Washington’s Department of Financial Institutions has issued a fraud warning pertaining to GSPartners and owner Josip Heit.

As per a November 16th press-release issued by DFI;

The Washington State Department of Financial Institutions (DFI) announced today that it has issued an emergency action against Swiss Valorem Bank Ltd., GSB Gold Standard Bank Ltd., Josip Heit, and Stephn McNeal (collectively, “GSPartners”), for violations of securities laws and corresponding penalties in connection with their MetaCertificates offerings and multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme.

Stephn McNeal is a GSPartners promoter.

McNeal is currently in Cape Town, South Africa, for GSPartners’ upcoming November 18th marketing event.

In violation of multiple regulatory orders issued today, it’s expected GSPartners and its executives will commit further acts of securities fraud at the event.

DFI’s emergency action against GSPartners is part of a wider “multi-state task force of several securities regulators in the U.S. and Canada.”

BehindMLM has already confirmed federal US regulatory investigations into GSPartners and Heit by the CFTC and SEC. At the state level Texas, Alabama and Washington have publicly confirmed investigations.

Detailed in DFI’s warning is GSPartners’ “fraudulent activity”;

Under GSPartners’ MLM scheme, the Introducing Partner Programme (IPP), investors who pay an enrollment fee and complete a Partnership Agreement are eligible to sell GSPartners services and receive bonuses and commissions based on the number of people they can get to buy into the IPP — their “downline.”

Investors in the IPP are eligible to receive a varying return of 2-15% on up to nine levels of sales if the investor retains three active partnership referrals in their downline.

GSPartners are also offering investors the ability to purchase several series of “MetaCertificates” on the “Lydian.World Metaverse.”

Investors purchase MetaCertificates by transferring funds to GSPartners and then “loading” their MetaCertificates by transferring additional funds.

For investors to receive a profit after buying a MetaCertificate, they must (i) continue investing money or “loading” them, and, to receive the full payment of a promotional bonus, (ii) attend a specified event.

GSPartners has presently disabled weekly return payments on MetaCertificate purchases unless investors deposit more funds into the MetaCertificate.

DFI also calls out GSPartners for representing it is a bank under “Swiss Valorem Bank” branding.

Swiss Valorem Bank Ltd. and GSB Gold Standard Bank Ltd. are representing themselves as banks, however they are not licensed or chartered as banks federally or in the state of Washington.

This means that investors’ purchases are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC), or the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA). There is no protection from loss for any investments with these parties.

Following an internal investigation, DFI goes on to conclude GSPartners, Josip Heit and Stephn McNeal are committing securities fraud.

In today’s emergency action, DFI determined that GSPartners is currently offering its MetaCertificates and MLM scheme to the people of Washington State without first registering to offer or sell these securities with Washington DFI, in violation of state securities laws.

GSPartners and Heit are also taken to task for failing to disclose seven fraud warnings issued by Canadian regulators.

DFI further determined that GSPartners are failing to disclose material information about the investments to investors including information about actions taken by Canadian securities regulators against GSPartners.

These include Ontario, Alberta (G999 and GSTrade), Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia and Saskatchewan.

DFI requests any GSPartners “with complaints” contact them. Details are provided in the previously linked press-release.