Charlie Smith
A TRIO of British ‘marijuana traffickers’ who used a drone and rental cars have been arrested in Marbella.
The three English men aged between 26 and 29 who used ‘extreme security measures’ are currently in prison.
One man was caged at a Guadalmina property where officers seized 400 cannabis plants, 16.5 kilos of buds and 658 grammes of hash.
The two other suspects were held at a Mijas home where police discovered 2.5 kilos of marijuana buds and €3,700 in cash.
The Policia Nacional also recovered four mobile phones, a drone and supplies for weed packaging and cultivation.
The men face charges of membership of a criminal organization, drug trafficking, and theft of electricity.
A police statement said the gang rented large houses where they would cultivate, process and distribute cannabis.
It added that the ‘Marbella-based English group’ would ‘change their routes and rental cars frequently’ in order to ‘avoid being detected by police’.
The men are understood to have illegally siphoned off electricity for their hydroponic weed grows at two properties.
Police labelled the setup a ‘perfectly structured criminal organisation’ and noted the ‘extreme’ lengths the suspects would go to in order to throw them off the scent.
Following a surveillance period by the Policia Nacional, officers swooped in on the gang in ‘Operation Pino’ on June 8.
A Policia Nacional source in Malaga told the Olive Press the men’s initials are CB, GH and PK, but said they did not know where the men were from in the UK.
