Auratus Gold securities fraud warning from Australia
Auratus Gold has received a securities fraud warning from Australia.
As per the Australian Securities and Investment Commission’s August 22nd warning, Auratus Gold
is likely to be offering financial services to Australian consumers.
It does not hold an Australian financial services licence or Australian credit licence from ASIC, and is not authorised by a licensee.
Offering securities without registration with ASIC constitutes securities fraud under Australian law.
ASIC cites Helvetic Digital Finance AG (Switzerland) as a shell company associated with Auratus Gold. Other shell companies associated with Auratus Gold include:
- TAS Helvetic Gold Trading LLC (Dubai)
- DX and One Trust LTD (Bulgaria)
- MTX Finance LLC (Montana, US) and
- Link Genius Portal LLC (Dubai)
Auratus Gold is the latest spinoff of Josip Heit’s collapsed GSPartners Ponzi scheme.
The original iteration of Auratus Gold’s fraudulent investment scheme, built around “TAS Vault”, collapsed in June following a fraud warning from the Texas State Securities Board.
The current iteration of Auratus Gold illegally solicits investment into a “Zai Cards” and “gold points” scheme.
This is essentially a reboot of GSPartners’ “metacertificates” scheme, which received over a dozen regulatory fraud warnings from regulators around the world.
The latest jurisdiction to issue a GSPartners fraud warning was the Bahamas earlier this month.
GSPartners’ collapse saw US and Canadian investors blocked and their funds confirmed stolen.
Promotion of GSPartners reboots, including Auratus Gold, were initially concentrated in South Africa and Australia.
Auratus Gold recruitment in South Africa collapsed following the arrest of Neil De Waal in late May.
Promotion of Auratus Gold in Australia is primarily spearheaded by teams of scammers under Martene Wallace and Andrew Hawkes.
Hawkes is believed to be in Wallace’s Auratus downline, along with Emma Savage, Jessia Sol (aka Jessica Schembri), Emily Ludwig, Hayley Battese, Stacey & Tony Smith, Lorian Cameron, Brad and Lauren Olsen and Michael and Brooke Pope.
Andrew Hawkes promotes Auratus Gold through the private FaceBook group “The Freedom Formula”, created on August 11th.
Other admins of Hawkes’ group include Mell B Balment, Cathy Sandeman, Neil Morrison, Skye Poore and Sarah Hawkes.
To all the concerned Australian family members who’ve written in over the past few months, congratulations – you got ASIC to take action.
ASIC’s warning still might not convince your relatives if they’re in too deep but it’s there in black and white – Auratus Gold is committing securities fraud in Australia.
Auratus Gold and promotion of Auratus Gold is certified illegal in Australia.
Wonder when JH’s time will run out?
Andrew Hawkes is back, again. His family are not supportive of his illegal endeavors. His oldest friends are not supportive of his illegal endeavors.
They are concerned he will end up in jail, then what of his children?
Andrew Drew ‘Doc’ Hawkes seems to be a duck caught in an oil spill. Nothing sticks. Now he is marketing himself as hard done by and ‘vulnerable’ do not be sucked in by the peace love and happiness.vibe/I just want to help you.
This individual is heartless, soulless, brainless and his only true skill is self reinvention. Do not give this man a dime, the time of day, a follow or a like.
They will throw out the old line that “its a loyalty program not a financial service” but this is where they are missing the point. If ASIC deem it to be an illegal service, regardless of what the promoters classify it as then they are liable.
Furthermore, from a legal perspective, while ever the current promoters receive a financial benefit from recruiting others and while ever there isn’t an actual token minted (which by their own admission there isn’t) they are receiving financial gain through misleading and deceptive means.
I write this not only for the benefit of behindmlm readers but I know the promoters monitor these posts (have seen open tabs during webinars).
Your badge of pride in the fact that Auratus is decentralised and does not have a registered entity in Australia instead leaves you individually liable for every downline you recruit and receive benefit from- loyalty program or not.
Martene Wallace held an event on The Gold Coast fairly recently called the Wealth Odyssey Summit, seemed like there were plenty there!
Ever notice that Martene Wallace and her team don’t advertise the name Auratus or Billionico in their online posts or reels. I wonder why that is?
If they’re so proud of the scheme, you’d think they’d be openly promoting the name and be transparent about who owns it.
I guess if they had the courage to be honest and disclose that they’re working for Dubai fraudsters and that ASIC has issued a warning for Auratus, it would ruin their plans.
At some point, those families are going to realise that Martene and her crew stole their inheritance from grandma and that there is no financial legacy for the family.
