Lauryn Hulston
VALENCIAN Guardia Civil officers have arrested five people from an organised criminal group who were responsible for setting up a giant marijuana plantation and selling the drugs internationally.
The operation started in March when police were tipped off about a possible marijuana plantation inside a home in Paiporta.
Officers then noticed that the man who worked installing all of the materials inside the setup, was not placed in Spain’s social security system, and was working illegally.
There was also a strong smell of marijuana emerging from the property, police said.
The home had four residents, all of Albanian origin, who were in charge of transporting the necessary equipment to cultivate the plants.
The person in charge of the entire operation was an Italian national.
The man’s role was to seek out people from eastern European countries who were in search of a home, and convince them to travel to Spain under the proviso they would live in a house under his name.
A 43-year-old Spanish man also had some involvement.
Police said his role involved installing equipment such as lamps, a ventilation system, air conditioning, and a way to illegally apply a power supply.
In order to achieve this, they placed a tunnel that surpassed the street below the paving, which allowed them to operate undetected.
After searching the house, police seized 248 high-power transformers, 72 lamps, seven air conditioning machines, 44 ventilators, a vehicle, €1,400 in cash, and 712 marijuana plants which weighed up to 18kg.
Between July and September five men were arrested, three Albanian of 22, 23, and 26 years of age; one from the Czech Republic, 26, and a 43-year-old Spanish man.
Four of the men were in custody indefinitely. In regards to the man in charge of running the plantation, his location was yet to be discovered.
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