An associate of DAO1’s Alexandru Nicolae Bodi (aka Alex Bodi), has been arrested in Romania.

Late last year Horatiu Potra was “arrested for allegedly planning to instigate unrest in Romania.”

As reported by DW on February 13th, 2025;

In late 2024, Potra made the headlines in his native Romania as a result of his close links to Calin Georgescu, the far-right extremist who won the first round of the country’s presidential election.

Romanian authorities initially alleged that Potra and Georgescu were planning a coup. Now, more and more of his dubious activities are coming to light.

In early December, Potra was arrested while driving to Bucharest. Officers found knives, other weapons, radio equipment and a telescope in the trunk of the car.

Authorities have alleged he was traveling to the Romanian capital to cause unrest after the annulment of the election just two days previously.

On Wednesday February 26th, Romanian authorities raided Potra’s home and found

a veritable arsenal – pistols, submachine guns, grenades, grenade launchers, and a lot of ammunition.

DW sums up Potra, who was convicted of illegal possession of firearms in 2011, as a Romanian mercenary with ties to Russia.

[Potra] worked as a bodyguard for a variety of political and military leaders in the Middle East and Africa, as a trainer for special troops and guarded the gemstone and diamond mines of Romanian businesspeople in African countries, including the Romanian-Australian mining billionaire Vasile Frank Timis.

According to the Berlin daily newspaper taz … Potra is said to have received payment from Moscow in 2016 to train bodyguards for Faustin-Archange Touadera, who was elected president of the Central African Republic that year.

I want to stress that the current political climate in Romania is beyond the scope of this article.

Potra’s ties to Romanian mining interests in Africa brings us to Alex Bodi and business partner Josip Heit.

In May 2019 7est documented a March 2019 meeting between Potra, Bodi and Heit.

Nicknamed “The Mercenary,” Horațiu Potra trained in the French Legion and fought in the Middle East in the 1990s, then moved to Africa.

This could also be the connection to Bodi, who works for a company that owns a gold mine on the continent.

In addition to whatever else he was up to, in 2019 Bodi was “working” for Gold Standard Bank (GSB). Up until very recently, Josip Heit was GSB’s Chairman of the Board.

As per a November 2020 report from Balkan Insights;

Bodi hails from a modest family that emigrated to Spain and is thought to have worked for a Croatian businessman with mining interests in Africa.

Josip Heit, born Josip Curic, is Croatian by birth.

Circa 2019 GSB was attached to Karatbars International. Originally a gold-themed MLM pyramid scheme, GSB, and by proxy Heit and Bodi, is believed to be behind Karatbars International’s failed transition to cryptocurrency fraud.

GSB’s proximity to Karatbars International sees Heit and Bodi, along with Harald Seiz and Ovidiu Toma, commonly cited as co-founders of the scheme.

After Karatbars’ collapsed Seiz fled to Thailand. Last month Romanian authorities raided the offices of CryptoData, a company owned by Ovidiu Toma.

Speaking on the raids, Toma stated;

DNA prosecutors requested documents related to a former associate, which they made available.

Getting back to the “company that owns a gold mine on the continent”, that would be Karatbars International. Or at least mining gold in Africa was part of Karatbars International’s marketing ruse.

To quote the above linked Karatbars International co-founder press-release;

officials at the Madagascar Chamber of Mines have stated that:

“We regret to inform you that there is no Fort Dauphin gold mine in Madagascar and Karatbars does not hold a mining permit in Madagascar.”

Quoting “an investigation by Handelsblatt”, the Guardian reported in 2019;

Karatbars’ presentation named the Madagascar gold mine that supposedly guaranteed the stability of its currency as Fort Dauphin, but according to miningdataonline.com the only mine on the island with that name contains only titanium and zircon.

Seiz and Karatbars are being sued by a Swiss academic who claims they plagiarised a report she wrote about the contents of a group of copper mines in Chile.

In an interview with Handelsblatt, Seiz conceded the report had been faked, blaming a former business associate, and he failed to provide evidence that he owned a stake in a gold mine at all.

Seiz’s unnamed “former associate” is believed to be Josip Heit.

GSB’s ties to Africa are further emphasized by Heit turning up at a G20 event in Africa in 2021.

With an area equivalent to Western Europe, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the largest country in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Félix Tshisekedi has been president of the DRC since 2019.

President Tshisekedi is actively promoting the digitalisation of the country’s administration in order to reduce fraud and waste; here the blockchain technology of the GSB Gold Standard Group of Companies is a possible approach for use in administration.

Fast-forward to 2022 and, as reported by PressHub on March 3rd, 2025;

Mercenary Horațiu Potra, the trusted man of presidential candidate Călin Georgescu, bought a plot of land from a certain Ovidiu Cocoș in August 2022. The latter is the trusted man of underworld figure Alex Bodi.

Bodi’s own criminal history stems from alleged “drug trafficking, pimping, human trafficking, migrant trafficking, tax evasion or money laundering”.

Bodi is known as Adrian Tamplaru’s “right-hand man”.

