Like the plot of an improbable fintech thriller, cannabis e-investment conglomerate JuicyFields has imploded into an apparent Ponzi scheme of massive proportions, leaving tens of thousands of online investors wondering who is responsible for the biggest swindle in cannabis.
Swedish attorney and CEO of PRIO Startup Ltd., Lars Olofsson, places partial blame on international banking systems, because several transactions generated by the JuicyFields platform should have triggered institutional systems that detect suspicious activity.
Financial regulatory agencies in in Germany and Spain also issued warnings about the company weeks before JuicyFields’ collapse in mid-July, when investors accounts were frozen.
“Several companies, organizations and individuals have facilitated this. An operation like this could never operate in a vacuum. It needs all kinds of suppliers who directly or indirectly facilitated or looked the other way,” Olofsson told Investor Times last week.
Recent developments indicate that suspended Australian fintech company iSignthis (ISX) and its subsidiary ISX Financial EU may be implicated in the scandal. Olofsson confirmed that the Australian bank received funds from JuicyFields.
By the end of July, Olofsson had been contacted by more than 300 victims, with an average investment of €30,000 each. He is one of several European attorneys listed on the JuicyFields’ website as taking cases of victims.
The scope of the scam is potentially enormous.
