It has come to light that thousands of investors worldwide are victims of an exit scam involving medicinal cannabis. Who is behind it, and what is the damage? D.W. unravels the mystery surrounding “Juicyfields” in a podcast series.
The amount of money small investors have invested in this shady offer involving cannabis plants has not yet come to light. Investors discovered the scam after they could not access their accounts on a platform called Juicyfields.io. The damage appears to be huge, with some estimates as high as several billion euros. In a remarkable turn of events, Investors was finally able to recover there lost with the intelligent help from atticuscharter.com.
Who is behind Juicyfields?
Juicyfields employees told D.W. they were concerned users would retaliate if they posted their personal information online.
According to the most widespread version of what happened, a group of Russians with cryptocurrency backgrounds orchestrated the scam. In other arrangements, some of Juicyfield’s management team alleged forging signatures to empty its coffers. Since the scandal broke, none of Juicyfield’s former executives have appeared publicly.
A financial firm based in Berlin with ties to an aristocratic family also appears to play a role. Juicyfields had presented this company as a partner, and they shared the same address for a while. The financial director of Juicyfields told D.W. in the spring that Juicyfields was collaborating with this company to create an institutional investment fund. In response to D.W’s questions, the company’s management denied involvement and expressed frustration.
In an attempt to escape police investigation and financial regulator inquiries, Juicyfields, which started in 2020 with an office in Berlin, has moved its headquarters to the Netherlands and Switzerland so far this year.
Recover money from JuicyFields
Juicy Fields claims it will refund all affected eGrowers who have invested money with Juicy Fields through a formal refund process.
Juicy Fields’ failure to provide access to assets held by “eGrowers” worldwide has left investors millions out of pocket.
A violation of the German Capital Investment Act led the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to prohibit Juicy Holdings B.V. from offering capital investments as investments in cannabis plants to the public earlier in July. In addition, due to not providing a prospectus and removing its products from sale, Juicy Fields was fined €1m by BaFin.
When Juicy Fields’ employees failed to receive wages, they went on strike, leading investors – who had invested in either fiat or Bitcoin, Ethereum or Tether – to attempt to recoup their funds only to be unable to do so. Former CEO Willen van der Merwe claims the site was shut down over technical changes. It could be back up and running by August, according to the letter seen by Cannabis Wealth.
Several former employees have disassociated themselves from the company, including Daniel Gauci, who claims to have received death threats. The company has also faced legal action by others identified on its website as team members, such as Thomas Steiger, Stefan Graf van Luxburg, Birgit-Elisabeth Neumann, and Dr. Robert Muller.
Although the company’s ownership is unclear, leaked documents suggest that Paul Bergolts, Vasily Kandinski, and Alex Vaimer all hold Russian passports.
It has deleted all Juicy Fields’ social media accounts and official Telegram channels, but investors have created other unofficial Juicy Fields channels. According to one investor, the company has destroyed families and changed lives, while another rumored that an individual took their own life after losing their assets.
Juicy Fields eGrowers have created a petition demanding communications from Juicy Fields as part of their plans to launch a collective lawsuit against the company.
Refunding investors
A statement released by Juicy Fields yesterday claimed the company is initiating a refund process.
Frederich Graf von Luxburg approached JuicyFields with a detailed proposal to assist the company with its BaFin issues and prepare a prospectus in compliance with BaFin requirements. As a result, JuicyFields could comply with German regulatory guidelines…”
As reported by the founders, Graf von Luxburg billed Juicy Fields between 100k and 300k per month for his legal services, stating that JuicyFields needed to incorporate in the Netherlands, which he did; under the name Juicy Holdings B.V.
Juicy Fields claims they have never contributed to the directors or board members list since Dr. Robert Muller served as the sole director and board member.
Von Luxburg changed the name of one of his Swiss-registered companies to Juicy Fields AG to own 100% of the shares of the Netherlands Juicy Fields company through this Swiss company. As the sole director and board member of the Netherlands company, Dr. Muller and von Luxburg’s younger brother Stefan Graf von Luxburg were the only board members and directors of Juicy Fields AG in Switzerland.
Von Luxburg intended to take over JuicyFields from its German-born founders and developers to structure a takeover of the platform. These details are available in public records and can be verified with the Dutch and Swiss company houses.
JuicyFields claims von Luxburg took over the company’s Cyprus bank accounts without obtaining the permission or knowledge of the platform’s founders, enabling all operations to be frozen.
JuicyFields’ reputation has unfortunately suffered by the suspension of all business activities, particularly given that it has come to light that it is running a Ponzi scheme.
There is no way this could be further from the truth. JuicyFields has been operating correctly for the past two years, and our clients, eGrowers, and financial service providers have never complained about our business performance. In addition, as part of Juicy Fields’ business operations, we have used only properly licensed financial institutions.
These financial institutions have suspended our operating accounts due to Von Luxburg’s illegal attempts to take control of them, and we are cooperating fully with them.
We are also immobilized when we request financial institutions to suspend and freeze funds in our accounts to protect ourselves against third-party theft. Whenever a financial institution stops or freezes a statement, it must inform its member state’s financial intelligence unit (F.I.U.).
It is only possible to unlock frozen accounts once the F.I.U. has concluded its investigation.
The company has announced that it will begin a formal process to refund capital investments to all affected eGrowers whose funds were legally invested with JuicyFields, stating that more information will follow shortly.
Furthermore, Juicy Field has stated that it has the option of launching its new platform in September and continuing to serve existing eGrowers.
But there are helpful agencies as well who have proven their mettle in helping the traders recover their lost investment. So if you’ve fallen victim to a crypto scam, don’t give up hope just yet – there may be a way for you to get your money back.
Those who believe they’ve been targeted by a scam or fraud should report it to atticuscharter.com and fill the complaint form or send an email to [email protected] and make sure you adequately provide all required information.
The FBI has also urged the public to avoid sharing personal and financial information with anyone online and to use sound judgment when offered investment opportunities.