How Alex Bodi and a Croatian businessman got rich from cryptocurrency schemes in the virtual world. Purchases from Romania

Josip Heit, a Croatian businessman with connections in Romania, and Alex Bodi, a well-known figure in the social world, became rich following schemes carried out in the virtual world, the journalists from Public Record write on Tuesday, in a press investigation.

Heit today appears as a successful man on Instagram, where he has more than half a million followers. However, his past outlines a different character, the investigative article reveals.

Social media users are exposed daily to promises of get-rich-quick investments, but more often than not they fall victim and lose their money, Public Record points out.

Heit explained in June 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, how he became rich: he grew up in a poor family in the former Yugoslavia, and at 18 he started studying tourism management. He then opened a company with tourism and luxury services. At the time, it said it had more than 200,000 direct and indirect employees worldwide. And in Romania a few companies.

Except that these “few” actually mean only one, on zero. In July 2020, the only company in which Heit was associated in Romania, Joh Properties Invest SRL, was declared inactive from a fiscal point of view.

Heit and Alex Bodi, known in the social world for his relationship with Bianca Drăgușanu, frequently appear together on social media, and Bodi has a link on his Instagram profile that refers to the DAO1 website, described as a decentralized platform that runs on the Apertum blockchain.

Bodi's role in the DAO1 Apertum business is unclear. But the scheme has come to the attention of authorities in several countries.

In October 2025, Germany's financial watchdog (Ba.Fin) issued a warning saying that DAO1 is being promoted without authorization in Germany through local events, webinars and social media. It would offer automated trading of crypto assets with the help of artificial intelligence.

“There are facts that justify the presumption that DAO1 offers crypto asset services without authorization in Germany.” wrote the institution in the warning posted on the website. Similar warnings have been issued by the authorities in Australia and New Zealand.

In March 2025, US authorities issued a cease and desist order on Apertum (APTM) activity, regarding a token traded in Texas by Josip Heit and his business partners. Later the order was revoked.

But, Josip Heit, his partners and connected firms have come under the attention of the US and Canadian authorities since the end of 2023.

Ponzi schemes

At that time, the Texas Securities Board blocked GSB Gold Standard Group for another scheme: you invested money in digital products and earned more if you brought in other investors. In short, multi-level marketing or a Ponzi scheme.

Companies controlled by Heit and his partners organized grandiose events in Dubai and South Africa with thousands of attendees. Celebrities such as Roberto Carlos, former Real Madrid player, or Floyd Mayweather, former boxer, were used to recommend, promote and support their activities.

But things went too far, with companies registered in multiple jurisdictions, and the scheme also involved a bank purportedly licensed in the Comoros Islands (located between Madagascar and the African continent).

The GSB Group was selling XLT vouchers that represented pieces of apartments in G999 Tower, a luxury block in Dubai: “A glorious 36-storey skyscraper located in the middle of Dubai” that is “inspired by the desert winds and radiates grandeur as it shines under the scorching sun”.

The vouchers were converted into “XLT” tokens which ended up worthless. The price dropped from 9.63 USDT (a stablecoin) to 0.0000049 USDT per token.

Heit-connected firms also promoted Lydian World, a virtual world where people could buy land, build buildings or open businesses, but first they had to buy another token called LYS.

In September 2024, US and Canadian authorities reached an agreement with the GSB group led by Josip Heit. They must return all money and cryptocurrencies to investors.

Heit was born in Split, a city on the Croatian coast of the Adriatic Sea. He is 47 years old and previously went by the name of Curcic. In 2019 he was arrested in Luxembourg for theft. The judges later sentenced him to six years in prison and fined him 5,000 euros for being part of an organized crime group that targeted elderly people who withdrew money from Luxembourg banks. He was released early in 2012.

Karatbars business

Heit became visible in 2018 when it appeared at the launch of Karatbars. The company offered a token allegedly covered with physical gold.

Ovidiu Florin Toma also participated in the event in Germany, according to the images posted on YouTube. Earlier this year, CryptoData, Toma's company, was raided by DNA prosecutors. The press mentioned that this would be the late General Florian Coldea, the former head of the SRI. “Neither I nor my company has been made aware of having a role in any DNA criminal case and we do not know the purpose for which DNA requested documents from our headquarters in February 2025 (…)”, said Toma, denying any family relationship with the general.

Pictures on social networks show that Toma also went to parties with Josip Heit. In one of the photos, Andrew Tate appears with the two.

Asked by journalist Denise Rifai if the Karatbars deal was the biggest shot he had ever made, Alex Bodi said yes, then explained that it was neither his nor Josip Heit's company and that they were just being put in a bad light.

