Those of you who considered to invest into the project JuicyFields.io should take a few minutes to read through this:
A few days ago a friend of mine made me aware of the "Juicy Fields“ project. It pretends to be a crowd investing platform for medical cannabis, operated by the Berlin based start-up Juicy Grow GmbH (Potsdamer Str. 147, HRB 214650B). After taking a closer look at the site, I encountered many irregularities, which I would like to explain below:
According to the extract from the commercial register [L1], the company specifies to trade with “greenhouses” and “goods of all kinds.” In fact, it is an internet-based investment platform where customers are encouraged to invest in cannabis plants in order to later participate in the sale of the flowers. There are four investment models. The entry-level model attracts customers with a minimum investment of 50 euros, while the other three models have an entry-level sum of 2,000 euros. The customer is fooled into believing that the flowers are harvested up to four times a year. With each harvest, he would receive a fixed return share for a period of up to five years. The most expensive model promises up to 100% annual return.
The company does not provide any evidence whatsoever that the plants and plantations really exist. It is also not known who is responsible for the care and harvest or who controls and supervises it. The so-called Green Paper [L2] (equivalent to the White Paper) contains a lot of gibberish marketing and claims, but no verifiable facts.
SEPA, Bitcoin, Ethereum and Tether are available as payment methods. Payments made by using these payment methods are irreversible and barely traceable. A German bank account is suggested for the SEPA payment option (IBAN: DE26100179977126867827, BIC: HOLVDEB1). In fact, it’s not a German bank but the Finnish direct bank Holvi [L3], which according to its own statements, provides its business customers with an unlimited number of Business Mastercards and unlimited free cash withdrawals, which means that any number of free cash withdrawals are possible at different locations. Ideal for criminal operations.
There is no imprint on the page which is necessary by German law. The terms and conditions are written in English [L4], although a German company is legally obliged to publish their terms and conditions in German. Point 9.1 of the General Terms and Conditions contains a general disclaimer for damage of any kind, which is inadmissible according to § 309 No. 7 BGB [L5].
On the company’s Facebook page, there are numerous fake reviews* in the „Community“ area [L6]. These reviews come from fake user accounts that are used only for marketing purposes. All these accounts with names from the South Asian region (Nil B [L7], Siti Aisyah [L8], Md Farhad [L9], Khan Salman [L10], Jannate Himachal [L11] etc.) have 5,000 friends and advertise the same dubious ones Products, e.g. Cryptocurrencies / tokens (e.g. 3WM.io), investment products (e.g. EzyStayz.com), unregulated online casinos (e.g. KingCasino.io).
My comment on Facebook, where I asked Juicy Fields for a statement, was deleted. I was also blocked from commenting.
The managing director Viktor Bitner [L12] [L13], CEO Alan Glanse [L14] and all other employees who are listed in the contact area of the website have practically no further information outside of the LinkedIn network page. The LinkedIn profiles could be fake profiles or false identities. There is no other way to explain the non-existent chronicle of these people.
Juicy Fields only launched its platform a few months ago, is currently investing heavily in all kinds of advertising campaigns, buying video reviews on YouTube [L15] and recommendations on various blogs. Even Forbes magazine mentioned CEO Alan Glanse and his company in an article about Bitcoin millionaires [L16].
There are even planned trade fair visits, some of which have been postponed for Corona, some of which are organized virtually. But the mere fact that they are ready to present themselves at trade fairs shows the determination and audacity that must be behind this project. In the calendar, which can only be seen in the shop, visits to the Mary Jane and to the Medicinal Cannabis Congress on June 12th, to the Cannatech Tel Aviv on June 15th and to The Cannabis EXPO on October 22nd are registered [L17].
What I find so unusual about the project is the fact that the company has chosen a German headquarters. Such companies usually hide behind mailbox addresses in non-EU countries. The German GmbH was supposedly founded to generate trust among potential investors.
Cannabis and cryptocurrencies are topics especially for younger people . Inexperienced investors are particularly often victims of fraudulent sales and marketing systems.
Although I have no evidence that Juicy Fields is actually a fraudulent company, a Ponzi scheme or pyramid scheme can of course only be proven when it is too late.
I have already reported the company to Berlin Consumer Protection, the district office Schöneberg-Tempelhof, the police directorate section 41 Berlin-Schöneberg Nord, the LKA Berlin department 24 for cybercrime and internet fraud and the BaFin, but I am afraid that a simple initial suspicion without concrete evidence will not result in an investigation.
I hope that I could shed more light on this company and that some of you will rethink your investment.
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*I just learned that those reviews come from the bounty campaign advertised in this forum
Sources:
[L1]
https://www.handelsregisterbekanntmachungen.de/skripte/hrb.php?rb_id=571943&land_abk=be[L2]
https://juicyfields.io/files/greenpaper.pdf[L3]
https://www.holvi.com/de/[L4]
https://juicyfields.io/de/terms[L5]
https://www.haufe.de/recht/deutsches-anwalt-office-premium/niebling-anwaltkommentar-agb-recht-bgb-309-nr7-iv-haftungsausschluesse-und-begrenzungen_idesk_PI17574_HI11252680.html[L6]
https://www.facebook.com/Jsflds/community/[L7]
https://www.facebook.com/Forexandcryptoauditor[L8]
https://www.facebook.com/kantas.deca.3[L9]
https://www.facebook.com/Farhadvaiaa[L10]
https://www.facebook.com/ruhulkuddus016[L11]
https://www.facebook.com/jannate.himachal.75[L12]
https://www.facebook.com/bitner.viktor[L13]
https://my.mail.ru/mail/v.bitner/[L14]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-glanse-946510192/[L15]
https://youtu.be/DDTPLkizYS4[L16]
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lukefitzpatrick/2020/04/27/bitcoin-halving-a-new-class-of-bitcoin-millionaires-may-emerge/[L17]
https://juicyfields.io/event