Risk scorecard
Each area is scored 0 (clean) to 10 (worst). Higher means more risk.
Regulation
10/10 · CriticalNo licence or registration anywhere, and five regulators have published alerts naming this website, including a New Zealand permanent stop order upheld on appeal.
Identity & transparency
9/10 · CriticalThe Delaware entity is real and verifiable, which we credit, but the address is a registered-agent suite, the operating arm is an offshore Dubai company, and the DFSA found the headquarters were falsely presented as being in the DIFC.
Withdrawals & conduct
10/10 · CriticalFund integrity, not service quality: withdrawals were disabled on 20 April 2023 and never restored, with the FMA stating publicly that investors would not be able to withdraw their money.
Reputation
9/10 · CriticalTrustpilot 1.5 out of 5 across 82 reviews with 59 percent at one star and a hollow middle, matching complaints on a broker portal and in industry reporting, and five regulator alerts on top.
Website claims
10/10 · CriticalSeminar material promised 2 to 3 percent weekly and roughly 350 percent over 60 weeks, which the FMA found false or misleading, and promotional material falsely placed the headquarters in the DIFC.
Operational history
8/10 · CriticalDates verify at about five years, but the operation paid members for roughly 22 months before freezing withdrawals and has not functioned since, and the same founders are linked to an earlier collapsed scheme.
Who they are
A quick desk file on the company behind the brand.
- Brand: Validus, promoted also as Team Validus, Vmastery, Vewards and V-Connect.
- Legal entity: Validus International LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, file number 6182023, formed 20 August 2021. A second entity, Validus-FZCO, sits in Dubai.
- Registered: 403S, 1013 Centre Road, Wilmington, Delaware 19805. This is a registered-agent suite, not an office. The Delaware register now shows the Secretary of State as the agent of record rather than a commercial agent.
- Website: teamvalidus.com, with the member back office at app.teamvalidus.com. The New Zealand regulator records that Validus itself named teamvalidus.com as its official website.
- Only licence: none. No authority in any jurisdiction licenses or registers this operation, and five have said so in writing.
- Offers: paid membership tiers giving access to online courses, weekly 'loyalty points' and commissions for recruiting other members. Seminar material promised returns from pooled forex, crypto and stock trading.
- Not accepted: New Zealand, where a permanent stop order bars any offer. It is also unauthorised in Australia, Belgium, Quebec and the DIFC.
- Age claim: the site's own roadmap starts at a 2021 pre-launch, which matches the records. Validus did not overstate its history.
Regulation
Who really oversees this broker, and what each licence is worth to you.
Proof of regulation on an official register: No
We could not confirm this broker on any genuine regulator’s register.
No licence claims on record.
Why we reached this verdict
How the evidence adds up.
This verdict does not rest on user reviews or on our own opinion. It rests on the published findings of five financial regulators, every one of which is tied to this exact website.
- Quebec, 20 June 2022. The Autorite des marches financiers listed Team Validus, naming teamvalidus.com, as not registered with it and not authorised to solicit investors in Quebec. This is the earliest alert we found.
- Australia, 18 November 2022. ASIC named teamvalidus.com and stated that the operators of Validus do not hold an Australian financial services licence. ASIC recorded a promised 300 percent return from pooled trading, payment in crypto-assets, and that Validus encourages investors to recruit new investors, which it called a classical sign of a pyramid scheme.
- Belgium, 14 December 2022. The FSMA warned against Validus and published the list of websites it uses, beginning with teamvalidus.com.
- New Zealand, 2 May 2023. The FMA made a permanent stop order applying to Validus International LLC, Validus-FZCO and anyone promoting the products in New Zealand. It bars accepting further applications, contributions, investments or deposits. Validus appealed and the High Court dismissed the appeal. The FMA's executive director of response and enforcement said attendees were induced to buy education packages on false or misleading representations and that they will not receive the promoted 2 to 3 percent return on their money, or be able to withdraw that money.
- Dubai, 22 December 2023. The DFSA confirmed Validus-FZCO is not in the DIFC and has never been licensed by it, and addressed promotional material representing that 'Validus Headquarters' are in the DIFC. That is a false statement about regulatory standing, made by the operation about itself.
The money then stopped coming back. On 20 April 2023 Validus told members through its Telegram channel that withdrawals were disabled for back office upgrades, with 16 May given as the restart date. Withdrawals never resumed. What makes this decisive rather than merely unfortunate is what management did next: a message circulated over the name of Validus president Mansour Tawafi urged leaders to keep recruiting during the outage, saying the company needed the volume to increase, not decrease. Taking new money while refusing to return existing money is the mechanic, not a side effect.
