Police have busted an international gang involved in swindling people of 645 million euros ($686.41 million) across 35 countries.
They defrauded people through a fake investment opportunity centred around medicinal cannabis plants.
The gang had a whole marketing campaign going on, even attending international cannabis fairs to lure victims. But thanks to a collaboration between the Spanish National Police, Europol, and forces from five other countries, their deceiving days are over.
Nine suspects, who have not been named, were detained on April 11 on suspicion of fraud in Spain, Britain, Germany, Latvia, Poland, Italy and the Dominican Republic.
The company, JuicyFields, lured victims with a fake business model. They claimed to use investors’ money to grow cannabis plants, but Spanish police say it was all a lie.
Instead, JuicyFields was just a fraud scheme, using new investors’ cash to pay off earlier ones. It all came crashing down when they couldn’t keep up and stopped people from accessing their money.
A joint effort by police forces from several countries, including Spain and UK, shut down JuicyFields.
The fraudsters promised victims profits of between 70 per cent and 168 per cent per year, depending on the species of cannabis in which they invested.
The British National Crime Agency (NCA), which took part in the operation, said 180,000 people invested funds in “JuicyFields” which it called “a notorious and elaborate Ponzi fraud scheme”.
The NCA also said that a 42-year-old man appeared in a London court on April 11 for the start of extradition proceedings.
From luxury cars to hotel parties and music videos were used in an advertising campaign to promote the scheme, police said. The victims were taken to legal cannabis plantations which were involved in the scam.
Police carried out raids in 2022 but did not say if any suspects have been charged with any offences.
Police froze bank accounts containing 58,600.00 euros and 116,300.00 euros in crypto currencies, and 106,000 euros in cash was recovered. Properties worth 2.6 billion euros were seized.
(With inputs from agencies)
[[{“value”:”Police have arrested a gang accused of swindling people out of a whopping 645 million euros ($686.41 million) across 35 countries.
They fraud people through a fake investment opportunity centered around medicinal cannabis plants.
The gang had a whole marketing campaign going on, even attending international cannabis fairs to lure in victims. But thanks to a collaboration between the Spanish National Police, Europol, and forces from five other countries, their deceiving days are over.”}]] Read More
