On Monday, three arrested in two warehouses of the Berenguer de Cabrianes estate, in Sallent, with 2,500 marijuana plants. Wednesday, in a house in the Lloret Residencial development in Lloret de Mar, two arrested in a crop with 166 plants and 180 cuttings. That same day, in Ginestar, Ribera d’Ebre, an arrestee in a greenhouse with 3,200 plants. Also on Wednesday, another two arrested in villas in Lleida, communicated by the garden, and with all the space reserved for marijuana, with 5,200 plants and 4 kilos of buds already packaged. Thursday, in Corçà, Baix Empordà, two arrested in a farmhouse with 892 plants. Almost at the same time, 853 plants were located on two floors of the same landing at number 19 of Carrer Llevant in the Mina de Sant Adrià de Besòs neighborhood, but no one was inside. Also on Thursday, in Albí, les Borges Blanques, an arrestee in a farmhouse with 500 plants and 7 kilos of buds. In Calafell, the judicial entourage participating in an eviction on Comte Gómez de Orbaneja Street located 240 plants. The squatter was arrested. On Friday, two men escaped from a plantation of 1,200 plants hidden in the forest, in the Espinelves creek.
This list of marijuana confiscations, between Monday and Friday of last week, is just a small sample of all the police operations that are carried out daily in Catalonia by the Mossos d’Esquadra, the National Police, the Civil Guard, practically all municipal police and the Tax Agency. A real plague, that of cannabis, which continues to lead indisputably the national mafia clans, but in which the Albanians have advanced positions.
These citizens of Eastern Europe started with the boom to work as the lowest rung in the crops, in unworthy conditions, acting as gardeners, watchmen and whatever was needed. Over time, some have been able to create and lead their own criminal organizations and their portion of this coveted pie is getting bigger and bigger. The new kingpins of marijuana use and treat compatriots as slaves who in many cases arrive tricked from their country.
A few days ago, two journalists from La Vanguardia accompanied the investigation unit and the customs surveillance intervention group to a judicial entrance in an old rented ship in an alley of an estate on the outskirts of Granollers.
Inside, two Albanians who barely spoke English were caught sleeping in the company’s old offices, converted into a home where the two men never left, not even to breathe.
With all the windows boarded up, they opened only once a week to a delivery man who brought them ready-made food. On the first floor, an old refrigerator hid the construction pit that connected the plantation’s electricity to the street outlet.
Cultivation times were different. Some plants were only a few weeks old, and in the neighboring ship there were still remnants of a freshly harvested crop and cuttings prepared for a new planting.
Sodium lamps, air conditioning and fans created in the two rooms the tropical microclimate that marijuana needs to grow. Three giant drums collected the condensed water from the air conditioners. A water treated with fertilizers and chemicals that was reused for irrigation.
Neither of the two men spoke to the investigators during the police operation, of which the lawyer of the Granollers administration of justice made a report. The police counted 2,962 plants, from which they took samples to deliver to the court with the arrested and the certificate. The rest of the plants, along with the sodium lamps and fans, were taken away by a service company hired by customs surveillance, which for years has been in charge of destroying all this material with prior judicial authorization.
Last year in Catalonia, 40% of those arrested for marijuana were Spanish. The second nationality was Albanian, with 15%, followed by Moroccan, with 9%. The latter are basically dedicated to logistics tasks. The production and trafficking of marijuana is a crime in which, in the same investigation, it is common for several nationalities to appear involved. In a recent one of the Mossos, up to eleven different origins were counted.
