The Juicy Fields Scam
In April 2020, an internet site called Juicy Fields – www.juicyfields.io was launched. The company behind offered individuals an opportunity to invest in the cannabis industry. Investors could buy cannabis plants for 50€ each that would then be grown, harvested and sold to mainly the pharmaceutical industry.
Investors were promised a return on their invested capital of up to 66% within about 3 months. The investment opportunity was presented as almost risk-free as Juicy Fields had both taken insurance on the plants and ensured that it had buyers willing to pay a price for the cannabis products so that the investor got the promised profit.
The underlying companies were a German company called Juicy Grow Gmbh, a Dutch company called Juicy Fields Holding BV and a Swiss company called Juicy Fields AG.
The investors created an account on the website where they chose how much they wanted to invest, and they could choose between four different cannabis plants to invest in and then make payment and follow the development of the investment and request payment of the profit received – or reinvest in new plants. The concept was called E-Growing.
Right from the start, Juicy Fields did massive marketing and was a participant and exhibitor at most of the events and exhibitions conducted from spring 2020 onwards in the cannabis industry. In many cases, it was also the main sponsor of these fairs. From the beginning, they also worked intensively with marketing and sales campaigns in social media.
Juicy Fields recruited a number of professional specialists to build the organization with staffing and management and that special emphasis was placed on bringing in professional help to build its brand and carry out all marketing efforts. In addition to recruiting professional marketers, Juicy Fields also developed a strategy of recruiting influencers all over the world who had large networks and many followers, and these influencers received a commission on how much they could recruit investors in their networks. It also recruited a number of people who were given managerial positions and were the faces of the market.
Juicy Fields presented a number of growers with whom it had agreements to grow on behalf of Juicy Fields. How much these growers really cultivated and what the production looked like in detail was not presented. On a few occasions, a number of buyers of the cultivated cannabis products were presented, but in all cases these went out and denied that they had an agreement with Juicy Fields or that they had bought something. During the entire time that Juicy Fields has been around, it has not presented any real buyer or any sales statistics or sales results.
All investors have sent money, which was to be invested, to an account in ISX Bank in Cyprus and the account belonged to the Dutch company.
In mid-July 2022, investors discovered that they could no longer access their accounts on the website – and log into them.
There was no explanation on the website. Not all of
the people seen working at Juicy Fields responded to emails or phones — and it became apparent that everything was shut down, and people had disappeared. Juicy Fields had been in business for just over two years by then.
In the spring of 2022, the German authorities had started investigating Juicy Fields after it was discovered that the company had presented investment advice or management. This requires a licence to be applied for by the financial authority. As Juicy Fields repeatedly did not respond to the authority’s request, the German company was fined first with 250,000€ and a month after with 1,000,000€.
Authorities in Germany and Cyprus reportedly seized bank accounts belonging to Juicy Fields during the summer and autumn of 2022 – but there were only small amounts of money in these accounts.
From the time Juicy Fields shut down investors’ ability to access their accounts, and their money, information has repeatedly been posted on the website saying that it has had an internal problem and that investors should get their money back or that they should start up the business again. None of this has happened, and no individual who
posted these messages has presented himself with name or picture.
According to the investigation we have done, it has emerged that there have been about 125,000 investors from all over the world who together over two years have invested about 2 billion Euros – and all this money is now completely disappeared.