Alex Trelinski
TWO MEN running an indoor marijuana farm tried to escape their luxury Costa Blanca rental villa by going onto the roof when the Policia Nacional paid them a visit.
They clambered up from their upper floor terrace in Almoradi where they planned to climb down to the road to flee the clutches of the authorities.
The Albanian nationals, aged 19 and 23, abandoned the idea when they realised the move would have been futile with the property surrounded at ground level by police officers.
The men have been charged with drug trafficking and the illegal use of electricity.
The Policia Nacional received information from neighbours that marijuana was being grown inside an Almoradi property.
They then accessed details from an electricity company that confirmed excess supplies were being used at the villa.
Items removed by officers from the property included 850 marijuana plants almost two meters high.
That was in addition to electrical and other gear to ensure a good crop including light bulbs, transformers, air conditioners, carbon filters, fans, chemical fertilisers and 150 bags of fertiliser.
In July, a six month Guardia Civil operation brought down an Albanian-led drugs gang that used luxury Costa Blanca villas as marijuana farms.
Four simultaneous raids in Alicante, Altea, and Castalla resulted in eight of the detainees being jailed.
One of the gang leaders tried to flee through a balcony, but was caught by Guardia officers on the terrace of a nearby house.
Items seized included two firearms, 1,592 marijuana plants, €1,005 in cash, and two high-end cars.
To make the marijuana plantations more efficient and profitable, the criminals made illegal connections to the electricity grid defrauding suppliers to the tune of €196,782.
That same month, authorities revealed that 26 members of an Albanian-Spanish drugs gang had been arrested and narcotics with a street value of over €3 million seized after 16 properties in Alicante, Barcelona, Murcia and Torrevieja were raided.
Over 500 kilos of marijuana ready for sale, nine cars used by the gang, and €70,000 in cash were removed in the joint Guardia Civil-Policia Nacional operation.
Investigations took place over several months with the Torrevieja and Murcia-based gang supplying drugs from growers that would then be despatched to Albanian members of the crew living locally.
They in turn would take the marijuana buds and hashish and package them up- camouflaged- inside cardboard boxes that would be sent to different parts of Germany.
To give added security, a large number of boxes were transferred to Barcelona where they were stored pending subsequent shipment.
The names of senders and recipients of the cardboard box shipments were always fictitious to try to make their true origin difficult to locate in case the police got involved.
READ MORE:
- International gang used luxury villas to grow marijuana on Spain’s Costa Blanca
- British drugs gang arrested on Spain’s Costa Blanca for exporting marijuana to Ireland
- Luxury rental villas on Spain’s Costa Blanca converted into marijuana farms
