Between the summer of 2022 and 2023, the Mossos d'Esquadra have dismantled two criminal groups specialized in growing marijuana plantations outside and in difficult-to-access areas of the Catalan Pyrenees. The agents have identified 21 people as alleged perpetrators of crimes involving membership in a criminal organization and against public health.
The police have destroyed a total of 27,000 plants that represent 8.1 tons of drugs, with an estimated value in the illicit market of 16 million euros for sale to drug traffickers and 49 million in retail sales. The illegal activity extended to Poniente and Central Catalonia. Thus, plantations have been dismantled in Alt Urgell, Pallars Jussà, Pallars Sobirà, Noguera and Osona.
The first phase of the police investigation began in July 2022 with the discovery of an outdoor plantation in the Baronia de Rialb (Noguera) run by an organization that carried out cultivation, maintenance, care and surveillance of the space. The Mossos began a series of surveillance and concluded that at least four people work there.
On September 6, 2022, the police entered the plantation that required the support of the Special Intervention Group due to the involvement of the organized criminal specialized in this type of crime. According to the Mossos, these types of groups usually install dangerous traps at the entrances to the plantation to avoid drug assaults or to delay police interventions and give the members more time to escape.
In total, agents located more than 1,800 plants representing more than 500 kilos of marijuana. Its value on the illicit market would have been more than three million euros. Following the dismantling of the first plantation, on September 6, 2022, a very nearby one was detected, also in Baronia de Rialb, which was dismantled a few months later, with the result of 3,000 plants destroyed and three arrested.
At the end of 2022, the Tremp Investigation Unit located in Sarroca de Bellera (Pallars Jussà) a deforested space with obvious signs of having recently been used with an open-air marijuana plantation in a remote area surrounded by forest. Upon learning of this fact, a joint work team was initiated with the Criminal Investigation Division (DIC) to find out who could be responsible for this cultivation point.
Months later, at the end of April 2023, investigators were aware of the resumption of criminal activity in the same cultivation area. The agents documented through surveillance and monitoring that they had four people in charge of the space who carried out care and cultivation tasks, and two more who were in charge of transportation and logistics.
Within the framework of the investigation, the Mossos detected that these same people also ran two plantation properties located in Senterada and Torre de Repolla (Pallars Jussà) and another in Rupit and Pruit (Osona). In total they managed four large outdoor cultivation points.
With all the evidence collected, on September 13, 2023, simultaneous entries were made to the four points, as well as to some of the homes of those investigated in Lloret de Mar (La Selva). In the operation, investigators arrested nine people and dismantled more than 6,000 marijuana plants in the four plantations in total, more than half of these in the Sarroca de Bellera plantation.
The visual inspections and the work of the researchers in these cases have concluded that these types of plantations share the same common denominator. In all cases, the spaces present identical characteristic elements of the open-air plantations managed by the criminal organization with differentiated growing and living areas, spaces for drying and packaging marijuana, and a water collection point in a nearby river. Furthermore, they are located in a remote place, inaccessible by vehicle.
According to the police, several people lived at the points for an undetermined period of time. Thus, during the entries the agents located mattresses, sleeping bags and kitchen utensils. On the other hand, they showed signs of manipulation of marijuana plants. The police found remains (trunks and branches), which would have been separated from the consumable part (leaves and buds) before packaging it. Likewise, it had a water collection point with a pump on, an infrastructure developed to guarantee the registration of the plantation with hoses, generators and small embassies or swimming pools.
This type of plantation implies a very marked modus operandi of the people who run the spaces. Initially they are in charge of preparing the land, since the ground is steep and not suitable for cultivation, they must clear all those branches and bushes that hinder the cultivation of plants to obtain optimal growing conditions. Then they install the irrigation system that provides water and other nutrients to the plants.
In relation to water use, the needs of plants also require continuous irrigation, which generates very high consumption. Hence, these outdoor marijuana plantations must have a constant supply. In this sense, the police found large deposits in many plantations, many meters of hose and pumping equipment. This water was later treated with fertilizers and chemicals to condition it for irrigation of the plants.
The cycle of these crops usually lasts between three and five months, in their growth, flowering and maturation phases depending on the type of plant and fertilizers used. From that moment on, the functions of the people responsible for caring for the plantation are to water the plants and provide the appropriate supplements for their growth.
Once the plantation is ready for harvesting, those responsible for the plantation are responsible for defending the harvest from looting by other organizations or by someone who takes advantage of the opportunity to steal marijuana. In other investigations it has been proven that once the marijuana buds are dry and suitable for consumption, they are vacuum packed and transported to their final destination, which is usually countries in northern Europe, where the price of marijuana marijuana can double or triple the sale price in Catalonia.
