SwissX’s Soil Booster™ programme is one more ridiculously obvious climate scam

“Earn prosperitry” [sic]. “Earn proserity” [sic].

By meeting global standards, leaning on scientific rigor, and simplifying participation, SwissX is turning Antigua’s farmers into pioneers of Caribbean climate-smart agriculture. It’s a tangible, scalable model — soil meets science, and soil just became valuable.

SwissX is promising that by applying its SwissX Soil Booster, farmers can increase crop production by 20-40%, sell carbon credits, and make a return of “Up to $18,800 in new earnings per acre annually.”

Wow. That almost sounds too good to be true.

Yes.

We’ve heard of SwissX before, haven’t we?

I’m afraid we have. REDD-Monitor wrote about SwissX following the company’s November 2023 announcement of a “Historic carbon credit milestone”. According to the company, on Christmas Day 2023, each of the 110,000 inhabitants of Antigua and Barbuda would receive US$1 million worth of SwissX Ripple tokens.

SwissX’s CEO explained that,

“The SwissX XRP token is a special financial tool aimed at building a sustainable wealth system. This token is designed to generate wealth by creating carbon credits. These credits are valuable in the global market.”

He added,

“Everyone will be singing about the coin, baby. You feel me? See you there.”

Did everyone in Antigua and Barbuda become millionaires?

No. The carbon credits were supposed to be generated from an area of more than 1.1 million hectares of coral between the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. When SwissX claimed that the carbon credits “receive the stamp of approval from the world-renowed registry, Verra”, SwissX’s CEO received a cease and desist letter from Verra.

Who is the CEO of SwissX?

Alkiviades “Alki” David, who sometimes calls himself King Alki David of RastaLand Antigua.

Remind me. Who is Alki David?

He was born in 1968, in Nigeria. His father, George Alkiviades David, was managing director of the Leventis-David group which owns 28 Coca-Cola bottling plants around the world.

Alki David went to school in the UK (Stowe) and Switzerland (Le Rosey), and studied film at the Royal College of Art.

Rich family, then.

Yes. In a 2013 interview with The Sunday Times, he said, “My father came from a very simple background in Cyprus but he built up the business.” Alki David subsequently became the majority shareholder of the Leventis-David Group.

Alki David and the Leventis family are listed 58th in The Sunday Times’ 2025 Rich List. They are worth £2.898 billion.

In 2013, Alki David owned 11 properties, three in the UK (two in Knightsbridge and one in Hampstead), others in Switzerland, US, Greece, and Nigeria. His house in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles cost him US$16.5 million.

He’s a non-dom — which means he’s a UK resident, but for tax purposes his permanent home is listed outside the UK. In 2013, he told The Sunday Times that he paid £50,000 tax a year in the UK.

Three Swiss X companies are incorporated in the tax haven of Delaware: SwissX Labs AG Inc (2017); SwissX Oils and Confectionary LLC (2018); and SwissX Genetics LLC (2019). Anakado SwissX AG was incorporated in 2017 in Switzerland. It is currently in liquidation. SwissX UK Ltd was incorporated in the UK in 2006 and dissolved in March 2025. SwissX REDD UK Ltd was incorporated in the UK in 2023.

Alki David has been director of nine UK companies, five of which are dissolved.

He also set up a TV-streaming service called FilmOn and a hologram company called Hologram USA. His companies have run into a series of law suits.

Weren’t there also several sexual assault lawsuits?

By the end of 2023, David had lost several sexual misconduct cases, costing him and his companies a total of about US$70 million.

In June 2024, a Los Angeles jury awarded a woman US$900 million in damages in her sexual assault case against David. “It’s so despicable, the facts of this case. He raped my client while on trial in another case,” Gary Dordick, her lawyer, told the LA Times.

Following the verdict, David gave an interview to Noah Kirsch, a journalist withThe Daily Beast. “David’s thoughts seemed scattered and he used several racial and homophobic slurs,” Kirsch wrote.

“These people haven’t received a penny and never will. Over my dead fucking body,” David told The Daily Beast.

Anything else we need to know, before we get back to the SwissX Soil Booster?

Well, there’s this:

Oh dear. What is “Shock Ya!”?

Shock Ya! is a website owned by yet another of David’s companies: Anakando Media Group.

And who is Grady Owen?

According to Shock Ya!:

After training a pack of Raptors on Isla Nublar, Owen Grady changed his name and decided to take a job as an entertainment writer. Now armed with a computer and the internet, Grady Owen is prepared to deliver the best coverage in movies, TV, and music for you.

For anyone (like me) who hasn’t watched any of the Jurassic Park films, Owen Grady appeared in the fourth film in the franchise, 2015’s Jurassic World.

