Alex Trelinski
THE Guardia Civil has thwarted the theft of nearly half a tonne of olives in Sevilla province that had been illegally harvested by seven pickers.
The workers- all illegally employed- were caught red-handed on a Albaida del Aljaraje farm and had already loaded up 465 kilos of manzanilla-variety olives into vehicles.
The group was led by a woman from Paterna del Campo in Huelva province.
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She said they had been hired by a person who sent out olive pickers to other people’s farms and falsely claimed they were abandoned or unused land.
The person who hired the workers used fake Transport Accompanying Documents (DAT) so that the stolen olives could be sold with bogus proof of origin, therefore compromising any traceability.
The olives were returned to their rightful owner.
On August 12, Guardia officers arrested a man for doing damage to a farm in Benacazon, Sevilla province.
He caused significant damage to the irrigation system covering several hectares of olive groves and therefore endangering the harvest.
During the previous 2023/2024 harvest, the Guardia arrested 48 people for olive thefts around Spain and recovered 213,489 kilos of olives.
In addition to the arrests, an additional 371 people were investigated.
In Sevilla province alone, 1,500 Guardia operations were carried out and around 150,000 kilos of stolen olives seized.
