Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world are said to have invested in JuicyFields, a firm that pledged to connect online investors with cannabis farms. But now there are suspicions that it was a Ponzi scheme.
The two Lamborghinis were impossible to ignore. Printed with the company logo, the company JuicyFields had parked them in front of a hotel in Barcelona when the international cannabis industry gathered there for a conference in March. The message was clear: this is where the real money is made.
JuicyFields, a firm originally based in Germany but which moved to Amsterdam earlier this year, promoted itself as a business that would make investors, named “e-growers”, rich by putting their savings into legal cannabis plantations. But now, JuicyFields is looking like being the biggest cannabis industry scam of all time.
Since mid-July, investors have no longer been able to log into their customer accounts. Up to 500,000 investors – that’s how many there were at last count, according to JuicyFields – could be affected. The potential damage could be somewhere between tens of millions and several billion euros.
Have you invested money using JuicyFields yourself, or do you have information about this case? Then get in touch with tim.geyer@vice.com.
JuicyFields had a large presence in the Spanish-speaking world. Spanish law firm Martinez-Bianco is representing 1,400 people who say they have lost money due to JuicyFields. It used data from crypto-analysis platform Etherscan to estimate that more than €5 billion (around £4.2 billion) passed through JuicyFields’ crypto wallets. In Spain alone, Martinez-Bianco estimates 28,000 people have been affected, with some investors suspected to have lost the maximum of €180,000 (£150,000).
The then Berlin-based company went online in early 2020 with its self-described “cannabis crowdgrowing platform”. JuicyFields’ marketing team used messaging app Telegram, small news sites and online forums specialising in cryptocurrencies to spread the news: people would be able to gain financial stakes in cannabis farms by making investments of anything between €50 (£42) and €180,000 (£150,000).
Read more at https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k88by/juicyfields-cannabis-scam
