The European cannabis media is increasingly quoting the founder of Sanity Group about his plans for the future of recreational cannabis, but where was he when the Juicy Fields scam hit Germany?
While we here at the Juicy Fields litigation team are thrilled that the cops have started arresting people (12 so far that we know of), there is a secondary story that has been bubbling for awhile in all of this, and that is the role of the people in the German cannabis industry, in particular, who knew about the fraud and did nothing. If not worse.
As a result of this, we have decided to make public a fascinating email we have in our files, forwarded to us as we began to solicit information about the firms and people we have identified as “facilitators.”
The following email is from Finn Hansel, founder of Sanity Group, to Alex Rogers, CEO of the ICBC, in mid-August 2021, right before the ICBC conference in Berlin that year.
While we give him credit for forwarding this email in the first place, we do not believe that this is enough, particularly given developments over the past 18 months.
——— Forwarded message ——— From: Finn Hänsel Date: Mon, Aug 16, 2021 at 9:22 AM Subject: Re: ICBC Berlin B2B Sponsorship To: Alex Rogers Cc: Jessie Corrigan, Tina Rogers
Hi Alex and Jessie,
Sorry for the delay but two of our investors have a huge problem with JuicyFields, the main sponsor of the event and they asked to not put our name in any context with them. I don’t know if you heard it from other participants too but the reputation of this company is unfortunately really horrible and the feedback goes from ”Ponzi Scheme” to ”straight criminal”. This is a major holdup and since I have to get approval for sponsoring activities that were not reflected in the earlier budget, this is currently a challenge for me.
Best,
Finn
What Does This Mean?
The first problem we see is that while Mr. Hansel did the right thing in this instance, we know that he subsequently cosponsored and spoke at other conferences where Juicy Fields was the top sponsor, including in June 2022, after the firm had been banned from doing business in Germany. So much for consistency, no matter the peer pressure.
It also however raises major questions about several other players in the German cannabis industry, all of whom we have previously named, and will continue to do so.
They are:
1. Alex Rogers. This email proves that Rogers was informed by at least one senior member of the European industry (in fact our evidence suggests that multiple people warned Mr. Rogers), before the first conference that Juicy Fields sponsored, that the firm was a scam. This means that he is guilty of accepting sponsorship money from a firm he know or suspected was a scam, which is a crime in and of itself.
2. Kai Friedrich Niermann and Peter Homberg. Not only does Hansel know both of these people, but it is incomprehensible that Hansel’s investors would know that this firm was a scam, as did Hansel (by the way these investors are mostly American rap stars) and two German lawyers who are supposedly experts on the domestic biz DID NOT for some reason? Right down to the fact that Friedrich Niermann has admitted to taking money to work for the firm, and so far, nobody is able to deny that Dentons was also a top sponsor at this juncture. Surely, at minimum, what looks bad to American rap stars might also look bad for the largest law firm in the world?
3. Michael Knodt and Lisa Haag. We understand that Mr. Hansel paid Micha Knodt to write the initial article about Juicy Fields that appeared in Kraut Invest. This was the article naming the fake count, Stefan Graf. However, as we can prove at this juncture, not only was this the first diversion story put out by the real masterminds behind the scam (no matter that Graf and co are guilty), but this is still a trumpet that is being played by the scammers, after the arrests. See all the noise now going on in South Africa about the role of Willem van der Mewe (another Graf associate). This also does not explain why either one of them has stayed silent about this knowledge and did not warn Rogers or anyone else we have named in the very small club of the Berlin cannabis industry. Not to mention are still showing up as speakers and sponsors of the ICBC.
4. Other insiders and conferences. As many news stories have already pointed out, Juicy Fields was given legitimacy in part by the cannabis conferences which accepted their sponsorship. Nobody knew? Really? Nobody even asked questions, especially after Sanity pulled out? This is the 100 million euro guerilla in the industry right now in Berlin, with American rap stars drooling at the chance to enter a recreational market Mr. Hansel is now angling himself to be a part of (along with Cannavigia, an IT tracking company that actually hired Juicy Fields “compliance” officer – and a colleague of Lisa Haag? Not to mention now partnered with Sanity across the border in Switzerland?)
5. How is it possible, given Mr. Hansel’s great political connections, that he also did not warn the Department of Health about this? Karl Lauterbach, the current Health Minister and a major proponent of cannabis reform in Germany, was the keynote speaker at the ICBC conference in Berlin in 2022, when the firm was still the largest sponsor of the conference. And if he did by chance warn them, why was this warning then ignored?
Where is Mr. Hansel right now? Is he helping any of the victims of the scam or the German whistleblowers who have come forward? No.
It is more than overdue for those who are lining up to profit from Germany’s evolving cannabis market to support the effort to have the facilitators of the Juicy Fields scam prosecuted, and for scammed investors to be made whole.
This is why we are publishing this email. And this is why we are continuing in our own efforts to prosecute the facilitators.
It is not enough for people to make money in this industry. We are required to police ourselves. And as the Juicy Fields affair has embarrassing shown, we are all a very long way from this. Including those who as of late have taken to the media to gloat about their own positioning in an evolving market. Accountability is just as important as great weed.
