Apertum and owner Josip Heit are set to square off against the Texas State Securities Board on April 8th.

The scheduled hearing follows a TSSB securities fraud enforcement order issued last month, and subsequent request from Apertum and Heit for a hearing.

Apertum’s and Heit’s request for a hearing was received on April 1st. As per Texas’ Securities Act, a hearing is required to be scheduled within ten days upon receiving a request – unless the parties come to an alternative agreement.

Apertum and Heit (right) are represented by Quinn Emanuel. TSSB met with Quinn Emanuel on April 3rd.

Shortly after the meeting Quinn Emanuel requested the Apertum Texas fraud hearing be delayed till after August 2025.

TSSB declined on the grounds;

  • Quinn Emanuel have been representing Heit for over a year;
  • TSSB has been providing Quinn Emanuel with “voluminous evidence” since January 2024;
  • specific to Apertum, TSSB has corresponded and provided Quinn Emanuel with “significant evidence” since November 2024;
  • Apertum and Heit have publicly confirmed they will not comply with TSSB’s Apertum fraud order;
  • Apertum token (APTM) is promoted as an investment and listed on public exchanges, which can be accessed by North American clients;
  • APTM daily trading volume are reported to exceed $1 million;
  • Apertum and Heit have announced an APTM listing on LBK Exchange Limited, dba LBank, who has offices in Colorado and California and is registered as an MSB with FinCen;
  • Apertum and Heit have announced plans to list APTM on fifteen additional exchanges by the end of 2025, including exchanges “that permit US residents, including Texas, to buy tokens”;
  • the Texas Securities Commissioner “has twice found Heit threatens immediate and irreparable harm to the public”; and
  • Quinn Emanuel is “already well informed of the facts of the case and have drawn conclusions based on the facts as exhibited by a press-release published by Quinn Emanuel on April 3, 2025”

Based on the forgoing, including Respondents’ refusal to comply with Order 1889, any delay in setting a hearing on this matter may cause widespread immediate and irreparable harm to Texans – in addition to as many as 1,600 Texans believed to have already sent money to entities controlled by Respondent Heit in prior schemes.

In the cited April 3rd press-release, Quinn Emanuel claimed TSSB’s Apertum fraud enforcement order was “unlawful”.

“APTM is a utility token, not an investment contract,” said Avi Perry, co-Chair of the Securities Litigation Group at Quinn Emanuel.

“Neither the SEC nor any court would classify APTM as a security. In fact, the TSSB’s order itself acknowledges that APTM is only deployed through mining, and the SEC recently clarified that crypto mining does not involve the offer and sale of securities.

The TSSB’s accusations are entirely incorrect: APTM isn’t a security, and our clients didn’t offer it for sale in Texas.”

Quinn Emanuel did not cite any specific law in support of their claims.

Apertum is tied to the token APTM, through which Heit runs DAO1. DAO1 is a continuation of GSPartners, a “fraudulent investment scheme” Heit ran through Gold Standard Corporation (GSB).

Heit appears to be running Apertum through Apertum Holding Limited, a Brazilian shell company set up by Heit’s German lawyers on February 26th, 2025.

GSPartners collapsed in late 2023, following an avalanche of securities fraud warnings from US and Canadian regulators.

GSB, GSPartners and Heit entered into a settlement with North American regulators in September 2024. In March 2025 Texas pulled out of the GSPartners settlement, alleging violations of the agreement and additional fraud.

A hearing on that matter, which dates back to TSSB’s original November 2023 GSPartners fraud enforcement order, remains scheduled for April 14th to 17th.

The Apertum Texas fraud hearing will be conducted by the State Office of Administrative Hearings (SOAH). April 8th and 9th have been locked in, with April 11th set aside in case a third day is needed.

Details have yet to be confirmed but as I understand it members of the public will be able to attend the hearing over Zoom.

I’ll leave an update below once details of public attendance have been confirmed.

 

Update 8th April 2025 – The Apertum Texas fraud hearing has been delayed to May 2025.