The complaint record matches exactly. Across Trustpilot, a broker complaint portal and industry reporting, the accounts describe one failure, not assorted gripes: deposits accepted, balances shown, withdrawals refused. They are transactionally specific, with amounts of 25,000 euros, 17,000 rand and 1,100 dollars, named recruiters, and dates clustering from April 2023 onward. Trustpilot's page for teamvalidus.com carries 82 reviews at 1.5 out of 5, with 59 percent at one star and a hollow middle, and one lone review in the past year. The 38 percent five-star share is a recruiter pattern, not a counterweight.
What it is not. This is not a clone of a regulated firm and it borrows no one else's licence number. It is an unlicensed investment scheme with a membership wrapper, and the wrapper is exactly what the regulators looked through.
Evidence ledger
Every finding, with its source and how strongly it points.
E1The Quebec Autorite des marches financiers lists Team Validus, naming teamvalidus.com among its domains, as not registered with the AMF and not authorised to solicit investors in Quebec. Dated 20 June 2022, the earliest alert we found.
E2ASIC's scam alert of 18 November 2022 names teamvalidus.com and states that the operators of Validus do not have an Australian financial services licence. It records a promised 300 percent return from pooled trading, payment in crypto-assets, and that recruitment of new investors is a classical sign of a pyramid scheme.
Hard proofASIC scam alertE3The Belgian FSMA warning of 14 December 2022 names Validus as a platform abroad selling forex training in Belgium and publishes the list of websites it uses, beginning with https://teamvalidus.com/.
Hard proofFSMA Belgium warningE4The FMA's warning page records the legal names Validus International LLC and Validus-FZCO, the trading name Validus, the website https://teamvalidus.com/ and the address 403S, 1013 Centre Road, Wilmington, DE 19805. It states that Validus advised the FMA its official website is teamvalidus.com, which locks the identity of this report to the regulator's own record.
Hard proofFMA New Zealand warnings and alertsE5The FMA's release of 5 July 2023 confirms a permanent stop order made on 2 May 2023 against Validus International LLC, Validus-FZCO and associated persons, prohibiting offers and the acceptance of further contributions, investments or deposits, with the High Court appeal dismissed. The FMA states attendees were induced to buy education packages on false or misleading representations and will not receive the promoted 2 to 3 percent return or be able to withdraw that money.
E6The DFSA clarification of 22 December 2023 states that Validus-FZCO is not located in the DIFC and has never been licensed by the DFSA, that VMarketing Ltd is likewise unlicensed, and that promotional material representing Validus Headquarters as being in the DIFC is untrue. It confirms Team Validus, Vewards, V Mastery and V-Connect are brands used by Validus.
E7Trustpilot's per-domain page for teamvalidus.com shows 82 reviews at 1.5 out of 5, with 59 percent one star, 38 percent five star and an empty middle. One-star accounts describe the same failure with specifics: 25,000 euros lost, 17,000 rand lost, funds held for over a year with no repayment, logins blocked, and payments closed down before the term ended.
StrongTrustpilotE8A complaint filed on 12 June 2023 on a broker complaint portal reports a 1,100 dollar subscription with two withdrawals paid and one pending, stated as a 48 hour process, with nothing received after 12 days and no answers to any question.
ModerateBrokersView complaint recordE9Industry reporting dated 20 April 2023 records the Telegram announcement disabling withdrawals for claimed back office upgrades with a 16 May restart, and reproduces a message over the name of Mansour Tawafi, president of Validus, telling leaders to keep recruiting during the outage because the company needed volume to increase, not decrease. It also names the founders as figures from an earlier collapsed scheme.
StrongBehindMLME10The Delaware Division of Corporations shows VALIDUS INTERNATIONAL LLC, file number 6182023, a domestic limited liability company formed on 20 August 2021. The registered agent of record is now the Delaware Secretary of State in Dover rather than a commercial agent, which is what the register shows after an appointed agent resigns.
E11Registry records show teamvalidus.com was registered on 15 June 2021 through GoDaddy, sits on Cloudflare nameservers, was last updated on 16 June 2026 and now runs to 15 June 2031. The registration was renewed for a further five years more than three years after members stopped being paid.
E12The site's own homepage describes a membership programme with access to the Vmastery learning platform, weekly Vewards loyalty points, and a three step path of registering, purchasing a membership tier and referring other people to build a distributorship. It calls the model network marketing. No licence, regulator or licence number appears anywhere on the page.
