Calif. Con Artist Bilked $18 Million Out of His Victims By Peddling Fake Cannabis Businesses

Mark Roy Anderson bought 15 cars – including a Ferrari – and real estate in Ojai with his $18,376,150 in ill-gotten gains, prosecutors say

U.S. Dept. of Justice, Getty

Mark Roy Anderson

• In a set of cannabis-based schemes, Mark Roy Anderson targeted 45 people, swindling investors and farmers out of millions of dollars and unpaid product with the promise of lucrative financial gains and paybacks that did not materialize, prosecutors say

• Anderson, a disbarred attorney whose swindling habits date back to the early 1980s, admitted to creating fake legal and business documents to make his sham businesses appear legitimate

• The convicted grifter faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for two counts of wire fraud related to his latest con

Convicted con artist Mark Roy Anderson was under the supervision of the Bureau of Prisons when he concocted his latest scheme: Convincing dozens of investors and farmers to put millions toward what he promised to be a lucrative pot farm in Southern California.

In reality, “the Kern County farm was entirely fictional,” with a website depicting harvests reaped from “stock images obtained from the internet,” per the federal criminal complaint obtained by PEOPLE.

Anderson used his ill-gotten gains to buy 15 luxury and vintage cars – including a Ferrari – and a house in Ojai, Cali., nestled amongst citrus groves, among other indulgences, per prosecutors.

Anderson, 69, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud on Friday, April 5, admitting to the theft of $18,376,150 in two cannabis-related schemes, per a press release from the Central District of California’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.

U.S. Dept. of Justice

Mark Roy Anderson's fake driver's license.

The grifter has an “extensive history in defrauding victims in investment scams,” bilking millions out of unsuspecting targets over a three-decade criminal career, punctuated by jail time for his “numerous federal and state convictions for a variety of fraud schemes,” per the statement of probable cause in his most recent criminal complaint.

Among past schemes, Anderson milked investors for money to purchase and restore historic buildings that he never fixed, to buy properties he didn’t own and to invest in oil ventures that never materialized. He often started a new scam even before the last was over, Special Agent Richard T. Higgins alleged in the statement of probable cause.

Anderson had just been let out from FCI Texarkana, a low-security federal correctional facility in Eastern Texas, on the $9 million oil con, when “immediately upon his release from federal prison, even while he was on home confinement,” he launched the cannabis scam, per the criminal complaint.

As part of his false identity, Anderson went by tweaked versions of his name, including Mark Joseph Anderson and Mark Paul Anderson. He claimed to be much younger than his some-60 years and “to be a third- or fourth-generation farmer” with three “extremely profitable” previous harvests and the promise of “similarly large returns” on the next, per the complaint.

He also assured investors that he was not to be mistaken with that other Mark Anderson who had a prolific history of fraud and a penchant for swindling, telling them that “he had no criminal history and had never heard of Mark Roy Anderson,” per the complaint.

In two overlapping schemes ranging from June 2020 to May 2023, Anderson told investors that he would use their funds “to plant, grow, and harvest hemp crops on a large plot of land” he claimed to own, per the complaint. He also claimed to be in the business of “bottling and selling” such products as CBD-infused olive oil and pain cream, which he promised would be “worth hundreds of millions of dollars in future revenue.”

As part of the schemes, Anderson – a disbarred attorney previously licensed in Nevada – created sham businesses like Harvest Farm Group, Bio Pharma and Verta Bottling, with websites he built through GoDaddy.com and which he backed with fake legal and business documents.

He additionally solicited a set of farmers to send him hemp, amassing large quantities that he never paid for, according to the complaint.

Ultimately, however, Anderson “did not give any money back and the promised returns never materialized,” per the complaint.

Investors and farmers alike became suspicious.

A farmer referred to by his initials as M.C. in the complaint, who had sent 259 bags of hemp biomass to Anderson and was never paid, drove to one of the locations and found 39 bags of his labeled product “laying in an open field, deteriorating and damaged by the sun.” Anderson and his associates never told M.C. where the rest of his product was, with claims that the rest was “of poor quality” or “too ‘hot’ with THC content” to be processed.

M.C.’s son pasted images from Anderson’s website into an online search engine and matched them to other stock images. It turned out, the farm’s geo-coordinates he had provided were actually part of a California vineyard, per the complaint. And the 20-acre plot with his deteriorating hemp, had no water rights, meaning there was no ability to irrigate “any type of crop, hemp included,” per the federal complaint.

Anderson was reported to the FBI, which began investigating him in a case that continued into 2023.

Anderson’s sentencing is slated for August 23, per federal prosecutors. He faces a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each count.

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