Dozens of Maltese retail investors have lost thousands of euros in what appears to be an exit scam or pyramid scheme carried out by a company promising massive returns through a crowd-funded cannabis growing enterprise.
JuicyFields – whose chief business development officer and chief innovation officer was Maltese national Daniel Gauci until a few days ago – was apparently based in the Netherlands and presented itself as a “collective farming platform,” one aggressively promoted on social media.
The platform offered to give the general public the opportunity to invest in the growing of cannabis, linking micro-investors to small-scale cannabis farmers to fund the cultivation of crops sold for medicinal purposes.
Would-be investors were promised astronomical returns through an online platform which facilitated the trading and management of plants, and were allowed to invest up to €180,000 – via bank transfer or cryptocurrencies – without providing any form of ID.
It’s a model which, perhaps, appeared too good to be true: and recent developments suggest that to be the case.
Signs of collapse
By May, the company was the subject of various warnings by European regulators – including Germany, the Netherlands and Spain – that its project was a potential fraud, and a report by online Spanish newspaper eldiario.es had highlighted various false and inconsistent claims that the company was making.
A clear sign that not all was well with the platform emerged on 11 July,…