E13Independent scan records show teamvalidus.com last returning a complete page in October 2024 under the title Validus, with a member back office at app.teamvalidus.com titled VALIDUS PORTAL, and the most recent scan in August 2026 recording the origin server no longer responding.
The other side
The strongest case in this broker’s favour.
We looked for the innocent reading before writing any of the above. These are the arguments in Validus's favour and what happened to each.
- It is an education company, not an investment scheme. Validus wrote to the FMA saying it is not, and does not intend to be, a financial product, and that no person should enter a commercial relationship with it expecting returns. The FMA accepted those statements as true and then drew the only remaining conclusion: if they are true, what was presented at the seminar, where attendees were told a team of experts would trade their money in the forex market for 2 to 3 percent weekly, was false or misleading. The defence does not rescue the position, it convicts on the other charge.
- The company is real and properly formed. It is. Validus International LLC exists on the Delaware register, file 6182023, formed 20 August 2021, and we confirmed it directly. That is genuine corporate reality, and we credit it. But a Delaware LLC is a filing, not a financial licence, and Delaware does not supervise anybody's client money.
- The brand is five years old. True, and we scored it on the verified dates rather than any claim: the domain was registered on 15 June 2021 and the company formed two months later. Validus never advertised a longer history than it had, which is more than many operations in this file can say. The problem is that the useful part of that life was about 22 months before the payouts stopped.
- The complaints could be planted by rivals. Competitors do write fake scam reviews, so we checked. Some of the Trustpilot entries are recovery-service touts and we discount them entirely. The core of the record is not reviews at all, it is five regulators and a documented withdrawal shutdown, which no competitor can plant.
- Name collision. Several legitimate, well-regarded companies use the word Validus, including a Bermuda reinsurer and a UK-based risk advisory firm. None of them has anything to do with this operation. Every finding here is pinned to teamvalidus.com and to Validus International LLC, and nothing in this report should be read as referring to any other company sharing the name.
What would change this
What we would need to see to revise the verdict.
We publish the falsifiers so anyone can check us. Any one of these would force a revision.
- The FMA lifting or vacating the permanent stop order of 2 May 2023 against Validus International LLC and Validus-FZCO.
- ASIC, the Belgian FSMA, the Quebec AMF or the DFSA withdrawing their alerts, or a register entry appearing that shows this operation licensed anywhere.
- Evidence that members who requested withdrawals after 20 April 2023 were in fact paid out, at scale and verifiably, rather than in isolated cases.
- A documented, funded restitution programme naming the entities and the amounts returned.
- Proof that the regulator alerts actually describe a different operation and not teamvalidus.com. We consider this closed, since four of the five notices print the domain itself and the FMA records Validus naming teamvalidus.com as its own official website.
Check it yourself
Official registers and warning lists. Verify every claim first-hand.
FMA New Zealand: WARNING Validus
The regulator's warning page, which names the legal entities, the Delaware address and teamvalidus.com.
FMA New Zealand: permanent stop order media release
The 5 July 2023 release setting out the permanent stop order and the dismissed High Court appeal.
ASIC scam alert on Validus
Australia's regulator confirming there is no AFS licence and describing the pyramid structure.
FSMA Belgium warning against Validus
The Belgian warning, with the list of websites Validus uses.
Canadian Securities Administrators alert: Team Validus
The Quebec AMF alert, the earliest we found, naming teamvalidus.com.
DFSA clarification on Validus-FZCO and VMarketing Ltd
Dubai's regulator on the false claim that Validus headquarters are in the DIFC.
Delaware Division of Corporations entity search
Search Validus International to see file 6182023 and the 20 August 2021 formation date.
Trustpilot reviews for teamvalidus.com
82 reviews at 1.5 out of 5, dominated by members who could not withdraw.
Frequently asked questions
Quick answers about this broker’s safety.
Is Validus a scam?
Yes. Validus, operating at teamvalidus.com, is a scam. Five financial regulators have published alerts naming this exact website, New Zealand imposed a permanent stop order that the High Court upheld, and the scheme disabled member withdrawals on 20 April 2023 without restoring them. Money paid in has not come back.
Is Validus a fraud?
We assess the risk of fraud as high, and we say that as an assessment rather than a court finding. The New Zealand FMA found that seminar attendees were induced to buy education packages on false or misleading representations, and the Dubai DFSA addressed promotional material falsely placing Validus headquarters in the DIFC. No regulator we found has issued a criminal fraud charge against the entities, so we describe the conduct and attribute the official findings rather than label the company ourselves.
Is Validus regulated or licensed anywhere?
