For two and a half years, a promise of easy money from cannabis plants that never existed pulled in victims across Europe. The pitch was simple: invest as little as €50 in a medicinal cannabis crowdfunding initiative. The returns were supposed to be exceptional. By July 2022, the scheme had collapsed, leaving over 4,500 people in Germany, France, and Spain filing formal complaints. Eurojust now puts the total investment fraud at roughly €645 million.
This was not a small operation. Two criminal groups worked in concert, one based in Germany acting as an affiliate for what authorities describe as a Russian criminal syndicate. Their method was the internet. They ran extensive online campaigns to recruit investors, promising high returns that never materialized. The money did not go toward buying cannabis plants or working with licensed growers, as claimed. Instead, it was used to pay back early investors—a classic Ponzi structure—and to keep the machine running. A network of international companies was set up to launder the proceeds.
The scale of the fraud is enormous, but the actual cash lost by individual victims is only part of the story. Official complaints in Germany and Spain report at least €51.5 million in direct losses. That figure is dwarfed by the estimated €645 million that flowed through the scheme. Most of that money went to affiliates and operational costs, expanding the fraud’s reach. The organizers kept the pyramid growing until it could not sustain itself.
Eurojust stepped in to coordinate a cross-border response. A joint investigation team was established, linking authorities in Germany, Spain, and France. This is the standard mechanism for跨国 fraud cases, and it was necessary here. The scheme operated across multiple jurisdictions, and the money moved through a web of shell companies. Nine suspects have been arrested. The investigation continues.
What led to this? The timing matters. The fraud ran from at least January 2020 to July 2022. That period covers the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when legitimate investment opportunities were scarce for many, and online scams proliferated. The promise of a high-return, low-barrier investment in a legalized medical cannabis market would have been appealing to people stuck at home, looking for income. The organizers exploited that moment.
Medicinal cannabis itself is a legitimate and growing industry in Europe. Several countries have legalized it for medical use. But the fraudsters were not part of that industry. They used its name and the appearance of legitimacy—claiming partnerships with licensed entities—to lure investors. No plants were ever bought. No crop was ever harvested. The entire enterprise was a fiction built on a crowdfunding website.
The victims number in the thousands. They are not institutional investors or hedge funds. They are individuals who put in at least €50 each, and in many cases far more. The losses in Germany and Spain alone exceed €51.5 million. That averages out to more than €11,000 per complaint, though the actual distribution is likely uneven. Some lost their entire investment. Others got partial reimbursements, a tactic used to keep the fraud alive and attract new money.
Eurojust’s role was to make the arrests possible. Without a joint investigation team, the suspects could have moved money across borders faster than the authorities could follow. The coordination between German, Spanish, and French law enforcement was the key. The Russian syndicate behind the operation remains a target. The German affiliate group has been dismantled. But the network of companies used to launder the proceeds may still hold clues to other victims or other crimes.
The €645 million figure is an estimate. It represents the total investment that flowed into the scheme, not the total loss. Some of that money was paid out to early investors, which is how the Ponzi scheme kept running. The net loss to victims is lower, but the damage is real. Thousands of people were tricked into believing they were investing in a legal, regulated industry. They were not. They were funding a criminal enterprise that used their money to expand its own reach.
