US Clients are Allegedly being Offered High Yield Digital Assets
Texas State Securities Board
AUSTIN, TEXAS (News Release) - Securities Commissioner Travis J. Iles entered an Emergency Cease and Desist Order to stop offers of Apertum (APTM), a new token deployed on a proprietary blockchain that is allegedly being illegally and fraudulently offered in Texas by Josip Heit, Dirc Zahlmann, Bruce Innes Wylde Hughes and Dennis Loos. Heit, Zahlmann and Hughes are accused of launching the new scheme while Heit was settling with U.S. and Canadian securities regulators that would resolve causes of action from previous investment schemes. According to the enforcement action, the new scheme has already proven highly successful as 22,000 unique wallets have submitted more than 268,000 transactions on the new blockchain, $3.5 million in assets have already been transferred to the new blockchain, and APTM has realized “an insane 8,000% increase in value.”
BACKGROUND
In October 2023, the TSSB and various regulatory agencies from the United States and Canada organized a working group to investigate Heit, Zahlmann, Hughes and various members of a family of companies often referred to as GSB Group or GSB Germany. In November 2023, as a result of the collaborative investigation, agencies from the working group began filing enforcement actions.
On November 16, 2023, the TSSB entered Emergency Cease and Desist Order ENF-23-CDO-1879, accusing Heit, Zahlmann, Hughes and other parties of violating the Securities Act, engaging in securities fraud in Texas and threatening immediate and irreparable public harm. Many investors had allegedly deposited assets or sent fiat currency to their platforms.
“We’ve alleged that as many as 1,600 Texans were victims of the schemes” said Securities Commissioner Iles. “But numbers never tell the whole story. Financial harm simply cannot be quantified in terms of dollars and cents. Fraudulent investment scams can quickly wipe out a lifetime of savings and the prospect of a secure, serene retirement. Things change but the scams remain the same.”
Order 1879 – including its findings of fraud – is final and not subject to appeal as it relates to Zahlmann and Hughes. In September 2024, a working group of securities regulators negotiated a settlement of allegations against Heit and certain members of GSB Group. All U.S. state and Canadian securities regulators were afforded the opportunity to join the settlement on the same terms.
The TSSB led the settlement, and it was memorialized in a term sheet on September 9, 2024. The term sheet required Heit and members of GSB Group, in part, to provide the agency with client information, refund deposits less withdrawals to clients residing in Texas, and notify Texans about the opportunity to receive compensation.
The TSSB later accused Heit and members of GSB Group of violating the term sheet and intentionally, willfully or knowingly withholding or misrepresenting information used for and relied upon in the term sheet. The TSSB exercised its right to pursue remedies, removed itself from the settlement, and filed a contested case at the State Office of Administrative Hearings.
The alleged violations and withheld and/or misrepresented information are described in the agency’s Notice of Hearing.
ENFORCEMENT ACTION TIED TO APTM
On March 20, 2025, the TSSB filed another Emergency Cease and Desist Order that alleged Heit, Zahlmann and Hughes began launching a new investment scheme in 2023 – prior to the entry of Order 1879 and enforcement actions filed by other members of the working group in November 2023. Although they purportedly halted plans to launch the scheme, they allegedly resumed their plans shortly after the execution of the term sheet.
Today’s order accuses Heit, Zahlmann and Hughes, along with Loos, of offering Apertum tokens (APTM), the native token for a blockchain developed by GSB Group also known as Apertum. The order alleges APTM may have some utility – largely the payment of gas fees on the Apertum blockchain – but that it is being marketed as an investment that can generate lucrative returns for investors. The order further alleges the parties are engaging in numerous acts to cause the price of APTM to surge, largely by increasing demand for APTM while decreasing its supply. Their efforts, as identified in the order, allegedly include:
Their purported migration of GS Partners – an allegedly defunct company named as a respondent in Order 1879 that realized annual revenue as high as $1 billion – to the Apertum blockchain,
Their successful recruitment of the developers of popular video games such as Grand Theft Auto V (the best-selling PC game of all time) and the Call of Duty series (which generated more than $30 billion in revenue) to launch a new game that requires users to purchase APTM,
Their launch of a fiat banking platform on the Apertum blockchain that will result in 400,000 to 500,000 transactions using APTM per day and that, together with the launch of the aforementioned video game, will lead to as many as 4 million people buying APTM,
Their management of a team of multilevel marketers earning 50%+ commissions selling products tied to APTM and the Apertum blockchain to international clients,
Securing listings for APTM on as many as 15 cryptocurrency exchanges – including exchanges available to residents of North America – by the end of 2025, with the first listing already live, the second launching later this month, and two listings launching next month.
According to the order, their efforts have been highly successful, and the public is being told that Apertum recently “skyrocketed from $0.025 to $2.00,” the growth represents “an insane 8,000% increase in value” and APTM “is a complete lifechanging opportunity for the people.”
Although the order alleges the parties are touting APTM as an investment that generates lucrative value, the TSSB is accusing Heit, Zahlmann, Hughes and Loos of committing numerous fraudulent acts in connection with their offer of APTM.
“Our actions allege Heit and others have been dealing in many products tied to digital assets,” said TSSB Enforcement Director Joe Rotunda. “But that doesn’t mean the alleged fraud is sophisticated or complex. We’ve simply accused the parties of leveraging new technologies to perpetrate traditional schemes. At the end of the day, our actions largely claim they’re not truthfully disclosing material information to prospective investors.”
For example, today’s order accuses Heit, Zahlmann and Hughes of concealing the performance of tokens and certificates they previously offered to investors. These tokens and certificates were first described in Order 1879 and allegedly include the following:
g999: a token similar to APTM insofar as it the native asset for a proprietary blockchain with deflationary measures that crashed after launch and is now virtually worthless,
wG999: a token similar to wAPTM insofar as wG999 served as an interoperable version of g999 that crashed after launch and is now virtually worthless,
LYS: a token tied to a metaverse staking pool that pumped to more than $1,830 but crashed and is now being traded on decentralized exchanges for around $0.15,
XLT Voucher: an asset used in a tokenized real estate investment that never made it past the first phase of the project, and
Elemental and Success Series Certificates: gamified instruments that purportedly paid passive income except that, as a result of losses, a portion of certain client withdrawals were not paid to clients and instead transferred to a “13 month lock up vehicle.”
The order also alleges the parties are engaging in other acts of fraud such as the concealment of the dissolution/bankruptcy of various members of GSB Group, warnings issued by international regulators, and the identity of the officers of the Apertum Foundation. They also include deceptive and misleading statements relating to the “decentralization” of Apertum, the publication of an audit and the listing of APTM on exchanges.
The Securities Act provides the respondents have 30 days from service to challenge the order.