No. There is no licence in any jurisdiction. ASIC states the operators hold no Australian financial services licence, the FMA says Validus provided financial services in New Zealand without the required registration, the Quebec AMF says it is not registered there, and the DFSA confirms Validus-FZCO has never been licensed by it and is not in the DIFC.
Can I still withdraw my money from Validus?
No. Withdrawals were switched off on 20 April 2023, with back office upgrades given as the reason and 16 May named as the restart date. They never resumed. The FMA stated publicly that investors will not receive the promoted return or be able to withdraw that money. Members continued reporting blocked access and lost logins through 2024 and beyond.
What happened to Validus in April 2023?
On 20 April 2023 Validus told members through its Telegram channel that withdrawals were suspended. A message circulated over the name of president Mansour Tawafi then urged leaders to keep recruiting during the outage, saying the company needed volume to increase, not decrease. New money was still being taken while existing balances were frozen.
Who runs Validus?
The named entities are Validus International LLC, a Delaware company formed on 20 August 2021, and Validus-FZCO in Dubai. The FMA's media release records Dr Parwiz Daud as chief network officer of Validus, and internal messages circulated over the name of Mansour Tawafi as president. Industry reporting connects both men to earlier collapsed schemes.
Is teamvalidus.com still online?
The domain is still registered and was renewed in June 2026 through to 2031, but it no longer serves a working page. Requests stop at a security interstitial that does not resolve, and the server behind it stopped responding. The last complete capture of the working site dates from October 2024, and the member portal at app.teamvalidus.com is in the same state.
Is this the same company as Validus Holdings or Validus Risk Management?
No. Several legitimate and well-regarded companies use the word Validus, including a Bermuda reinsurance group and a UK risk advisory firm. They are entirely unconnected to this operation. Everything in this report is tied to the website teamvalidus.com and to Validus International LLC of Delaware, and applies to nothing else that shares the name.
What did the New Zealand FMA do about Validus?
It warned about Validus in September 2022, issued an interim stop order in February 2023, and made a permanent stop order on 2 May 2023 applying to Validus International LLC, Validus-FZCO and anyone promoting the products in New Zealand. The order bars offers and bars accepting further contributions, investments or deposits. Validus appealed and the High Court dismissed the appeal.
Was Validus actually a forex broker?
Not in the ordinary sense. It sold membership tiers giving access to online courses and paid weekly loyalty points plus recruitment commissions. The returns were pitched as coming from experts trading members' money in forex, crypto and stocks. Regulators treated what was being sold as an unlicensed financial product, which is why the stop order and the alerts exist.
Is a Delaware company registration the same as being regulated?
No, and this distinction matters here. We confirmed Validus International LLC on the Delaware register, file 6182023. That only proves a company was formed. Delaware does not licence financial services, supervise anyone's client money, or check whether promised returns are real. The registered address is a registered-agent suite, not an office.
What should I do if I lost money to Validus?
Stop sending money, including to other members through internal transfers. Contact your bank or card issuer about a chargeback, and report the loss to your national financial regulator or police. Gather your deposit receipts, back office screenshots, crypto transaction hashes and the name of whoever recruited you. Do not pay any fee to a recovery service, which is the standard follow-up scam.
Are the newer brands connected to Validus safe?
Treat them with the same caution. Industry reporting links the founders of Validus to successor ventures launched after the collapse. A change of brand name does not clear the history of the people behind it, and we have seen no evidence of restitution to Validus members.
What we recommend
The practical takeaway from everything above.
Treat this as a closed scheme with outstanding losses, not as a broker you might use.
- Do not send money to Validus or to anyone recruiting for it, including through a member's 'gift wallet'. Transfers between members were the last channel through which new money entered.
- Do not pay anyone who offers to recover your funds. Recovery services are the standard follow-up scam and several are already posting under Validus's review pages. ASIC issues the same warning in its alert.
- Report it. Contact your bank or card issuer first and ask about a chargeback, then your national financial regulator or police. In New Zealand, Australia, Belgium, Quebec and the UAE the relevant authority has already opened a public file on this name.
- Keep your records. Screenshots of your back office balance, deposit receipts, crypto transaction hashes and the names of the people who recruited you are what any investigation will ask for.
- Be careful with anything presented as the next chapter. Industry reporting links the same founders to later ventures. A new brand run by the same people is not a fresh start.
- Set the broker record to scam and keep the page public as a warning.
This is an independent assessment of risk, not a legal ruling. Scores and verdicts follow the Wikilix broker-safety methodology and can change as new evidence appears. Review scores are treated with caution when a broker’s reviews look manipulated. Last reviewed September 14, 2026. If any detail here is out of date or incorrect, or you represent this broker, please contact us.