Last Monday, three detainees in two warehouses of the Berenguer de Cabrianes industrial estate, in Sallent, with 2,500 marijuana plants. On Wednesday, in a house in the Lloret Residencial urbanization of Lloret de Mar, two detainees in a crop with 166 plants and 180 cuttings. That same day, in Ginestar, Ribera d'Ebre, a detainee in a greenhouse with 3,200 plants. Also on Wednesday, two others were arrested in separate chalets in Lleida, connected by the garden and with all the space reserved for marijuana with 5,200 plants and four kilos of already packaged buds. On Thursday, in Corçà, Baix Empordà, two detainees in a farmhouse with 892 plants. At almost the same time, on two floors on the same landing at number 19 Calle Llevant in the La Mina neighborhood of Sant Adrià de Besòs, 853 floors were located, but no one inside. Also on Thursday, in Albí, Les Borges Blanques, a detainee in a farmhouse with 500 plants and seven kilos of buds. In Calafell, the judicial committee that was participating in an eviction on Comte Gómez de Orbaneja street located 240 plants. The squatter was arrested. On Friday, two men fled from a plantation of 1,200 plants hidden in the forest, in the Espinelves stream.
This list of marijuana seizures, between Monday and Friday of last week, is just a small sample of all the police operations that are carried out daily in Catalonia led by Mossos d'Esquadra, National Police, Civil Guard, practically all of them. the municipal police and the Tax Agency. A true plague, that of cannabis, which the national mafia clans continue to indisputably lead, but in which the Albanians have advanced positions.
These citizens of Eastern Europe began with the boom to work like crushers in the crops, in undignified conditions, as gardeners, security guards and whatever it took. Over time, some have been able to create and lead their own criminal organizations, and their slice of this long-awaited pie is growing. These new marijuana bosses employ compatriots for hire and treat them like slaves, who in many cases arrive deceived 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 entry into an old rented warehouse in an alley of a polygon on the outskirts of Granollers.
Inside, two Albanians who barely spoke English were surprised while they slept in the old company offices, converted into a house from which the two men never left, not even to breathe.
With all the windows boarded up, they only opened once a week for a delivery man who brought them ready-made food. On the first floor, an old refrigerator hid the masonry hole that hooked up the plantation's electricity to the street outlet.
The two large spaces of the ship had been converted into a nursery. Culture times were differentiated. Some plants were only a few weeks old, and in the neighboring shed there were still remains of a recently harvested crop and the cuttings prepared for a new planting.
Sodium lamps, air conditioning and fans created in both rooms the tropical microclimate that marijuana needs to grow. Three giant drums collected the water condensed by the air conditioners. A water that, treated with fertilizers and chemicals, was reused for irrigation.
Neither of the two men spoke to the investigators while the police operation lasted, of which the lawyer from the Granollers administration of justice drew up the minutes. The police counted 2,962 plants from which they took samples to deliver to the court along with the detainees and the report. The rest of the plants, together with the sodium lamps and fans, were taken 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.
