Five U.S. states have reached a settlement agreement with GS Partners – the European operation behind several crypto investment schemes, including tokenized investments in a Dubai skyscraper – that will see investors get 100% of their money back, according to a Monday announcement from the Texas State Securities Board (TSSB).
The exact size of the alleged scheme is unknown, but the operation itself claimed to have done $1 billion in sales as of last September, one month before a collection of state securities regulators, spearheaded by Texas, began investigating GS Partners’ owner Josip Heit and his companies. Starting in mid-November, regulators in 10 U.S. states – and one Canadian province – filed enforcement actions against Heit and his companies, alleging fraud and ordering them to immediately cease-and-desist selling securities.
GS Partners is a now-defunct multi-level marketing scheme that used a network of promoters and celebrity spokespeople, including former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather, to sell would-be investors a variety of crypto-related investments promising lucrative returns. These investments included plots of virtual land and a staking pool in the erstwhile “Lydian World” metaverse, a purportedly gold-backed crypto token, and vouchers allegedly representing tokenized shares of a skyscraper in Dubai.
Investors were allegedly told that the vouchers, each representing one square inch of the 36-floor tower – described a “glorious skyscraper…inspired by the winds of the desert, and radiates majesty as it shines under the burning sun” – would allow them to make passive income from the leasing of units. When GS Partners failed to reach their goal of $175 million in sales, the value of the vouchers plummeted to nearly zero.
As part of the settlement agreement Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas and Georgia have reached with Heit and his companies, all civil claims against GS Partners have been settled and investigations dropped and, in exchange, GS Partners will refund 100% of investments made by clients in settling states.
Joe Rotunda, enforcement director at the Texas State Securities Board, told CoinDesk that getting customers their money back was a priority for his agency.
“It is highly unusual to be able not just to provide material financial relief, but to provide 100% financial relief,” he said. “That’s something that we, as state regulators, have always talked about – when these opportunities come up, we have to go for them.”
Regulators in settling states waived their ability to go after financial penalties payable to their agencies. Civil fines are a common outcome of many state and federal enforcement actions, but Rotunda said his agency’s priority was Texan investors.
“It’s just a matter of priorities. Our priority was getting recovery for clients,” Rotunda said. “The idea of taking their assets and sending them to the state as a monetary penalty really just makes my stomach turn…So we were happy to waive the allegations of fraud if that meant the opportunity to get back 100% of client deposits.”
The settlement agreement does not preclude non-participating states or federal regulators from pursuing civil or criminal investigations into Heit and his companies.
In a press release issued by his lawyers at white-shoe law firm Quinn Emanuel on Monday, Heit said he welcomed the settlement, adding: “We are committed to refunding all eligible customers through the claims process. Our customers always come first. Protecting the brand, our reputation, and our customers is our top priority.”
Rotunda said he expects the claims process, administered by AlixPartners LP, to open up in October and run for 90 days. Heit and his companies will cover the cost of AlixPartners’ fees as part of their settlement.
“In Texas, [even] if we really pushed for this case to be accelerated on the dockets in our legal system, we probably wouldn’t even get to the point where we’re presenting evidence in court by the time the clients would have received a return of assets,” Rotunda said.
