Tax Agency and the National Police have dismantled a criminal organisation dedicated to the illegal cultivation, drying, conditioning and distribution of marijuana in the municipality of San Pedro del Pinatar (Murcia).
In the operation known as ‘Dogo/Ahumados’, 4,600 dried plants, buds with a total weight of 1,600 kilos and leaves corresponding to another 500 dried plants have been seized and six people have been arrested, three Spaniards and three Moroccans, according to sources from the Tax Agency in a press release.
The investigation led the investigators to identify a large industrial warehouse where the members of the organisation, assisted by workers, could be carrying out the activities of drying the plants, handling and separating the buds, leaves and stems and preparing them to be sent by parcel to distributors or consumers.
On the morning of 14 October, investigators from the Tax Agency’s Customs Surveillance and the National Police broke into the warehouse and discovered that marijuana drying, handling and packaging activities were indeed taking place inside.
At that moment, once the suspects were identified, they proceeded to arrest six people and seized the drugs, as well as the tools and implements found.
The investigators found that the plantations appeared to be justified as a business activity dedicated to obtaining hemp for the textile and footwear sector, a circumstance that contrasts with the fact that the variants of marijuana they were cultivating are those that contain a higher percentage of the active ingredient.
The offences attributed to the suspects are crimes against public health, against workers’ rights and fraudulent use of electricity. The police proceedings, the detainees and the effects seized were placed at the disposal of the Court of First Instance and Instruction of San Javier on duty on 16 October.