Tamplaru, in addition to being Bodi’s wedding godfather, is the former lieutenant of imprisoned Romanian mafia don Ion Clămparu.

Bodi was arrested by Romanian authorities in 2020.

As reported by Incisiv de Parhova in November 2020;

On Wednesday morning, DIICOT prosecutors raided 23 addresses in eight counties: Ilfov, Brașov, Dolj, Gorj, Giurgiu, Olt, Sibiu and Vâlcea.

The objective: to dismantle an organized criminal group specialized in human trafficking and pimping. The network was led by the lieutenant of a famous criminal, DIICOT shows.

From the existing data, it was established that, shortly after the dismantling of a group led by a prominent member of the underworld [Ion Clămparu] (a group specialized in human trafficking and pimping), the suspect in question [Adrian Tamplaru] (one of the underworld’s lieutenants), while in prison, between 2008 and 2011, together with three other inmates, used social networks to recruit young women who practiced prostitution and, misleading them, either with the promise of a common future (the loverboy method) or with the identification of an advantageous job, respectively taking advantage of their state of vulnerability (poor financial situation, naivety, lack of education – determining factors for the respective young women in choosing to practice prostitution), convinced them to prostitute themselves for their benefit.

Under the coordination of the leader, the foundations of a criminal group were laid, specializing mainly in human trafficking, trafficking in minors and pimping, and secondarily in blackmail (as a result of paying protection fees).

Shortly after they were released from prison, the criminal group recruited 12 other suspects, along with whom they recruited other victims, transported and sheltered them in the West (Germany, Spain, Italy, Great Britain, Switzerland) and forced them to practice prostitution for their benefit, in various specialized clubs.

Perhaps not surprisingly, mixed into this we also have the Tate brothers – also associates of Alex Bodi.

Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested by Romanian authorities on human trafficking and organized crime charges in December 2022.

In June 2023, DIICOT adjusted the charges from human trafficking to “human trafficking in continued form”, a more serious charge, with seven victims identified.

The four accused were indicted on charges of rape, human trafficking, and forming an organised crime group to sexually exploit women.

In August 2024, Romanian police expanded their investigation against Tate to include trafficking minors, sex with a minor, money laundering and attempting to influence witnesses.

In March 2024, the UK’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court issued a European arrest warrant against Andrew and Tristan Tate. According to Tate’s representative, the charges are based on allegations of sexual aggression from 2012 to 2015.

Evidence submitted by Romanian authorities in court include text messages between the Tate brothers.

Tristan Tate: So, shut the hell up before you get me arrested because of you.

You can’t get mad and start writing to me about how I did illegal things. I could get in trouble like Alex Bodi.

A May 2023 investigative report by the Rise Project ties both the Tate brothers and Adrian Tamplaru to the DMS Group.

The [Tate brothers] are associated with the largest organized crime brotherhood in Romania’s recent history: the DMS Family.

The group’s members have a rich criminal history: accusations of planning assassinations, drug trafficking, usury, repossessions, violent street fights, but also financial and land juggling.

Pending the outcome of their case, Tate brothers were subject to a travel ban confining them to Romania.

Following an intervention by the new Trump administration last month, the Tate brothers had their US passports returned to them in late February.

Five days ago the Tate brothers left for the US, on condition they return to Romania by the end of March.

Earlier today the Florida AG’s Office announced its own criminal investigation.

Florida has launched a criminal investigation into British-American influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate, who flew to the state last week from Romania, where they faced rape and human-trafficking charges.

Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier, said investigators have issued search warrants and subpoenas as part of a “now-active” inquiry.

Back in Romania, in December Radu Marinescu was appointed Romania’s new Minister of Justice. Marinescu is also Alex Bodi’s former attorney.

On Bodi’s ongoing criminal trial, 7est reported;

In mid-November, the Alba Court of Appeal admitted the appeals filed by the High Court of Cassation and Justice – DIICOT – BT Sibiu and 10 defendants, including Alex Bodi, Bianca Dragusanu’s ex-boyfriend and son-in-law of Sibiu underworld figure Adrian Tamplaru (44).

Tamplaru, Bodi and almost 30 other people are on trial for forming an organized criminal group, human trafficking and pimping.

The granted appeal will result in a retrial of DIICOT’s criminal case at some point.

In the meantime Bodi, Josip Heit (who has his own criminal past) and Dirc Zahlmann (a respondent in multiple standing GSPartners regulatory enforcement orders), are fronting DAO1.

After Karatbars International collapsed, GSB went on to launch GSPartners in mid to late 2020.

Citing GSPartners as a “fraudulent investment scheme”, North American regulators issued over a dozen GSPartners fraud warnings in 2023.

GSB and Heit are currently in the midst of a regulatory settlement that will see them refund North American GSPartners victims.

Following four failed GSPartners reboots, DAO1 launched in late 2024.

DAO1 isn’t available to North American residents. Authorities in Australia and New Zealand have already issued DAO1 fraud warnings.

As of January 2025, SimilarWeb was tracking top sources of DAO1 website traffic as Greece (28%), Romania (19%), Russia (15%), Ukraine (10%) and South Africa (10%).