sequence.
The Second Report in August 2025 recorded that claims had closed and were being reviewed. The Third, in January 2026, said they were still under review. The Fourth, in April 2026, said they remained pending and under review. The Fifth then states that since the Fourth was filed, the matter has experienced unexpected delays, and adds a line that does the real work: while these delays are not attributable to the Division, the Division is actively coordinating with the relevant parties to ensure an equitable outcome for Arizona claimants.
It closes by recording that the GSB entities and Mr. Heit, through counsel, have indicated an intention to resolve the outstanding issues as promptly as possible. The Commission issued its Thirteenth Procedural Order the following day, directing the parties to file a Sixth Joint Status Report by October 13, 2026.
What the Outstanding Issues Appear to Be
Neither the filing nor AlixPartners has disclosed the nature of the outstanding issues. The reasonable inference, and the one drawn by those following the case, is that they concern investor data that Heit and the GSB entities have been asked to produce and that AlixPartners requires in order to determine anything at all. A claims administrator cannot assess what an investor is owed without the operator’s records of what that investor put in and took out.
AlixPartners told investors in April 2026 that it had encountered unexpected challenges. It did not say what they were. In an update dated August 31, 2026 and signed by the settling jurisdictions and the settlement administrator, claimants were thanked for their patience, told that work was ongoing to resolve remaining matters before claims could be determined and payments distributed, and advised to watch for scams impersonating the official settlement. More substantive updates were promised by the end of September.
Sixteen Months of Promptly
The word promptly appears in a filing made to a state regulator on July 15, 2026. By then the claims deadline was fourteen months past. The Arizona Corporation Commission responded by scheduling the next update for October 13, which would put the total at seventeen months without a single determination.
In the same period Heit has been running marketing events across Europe and Asia, including a gathering at a restaurant in France in May 2026 and the Apertum Foundation event in Hong Kong in June. Arizona is the only settling North American jurisdiction to have made any public statement about the settlement at all. The others have said nothing.
What Investors Traded Away
It is worth restating what this process is. The settling regulators withdrew their fraud allegations against Heit and the GSB entities. He paid no financial penalty and admitted no violation. The consideration flowing back to the public was the refunds. Beyond that, the formal enforcement order concluding that he illegally sold unregistered securities only gets entered once every valid claim is refunded, which means the finding itself is gated behind a process that has not begun.
That order, once entered, would carry a permanent injunction. Violating a cease and desist order in Texas is a third degree felony carrying between two and ten years. None of that machinery engages while the claims sit undetermined. As we reported, warnings about the successor operation have meanwhile been issued by regulators in five countries.
What the Other Jurisdictions Have Said
Arizona is the exception rather than the pattern. Its Securities Division issued a securities fraud cease and desist against GSB Gold Standard Bank and Heit in November 2023, and because that case was continued rather than closed, the Commission has required periodic Joint Status Reports. Those filings are the only reason any of this is on the public record.
The other settling jurisdictions have published nothing. California announced its settlement in March 2025, with Commissioner KC Mohseni describing it as an enormous victory for Californians and stating it would ensure Californians who deposited funds into GSPartners are made whole. There has been no public update since. Florida, whose Office of Financial Regulation had described lavish commissions and deliberately obscure information about how profits were generated, has said nothing further.
For an investor trying to establish where their claim stands, the practical position is that one state regulator files periodic reports into a docket and the rest are silent.
The Shape of the Original Fraud Findings
What the claims process is meant to remedy was set out clearly enough at the time. California found GSPartners represented itself as a licensed bank while omitting that its licence came from a fictitious regulator in the Comoros, used the words bank and banking while omitting that funds carried no FDIC insurance, claimed a forex partnership that did not exist, and misrepresented expected profits and the risk of loss.
The instruments were called MetaCertificates and were sold on fixed weekly returns of 2 to 5 percent plus 1.5 percent monthly, with commissions paid for recruiting further investors. Wisconsin found the company had never been registered with the state, the SEC or FINRA in any capacity. That is the structure investors are waiting to be repaid from.
Conclusion
Investors filed their claims in May 2025 and were told an independent administrator with three thousand former federal investigators would determine them. On September 1, 2026 that administrator disclosed the determinations had not started. An Arizona court filing records three consecutive status reports saying claims were under review, then unexpected delays, then a note that the delays are not the regulator’s fault and that Heit’s counsel intends to resolve things promptly. The next update is due in October. Heit has spent the period holding events in France and Hong Kong. Every enforcement consequence he agreed to sits behind a refund process that has not begun.