The Karatbars business had also come to the attention of the Central Bank of Namibia, which in 2019 suspected it of illegal pyramid financial schemes. Authorities in New Zealand, South Africa and Canada have also issued warnings.

Also in 2019, Germany's financial watchdog issued an order halting Karatbars' business. The Belize registered company Karatbit was selling a token without having a license. Subsequently, the tokens crashed.

“They are classic Ponzi/pyramid schemes under the name of cryptocurrencies. They combine a multi-level marketing structure (where participants make money by attracting new investors) with the sale of unregistered securities, promises of 'gold backing' or other tangible assets, and promises of unrealistic returns without any real economic activity behind them.” In cases like KBC or GSB Group, promises to “protect” assets with gold or skyscrapers are often completely false – either the gold does not exist at all, or it is a token amount that cannot cover the value of the issued tokens,” Nikola Skoric, founder and CEO of Electrocoin, a Croatian cryptocurrency brokerage and payment processing company, told reporters OSTRO.

Josip Heit has accumulated over the last years real estate in at least three countries.

He owns land and an old building in Kastela, near Split, Croatia, which he bought in 2019 for more than €940,000, but his name is also linked to other local companies that also own real estate.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Heit's name appears in Dubai Uncovered, a data leak that revealed property owners. According to the data, Heit allegedly owns or personally owned several apartments and office spaces, purchased for more than 21 million euros. They were bought two years ago, and some have already been sold, according to information obtained by OCCRP.

Purchases from Romania

In 2018, Heit bought a former evangelical school in the village of Seleus in Mureș county. According to a source in the area, the building is in an advanced state of disrepair and taxes have not been paid.

The following year he paid over a million euros for a penthouse and two parking spaces. The apartment is on the 25th floor of an Asmita Gardens block, a residential complex located on the banks of the Dâmbovița river, on the edge of the Văcărești Natural Park in Bucharest.

Also in 2019, Heit paid another 2.2 million euros for a two-story villa located on Londra Street in Bucharest, in a neighborhood with embassies. He then set about renovating it.

In 2022, Heit traded the villa for an apartment valued at 282,000 euros and received another 1.35 million euros.

A real estate agency that brokered the exchange contract requested its annulment in court, because “the price was fraudulently reduced in order to evade taxes and duties owed to the state (…) the declared value of the real estate is much lower than the real value.” He then dropped the suit because the legal fees were too high.

Also in 2022, Heit sold the apartment received in exchange and collected 1.08 million euros on it.

The transactions in Bucharest are related to two other key figures: Alex Bodi and Ovidiu Cocoș. They both represented Josip Heit in real estate transactions in Bucharest through notarial powers of attorney, and the latter even collected money from one of them.

Alexandru Nicolae Bodi was born in Mediaș, in Sibiu county. In Romania, according to the official monitor, he is associated in five companies. Two are fiscally inactive and the other three are at a loss.

In November 2020, Bodi was detained by DIICOT prosecutors in a case of organized crime and human trafficking. According to documents obtained by Public Record, Bodi was the “lieutenant” of the underworld Adrian Tîmplaru. Bodi recruited girls using the “loverboy” method and took them to Germany to become prostitutes: “At the time of recruitment, the defendant also speculated on the obvious state of vulnerability (naivety, family problems, material lacks, lack of education) of the victims,” ​​the prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

In 2021, the case went to court, but the judges decided to return it to the prosecutors. The indictment was sent back to the Sibiu Court in 2022, where it is still in the preliminary chamber. That is, the judges have been struggling for three years to decide whether the criminal trial can begin.

In addition to this file, DIICOT said that the prosecutors are still investigating another case, in which Bodi's name appears, but at this moment the investigation only looks at the facts.

Before the criminal problems arose, Josip Heit and Alex Bodi bought the Central hotel in Mediaș. The total price was 1.7 million euros. Both were represented before the notary by Ovidiu Cocoș.

In December 2023, Alex Bodi sold his share and received a Bentley Continental and 450,000 euros in exchange. After a month, Josip Heit also sold the rest of the hotel for one million euros.

In 2022, Ovidiu Cocoș sold a plot of land in Mediaș to Horațiu Potra for 10,000 euros with cash payment. In fact, Heit and Bodi appear in a photo, posted on Facebook, together with Potra.

The reactions of the two

Contacted by Public Record, Josip Heit's lawyer confirmed that he was representing the businessman and said he would speak with his client. No further response was received

Alex Bodi conveyed that he has no obligation to answer the journalists and that “any aberration or unfounded news will be sent to my team of lawyers and especially to those in the USA, that I suspect you are in the same international team that has been harassing us for several years and that we have defeated many times after the lawsuit filed against them for online slander and harassment! For any defamation and tarnishing of there will be repercussions to my image.”

Read the full investigation on Public Record.