Auratus Gold securities fraud warning from New Zealand
Auratus Gold has received a securities fraud warning from New Zealand.
In its September 27th warning, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) advises;
We recommend caution when dealing with Auratus, or any individuals or entity promoting its products or services.
FMA has been made aware of private seminars and webinars being hosted by Auratus promoters in New Zealand.
Auratus offers New Zealand investors “virtual gold” via a platform that uses blockchain technology.
Auratus is not a registered entity in New Zealand and is not authorised to offer financial services or products to New Zealand investors.
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 last 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 believed to have similarly collapsed, following an August 2024 Auratus fraud warning from ASIC.
ASIC followed up earlier this month with a second fraud warning targeting Auratus’ initial “gold vault” investment scheme.
It appears following ASIC’s fraud warnings, Auratus scammers migrated promotion of Auratus from Australia to New Zealand.
Now with New Zealand’s authorities onto them, it’s expected Auratus Gold promotion will collapse in New Zealand too.
SimilarWeb tracked just ~16,800 monthly visits to Auratus Gold’s website across August 2024.
GSPartners and owner Josip Heit recently settled securities fraud allegations with US authorities.
Unfortunately, as per terms of the settlement, GSPartners victims in Australia and New Zealand don’t qualify for offered refunds. Auratus Gold investor losses remain unknown.
Good to see regulators following the reboots of GSP.
The auratus.gold website now loads with –
I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about theft of personal info and wallet addresses. Josip has been naming Auratus promoters on his Instagram account also despite knowing that Australian regulators are watching.
@Happy
Yes, the same thing is displayed to me.
postimg.cc/TLnsGkNQ
I can guarantee you the ASIC warning did nothing to slow down recruitment of Auratus in Australia. They are pushing harder than ever, seemingly with wind in their sales from the GSP settlement.
More overt posting of TAS Gold returns, withering quotes about financial freedom and six figure months.
There is a big party planned on the Gold Coast in October for the core leadership and their teams.
@Aurelius
Yeah but who’s signing up? It’s a bit like GSPartners in South Africa. Top local Karatbars scammers continued on with GSPartners but after initial suckers were recruited it stalled. That’s wasn’t for lack of marketing effort on behalf of the local promoters.
You’ll see the marketing (in violation of Australian securities law) but suckers willing to sign up will be slim. And this will be reflected in Auratus Gold’s monthly website traffic.
I guess we’ll see when SimilarWeb updates for September in a week or so. Might be an uptick but overall Auratus Gold has been DOA for some time now.