El Diaro reports
The Police are following the trail in the Canary Islands of the ideologues of Juicy Fields and suspect that they tried to launder money with high-end real estate developments in the south of the island.
When the Juicy Fields cannabis pyramid scheme collapsed in July 2022 , thousands of investors around the world wondered where those responsible were responsible for losing hundreds of millions of euros.
A part of them, including their alleged leader, were hiding in Tenerife and were dedicated to the construction of luxury villas that could be purchased with cryptocurrencies, as elDiario.es has been able to verify.
As revealed by elDiario.es in May 2022 , the agreements that Juicy Fields claimed to have with large global cannabis companies were false and everything pointed to a pyramid scam. Two months later, those responsible disappeared with all the investors’ money.
The European Police Office Europol estimates that the amount defrauded amounts to 645 million euros, although this body admits that it could be much higher because many victims have not reported it. It is estimated that in total there are about 186,000 investors affected. In Spain, where the case remains under summary secrecy, there are almost 1,800 complainants and the amount stolen would exceed 24 million.
At least two of those arrested in ‘operation Stoner’ were residing in Tenerife before the pyramid system collapsed and during the following months. Sources close to Juicy Fields, however, maintain that half a dozen of the perpetrators of the fraud also met on this Canary Island after keeping all the money.
It was in the municipality of Adeje, the same sources maintain, where a video was recorded in which six masked men appear defending that the Juicy Fields project was going to work again despite the fact that the money had disappeared.
Two arrested with real estate businesses on the island
Two of those arrested in the international operation are linked to real estate businesses in Tenerife. The first is Russian citizen Sergey B., whom Europol considers one of the leaders of the scam. Sergey was residing in Tenerife for a long period of time and subsequently fled to the Dominican Republic, where he was intercepted by the police and his extradition to Spain is pending.
The second detainee linked to Tenerife is the Latvian Roman S., one of the closest associates of the leader of the plot, who lived on the Canary Island with a high standard of living and driving high-end cars.
Just six months before Juicy Fields went bankrupt, Roman S. created a real estate buying and selling company in the municipality of Adeje, according to the commercial registry. In January 2024, shortly before being arrested, he created another company with a similar name in the United Kingdom. Sergey’s ex-partner, one of the alleged leaders of the scam, also appeared as an agent in the organization chart of the Spanish company.
The company was dedicated to the construction of new luxury villas in the south of Tenerife to later sell them for high sums of money. It also offered the possibility of purchasing them with cryptocurrencies and reminded investors that prices in Tenerife “continue to rise steadily.”
According to the company’s latest balance sheet, the company had 2.2 million in assets. The company headquarters was searched by UDEF agents during the police operation, elDiario.es has learned. This editorial team has repeatedly called the company to offer the possibility of making a comment and has received no response.
The other sector in which the two detainees invested the money were the cannabis clubs in the Canary Islands, according to various sources in the sector on the islands. The sources consulted explain that it was common to see Sergey B. and Roman S. in these spaces in Tenerife. “They went with good cars, wads of cash and expensive clothes,” recalls a person who met them on more than one occasion.
Links to the Russian mafia
When they arrested the leader of Juicy Fields in the Dominican Republic, they found several magazines for 9-millimeter pistols, tens of thousands of euros in cash in different currencies and cryptocurrencies, as well as multiple passports with different identities.
Sergey has performed under different names over the last decade. In Juicy Fields he called himself Paul Berkholtz and that’s how it appeared on one of his passports. In the past, however, he introduced himself as Mark Konwal and allegedly led another very similar online scam.
The company was called Reciclyx, it was created at the end of 2015 and offered online investors to buy plastic waste that the company would then transform into recycled granules and report a 40% profitability within a few months.
In 2017, those responsible for Reciclyx disappeared with all the money, claiming that the factory had been destroyed by a fire. As happened with Juicy Fields, after the theft the website was also kept open and investors were assured that they could recover their money. It never happened.
Some of the investigators consulted by this newsroom suspect that both Sergey and other leaders of the plot maintain links with the Russian mafia. A repentant who was part of the Juicy Fields organizational chart has been revealing information about the fraud through Swedish lawyer Lars Olofsson, who represents hundreds of defendants, and providing evidence of links between the ringleaders and organized crime.