The photo is of Grady Owen — a 1960s country singer who played in Gene Vincent’s band in the 1950s.

And what does Grady Owen write about REDD-Monitor?

According to Owen, I have “been embroiled in controversy with a defamation lawsuit”.

Oh dear, oh dear.

This is the first I’ve heard about it. Apparently, I am “accused of collaborating with Verra in attempts to cover up fraudulent activities without the organization”.

Presumably no one at SwissX or ShockYa! has bothered to read any of REDD-Monitor’s criticism of Verra.

Apparently not. But given that the defamation lawsuit is a figment of Grady Owen’s imagination, why would they bother?

OK. Tell me about about the SwissX Soil Booster programme.

You mean the SwissX Soil Booster™ programme:

On 4 June 2025, Shock Ya! announced “an innovative soil testing initiative in Antigua and Barbuda designed to unlock real carbon credit value for local farmers”.

The programme involves taking three soil samples. The first before Soil Booster™ is applied. The second after harvest, 80-90 days later. The third after 90-180 days after Soil Booster™’s full effect “to show long-term carbon storage and soil health improvements”.

The samples are analysed at the SwissX Island Soil Booster™ Lab in St. John’s Harbour, Antigua. Scientists will analyse the soil’s carbon content, microbial activity, and nutrient density.

According to Shock Ya!,

SwissX’s strategy is unique because it blends environmental action with financial innovation. By linking soil regeneration to market-based carbon trading, they’re helping to transform Antigua’s agricultural economy from the ground up.

Sounds great! How much does this cost?

SwissX Soil Booster™ is not cheap. The company is selling it at US$7,450 for 100 pounds.

SwissX attempts to make the deal look attractive by making claims that farmers can make returns “up to US$18,800 in new earnings per acre annually”:

But the company provides no information to back up these claims. It makes no attempt to explain how it came up with these figures.

US$400-US$1,800 from carbon credits per acre each year sounds a wee bit high.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison has an information page about agricultural carbon credits, which states that,

Carbon farming practices like cover-cropping or no-till store about 1 ton of carbon for every 5-10 acres. The going rate for one carbon credit–or one ton of carbon stored– is $29-$32 in the California carbon market at the time of writing, which would make the average payment $4 per acre.

And that’s before taking into account the cost of brokerage fees, buffer pool credits, and verification fees.

What is actually in SwissX’s organic fertilizer?

SwissX uses AI generated images to market its product — complete with a spelling mistake (“fetilizer”) and blurred text when it comes to information on the packet about what’s in the fertiliser:

Fortunately, the indefatigable Grady Owen has written about the SwissX Soil Booster™. He tells us that the fertiliser was engineered by Dr. Olof Olssen [sic].

What do you mean “[sic]”?

It’s Latin.

Yes, obviously. It means “so”, “thus”, “in this manner”. It indicates that you’re quoting exactly what Owen wrote.

And Owen misspelled Olsson’s name. We’ll come back to Dr. Olsson in a moment.

OK. So what’s the fertiliser made of?

Sargassum seaweed harvested off Antigua’s coast mixed with porous volcanic biochar.

What is “volcanic biochar”?

I’m not exactly sure. Biochar and volcanic rock are being experimented with in an attempt to increase the carbon content of soils and to remineralise soils.

But SwissX provides no information about the percentages of seaweed to biochar to volcanic rock in the fertiliser. Neither is there any information about the percentages of the nutrients nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium and sulphur in the fertiliser.

All of this is important information, because choosing the right fertiliser depends on the soil type, and on the plants being grown.

Back to Dr. Olsson, then.

In a video posted on YouTube on 24 December 2023, SwissX’s AI generated presenter tell us that the company has a “pet cloning programme” and “the distinguished Dr. P. Olof Olsson” is leading the work at SwissX Island.

The video includes a photo of Dr. Olsson, taken from his LinkedIn profile:

According to SwissX Dr. Olsson has combined “the edited genetic sequences from eagles and big cats” to create a real-life Gryphon.

In case you’re having difficulty believing this (as I was), there’s a photo of the Gryphon on SwissX’s website:

So, who is Dr. Olsson?

Per Olof Olsson is a director of a company called Fujairah Genetics. He’s co-written several scientific papers. None of which make any mention of cloning pets or creating Gryphons.

Anything else to finish with?

Soils contain very large amounts of carbon, but the idea of generating carbon credits from carbon stored in agricultural soils is crazy. The carbon stored in soils is difficult to measure and can very easily be released.

Worse still, soil carbon credits, like all carbon credits, are a distraction from the urgent need to keep fossil fuels in the ground.