The National Police continues and intensifies its fight against drug trafficking and in particular against the proliferation of marijuana crops that has not been interrupted despite the COVID 19 pandemic. During the last year the agents of the different Police Stations of the National Police in the province of Alicante have arrested 291 people accused of growing or trafficking with this substance, in addition they have intervened 3.994 kilos of marijuana already collected and more than 25.000 plants.
Most of the plantations have been located inside buildings where the so-called indoor or "indoor" plantations had been installed. The typology of the places that house marijuana is increasingly varied and ranges from previously occupied apartments to luxury villas for which a high rental income is paid. Plantations have also been dismantled in industrial warehouses or restaurant buildings or other businesses that ceased their activity and that were used by those arrested to house large marijuana plantations.
One of the effects of the pandemic has been its impact on economic activity in various sectors. The lack of employment and the increase in time not occupied has caused an increase in the demand for the consumption of narcotic substances, specifically the use of marijuana. Thus, with this new circumstance, it has been observed that industrial buildings dedicated to legal activities, such as the manufacture of Elda footwear, ceased their activity due to losses and were used as greenhouses for indoor marijuana crops. This phenomenon has also occurred in the real estate sector, where when the apartments were left empty, without being rented for several months, they undertook the same activity, developing the cultivation of marijuana in the same way. People who changed their work activity to this illegal activity used delivery methods that mimicked those of legal businesses, carrying backpacks with the same anagrams with the intention of avoiding police action.
Over time, indoor plantations have become more sophisticated, irrigation systems and artificial lighting have improved, achieving an increase in the illicit benefits provided by this drug by achieving better crop yields, both in the number of plants per square meter as in the number of crops that occur per year, also improving the seeds and fertilizers used, allowing uninterrupted harvest cycles.
To maintain this infrastructure a large energy consumption is necessary, so in most cases the detainees had illegally connected to the electricity supply, with the risk that this implies for neighbors and cohabitants in the event that the plantation is located in a residential building. In this way, several of the crops discovered were discovered after a fire broke out in the floor that housed them due to the aforementioned fraud of electricity.
In these operations against the cultivation of marijuana, the electricity supply companies have collaborated, not only in detecting voltage peaks or deviations, which in many cases indicates to researchers that they are undoubtedly found before this type of plantation, but for, once the operation is concluded, restore the supply and eliminate the illegal hookups to eliminate the risk of fire that this type of fraud generates for the rest of the citizenry.
Another important note for the detection by the National Police of the location of this drug is citizen collaboration, both in buildings and in chalets, on many occasions the first news reaches the agents from the neighbors who support any of the annoyances that the cultivation of the drug causes, strong odor, extractors or air conditioners operating day and night and power cuts due to the demand of the plantation. Many of these communications have been received through the internet, from the WEB portal of the National Police. Information that is transferred to the investigation groups and that is verified by the agents, subsequently leading to the dismantling of numerous plantations.
Several of these operations have focused on the investigation of cannabis associations in the towns of Alicante, Benidorm and Dénia, specifically in seven of them that under the guise of private clubs were actually used to traffic marijuana, arresting those responsible for such associations and achieving their closure. Premises that in most cases were in the center of cities and caused significant inconvenience to neighbors with the movement of people, noise and other inconveniences.
The National Police does not skimp on personnel or resources to develop this work against drug trafficking, even using aerial means, thermal cameras that detect heat sources, new data analysis investigation techniques that are added and they are combined with the police operations of a lifetime, giving such good results.
The detainees are of a wide variety of nationalities, Spanish, citizens of European and Eastern European countries, English and even Chinese. Many of them are part of criminal organizations that grow marijuana in Spain and then distribute it to third countries, using trucks, vehicles or even by postal or parcel services.
