On November 16, 2023, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation issued a desist and refrain order naming Josip Heit, founder and chairman of the board, and two executives, Bruce Innes Wylde Hughes and Dirc Zahlmann, alongside GSB Gold Standard Bank Ltd. trading as GSPartners, Swiss Valorem Bank Ltd. and GSB Gold Standard Corporation AG. The Commissioner found all three men had violated California Corporations Code section 25110 by knowingly, directly or indirectly controlling, inducing or providing substantial assistance to the companies in offering securities that had never been qualified for sale in the state.
The securities were called MetaCertificates. Investors were told they paid fixed weekly returns of 2 to 5 percent, plus a further 1.5 percent monthly, and that GSPartners would invest the funds in real world industry sectors and trade them on the foreign exchange market.
What Five Percent a Week Means
A fixed weekly return of 5 percent, compounded, exceeds 1,000 percent annually. Even the lower end of the advertised range, 2 percent weekly, compounds to roughly 180 percent a year. Adding a further 1.5 percent monthly on top produces a figure no legitimate managed fund has ever sustained. The rates were not projections dependent on market conditions. They were presented as fixed.
The recruitment layer completed the structure. GSPartners paid investors commissions for bringing in new investors, which is the mechanism that turns a customer base into a distribution network and makes the arithmetic of new deposits, rather than trading returns, the thing that actually funds withdrawals.
The Two Claims That Made It Credible
California found that GSPartners represented it held a banking licence, omitting that the licence came from a fictitious regulator in the Comoros, and that it claimed a partnership with a forex broker managing and trading investor funds when no such partnership existed. It used the words bank and banking while omitting that it was not licensed to conduct banking in California and that investor money carried no FDIC insurance. It misrepresented expected profits and the risk of loss.
The order also recorded that the company threatened and initiated litigation to suppress criticism of its investments.
Where Those Three Names Went Next
The subsequent paths of the three men diverged. Heit settled with state and provincial regulators in September 2024, on terms carrying no financial penalty, no admission, and the withdrawal of the fraud allegations against him and the GSB entities, in exchange for refunding investors. Those refunds have produced no determinations as of September 2026.
Hughes and Zahlmann received no such relief. The Texas State Securities Board recorded that its consent order does not apply to the prior fraud allegations against Swiss Valorem Bank Ltd., Hughes, Zahlmann and Aline Lima. Filings in a later proceeding note that the November 2023 Texas order is final and not subject to appeal as it relates to those respondents, because they did not file timely requests for a hearing. Both men were named again in the Texas Apertum order of March 2025, which was set aside by agreement four months later.
Where the Three Men Went Afterwards
Their paths diverged sharply. Heit settled with state and provincial regulators in September 2024 under terms announced by NASAA, carrying no financial penalty, no admission of any violation, and the withdrawal of the fraud allegations against him and the GSB entities in exchange for refunding investors. Those refunds have produced no determinations.
Hughes and Zahlmann received no such relief. The Texas State Securities Board recorded that its consent order does not apply to the prior fraud allegations against Swiss Valorem Bank Ltd., Hughes, Zahlmann and Aline Lima. Later filings confirm Order 1879 is final and not subject to appeal as it relates to those four, because none filed a timely request for a hearing.
Both men were named again in the Texas Apertum order of March 2025, which was set aside by agreement four months later without findings against anyone.
The Structure Behind the Certificates
California also established what made the offering saleable. GSPartners represented that it held a banking licence, omitting that the licence was granted by a fictitious regulator in the Comoros. It used the terms bank and banking while omitting that it was not licensed to conduct banking in California and that investor funds carried no FDIC insurance. It claimed a partnership with a foreign exchange broker managing and trading investor money. No such partnership existed.
The order further recorded that the company threatened and initiated litigation to suppress criticism of its investments, which is a finding about how the operation handled scrutiny rather than how it handled money.
Conclusion
California found that three men sold Californians investment certificates promising up to 5 percent every week, on the strength of a banking licence from a regulator that does not exist and a forex partnership that was never real, and that the company sued people who criticised it. Heit later settled and had the fraud allegations against him withdrawn. Hughes and Zahlmann did not, and the 2023 order against them is now final and cannot be appealed.