There is a whole policy around how they can use the name under a Corporate Identity Doc and Social Media Terms in the app. Promoters need to be certified Independent Business Operators (IBO) and there is a heap of guidance around not using the Auratus name publicly.
I think it actually gives the HQ shell companies plausible deniability when promoters get stung for misleading or false representation. I have copies of the docs.
So curious to see how this all plays out. Do they still have a bunch of people on the hook from last year who are holding out to get paid??
GSPartners top recruiters (and to a lesser extent victims) are the same promoting Auratus. In Australia at least.
Every other country GSPartners was promoted in, including the US and Canada = sorry for your loss.
Andrew Hawkes is now claiming to have a Doctorate (PhD) in Business Finance/Admin or something similar from some obsecure foreign University. Hence the call me ‘Doc’ Drew.
Is this actually verifiable? We would think we would have known about this before it suddenly appeared in his constantly updated blurb about himself. This makes us sick to our stomachs.
No PhD we know, uses ‘Dr’ unless it was the Graduation Day ceremony or they are from the Medical Fraternity.This shows lack of understanding of Academia.
We believe he is using this title to give his followers more confidence that he actually knows what he is doing. There is no way a PhD would conduct this avenue of money making, they all do ethics papers… Andrew Doc Hawkes if you read this, and we know you will.
Stop. Stop conning vulnerable people. You are bringing shame on yourself and shame on your family.
What can we do to help you and Sarah? We are so very worried for the families future, think of your children.
Scammers buying qualification from dodgy online degree factories is nothing new. It’s not like you have to call anyone anything.
Andrew Hawkes is well known for scamming people into skyway and evorich. Andrew Hawkes is lying and scamming people for ages.
news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/police-take-action-against-eight-people-after-breaches-of-sydney-health-orders/news-story/6fbbbe30f05c066897c2d91cc3c98f87
called himself a motivational speaker while scamming people selling skyway and evorich.
It’s an absolute joke this Andrew Hawkes. He is dragging old promotors from Evorich into his scams.
Andrew Hawkes and Andrew Eaton are cut from the same cloth. Both have been involved with numerous MLM ponzi schemes, scamming everyone along the way with the “success coach” gig.
The only problem they face is when it all catches up with them…
I have written this as a personal summary in the hope of getting more hits on Google if anyone searched for Auratus. Feel free to leave comments or amplifying remarks. Many thanks to behindmlm for some of the background work.
medium.com/@ron97932/auratus-gold-the-predatory-crypto-scam-targeting-naïve-australians-f00116ac0634
Andrew Doc Drew Hawkes his wife Sarah Hawkes (including their children) are setting up to Air B and B their family home and take the opportunity to travel. He is asking everyone where they would travel to if given the chance.
Where is the one place they would go if money was no object… Andrew and Sarah, that isn’t your money to travel on. Why are you fleeing Australia like you fled NZ?
Authorities need to act now, he will continue this fraud with Australians and New Zealanders, only from a gypsy international location or outback Australia. Please Andrew, your family…
From the Bloomberg article re GSP Settlement in the USA-
More importantly for Auratus/Aussie GSP investors-
My speculative read on this is that invested capital from Aus and other countries/states not listed will be used to fund the settlement.
It is also entirely possible that invested funds from new Auratus users will also be included. Will we see a freeze on “loyalty point” conversions and payouts?
Absolutely money stolen through other jurisdictions will be used to fund the settlement. That said, the majority of GSPartners investors were from the US.
The money specifics will be for AlixPartners LP to sort out. I don’t envy them but Heit is footing the bill so that’s a win.
For GSPartners investors outside of the US and Canada, the toothlessness of your regulators is unfortunately on full display.
ASIC warns consumers of suspicious investment opportunities in digital gold vaults.
Published 11 September 2024:
asic.gov.au/about-asic/news-centre/news-items/asic-warns-consumers-of-suspicious-investment-opportunities-in-digital-gold-vaults/?altTemplate=betanewsroom
As discussed in the article I’d suggest that If you spot any suspicious investment opportunity by an unlicensed entity, please [report this to ASIC](asic.gov.au/about-asic/contact-us/reporting-misconduct-to-asic/)
Thanks for the heads up. I wonder who at ASIC thought it was a smart idea to issue a fraud warning pertaining to a specific fraudulent business model used by one company, whilst omitting said company’s name.
Perhaps the data protection laws in Australia are just as idiotic as those in Germany? This kind of “data protection” protects the fraudsters better than the victims. 🙁
Australia doesn’t have anything like the European “help scammers by keeping consumers in the dark” laws AFAIK. Just ASIC being ASIC I guess…