More than 180,000 investors worldwide lost almost 650 million euros through an investment in medicinal cannabis, which was offered by the Amsterdam-based company JuicyFields. From the spring of 2020, JuicyFields tempted people worldwide with sky-high returns from medicinal cannabis, but in the summer of 2022, the JuicyFields website suddenly became inaccessible and no one could access their money. Last year, Zembla, together with the Danish broadcaster DR, the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet and the German media Der Spiegel, Paper Trail Media and Correctiv, investigated this mega fraud and spoke to dozens of Dutch victims. They lost thousands of euros or even hundreds of thousands. A large number of them filed a report with the police. One victim reported the matter on behalf of a group of 124 victims who together lost almost 2.3 million euros. But that did not lead to a criminal investigation. Victims were told a few weeks after their report that there were no indications for further investigation or that the case was too complex. The Public Prosecution Service told Zembla that no criminal investigation was opened because there was “insufficient social national interest” to justify such an investigation. The Public Prosecution Service points to the personal responsibility of investors. Fraud expert Rolf van Wegberg, affiliated with the TU Delft, is surprised by this. He calls the approach 'one-sided'. “You have your own responsibility when it comes to investing in certain investment products, that is correct. But here the goal from the very beginning was to defraud people. That is simply punishable.” Research by Zembla shows that JuicyFields asked plantations in South America to install cameras and hang up JuicyFields banners. In this way, investors who were sitting at their computers at home were given the idea that they were looking at the plants in which they had invested themselves. But in reality, no cannabis was grown for JuicyFields. On the JuicyFields website we came across a Dutch name: Hans van de V. He is the founder of the company in Amsterdam, had rented an office in the city centre and was CEO for JuicyFields in the Latin American region for a while. In that role he had to find cannabis plantations for JuicyFields in Colombia, among other places. Van de V. confirms this: “JuicyFields allowed me to offer 500 euros to hang up cameras. And JuicyFields would make the banners.” Van de V. then says he became suspicious. He claims to have informed the FBI, who in turn would have warned European investigative services. However, the German chief public prosecutor Ina Kinder rejects this. “I know nothing about that.” Research by: Sander Rietveld and Jan Salden Watch the full broadcast via NPOStart: https://npo.nl/start/serie/zembla/sei... Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/ZEMBLA_BNNVARA Listen to our investigative stories in our podcast: Spotify podcast: https://spoti.fi/2UBbCQ6 Apple podcast: https://apple.co/3wVX4ZA Follow us here: Instagram: / zembla_bnnvara Facebook: / zembla.tv Twitter: / zembla LinkedIn: / zembla-bnnvara #juicyfields #investigativejournalism #scammerwebsite