As Europol and the Berlin Prosecutor’s office are reporting, a massive, cross border investigation into the Juicy Fields scam over the past two years resulted in a major police operation on Thursday April 11, involving over 400 police officers in 11 countries, over thirty search warrants and ending with the arrests of 9 so-far unnamed individuals directly involved with the fraud.
The announcement comes almost four years to the day after the Juicy Fields Ponzi scheme first launched its website in Berlin.
The British National Crime Agency also announced, in a clearly coordinated press outreach, that they had arrested a “senior staff member” of the scam in the UK and were extraditing this individual back to Germany.
It is the second round of publicized arrests and raids to occur in the case. The first was conducted by the Berlin police in the weeks after the first Exit Scam in the summer of 2022 and was only focussed on Berlin.
That said, investigations have been ongoing across Europe since before the scam blew up.
What Was Juicy Fields?
Juicy Fields was a massive, multi-billion euro Ponzi investment scheme, ostensibly operating in the “legitimate” cannabis industry between April 1 2020 and July 11, 2022 and mostly focussed in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Switzerland although with operations spread out across the world from South Africa to Latin America. The operation claimed to make investors rich, for as little as 50 euro investments at a time. It was heavily promoted on social media and via the cannabis industry conference and media circuit across Europe. Many well-known people within the cannabis industry ended up as cosponsors and speakers with the scam at conferences across the continent instead of speaking out and refusing to be associated with the obviously fraudulent enterprise.
Despite claiming to fund legitimate cannabis operations all over the world (including Latin America, South African and Europe), and importing tens of millions of euros worth of cannabis, all of these claims were completely bogus. In fact, the company never exported or sold any medical cannabis in any country and never set up GMP compliant cannabis cultivation operations anywhere.
The entire operation was also entirely run by the Russian mafia, operating out of St. Petersburg. The actual physical operations of the enterprise were headquartered in Berlin and then later the Netherlands and Switzerland.
D-Day
On “Action Day” – April 11 – officers conducted 38 house searches and seized millions of euros in fiat currency, crypto and other property and assets.
The Europol press release described the over two-year investigation as a cross border international operation led by German and Spanish police. What they did not mention is the significant involvement of the legal and investigative team led by Swedish lawyer, Lars Olofsson. Olofsson and the lead plaintiff in the class actions Olofsson is launching, Daniel Johansson, were physically attacked last year at the ICBC conference in Berlin by individuals associated with the scam last summer. As a result, they initiated a series of meetings with the Berlin police in which key information including given to the investigation by the Russian Whistleblower “Anders,” was turned over to the police, greatly aiding in the investigation.
What has not been mentioned, however, is official investigations into those who facilitated the scam. Including whether they are going to be conducted or not.
What Next?
It is now clear that the Juicy Fields scam was a large, international, coordinated criminal conspiracy that was able to defraud hundreds of thousands of investors and do an end run around not only bank security at hundreds if not thousands of banks, but also escape any notice from auditors like Ernst and Young. The scam itself was also perpetrated widely by the use of social media promotion.
While the police appear to only be focussed at this juncture on those who actually worked for and were paid by the fraud, there is just as obviously a second ring of those responsible – namely those who either did nothing or were paid to look the other way.
It is unclear what the police will do about this level of the fraud.
That is precisely why Olofsson and the investigation team behind him are not stopping their work. There is still a great deal to be done.
As of last week, Olofsson’s class action against Facebook proceeded in Swedish courts and his other legal actions against Ernst and Young as well as facilitating banks is proceeding.
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