CATALONIA – The Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalan police) have arrested 14 people and dismantled a criminal group specialising in the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana in the Camp de Tarragona area.
The investigation began at the end of last year. This was as a result of information received by the Urban Crime Group of the police station in Salou. Officers there learned that a group of people were growing and distributing large amounts of marijuana.
Operation Koman
Based on this information, DIC agents took charge of the case, named “Koman”. They were then able to identify several people who were at the top of the criminal group.
Cultivation of marijuana
According to the investigation, the leaders of the group used their members to act as farmers in the plantations, most of them intensively cultivated, which they installed in industrial buildings or single-family houses in areas with little neighbourhood activity.
The gang distributed the plantations so they would have all the possible growth stages of the plants.
Marijuana plantations
Investigators were able to locate up to six buildings where the gang had marijuana plantations. In all of them the level of the installation was very high and allowed an intensive cultivation that would have yielded between 4 and 5 collections of buds per year. To enable them to grow to that intensity, they had made fraudulent light connections which would have had a high electricity consumption.
Arrested
With this knowledge, and the main members of the gang already identified, police closed in on them. And, on July 5, they arrested 14 people aged between 20 and 51 years. The arrest included the search of 9 premises where initially 12 people were detained. The other 2 members of the gang were later arrested. Among those was a man who already had a European warrant out for his arrest in Italy for crimes against public health.
The 14 were arrested as alleged perpetrators of crimes against public health, membership of a criminal organisation, and electricity fraud.
Seized
More than 50 kilos of marijuana prepared for sale were seized at the 9 properties during the searches of industrial buildings and homes.
At the marijuana plantations more than 2,600 plants and up to 54 kilograms of marijuana buds prepared for distribution were found. A large number of devices for intensive marijuana cultivation, and €21,400 in cash and were also seized.
Searched
The plantations were in the municipalities of Tarragona, Querol, Vic, L’Ametlla de Mar, Vandellòs and L’Hospitalet de l’Infant and Mont-roig del Camp. Three homes were also searched. One in Vila-seca and two in Salou.
Prison
The 14 arrested attended court last Thursday whereby the judge ordered the imprisonment of 5 of them. However, the others were released but had their passports withdrawn, and received a ban on leaving the country.
