ARCHIVED - Massive Colombian-style marijuana plantation found in the forests of Aragón

16,000 plants destroyed as an Albanian gang also face charges for petrol station heists

Another Colombian-style marijuana plantation has been discovered by the Policía Nacional in the forests of northern Spain, this time in the region of Aragón, with those arrested in connection with the finding again being of Albanian nationality.

This follows the busting of three large marijuana plantations last month in the mountains of the Serranía de Cuenca, in central eastern Spain, where the provincial police chief, Francisco Sánchez, reported that the scene looked more like a plantation in the jungle of Colombia than the mountains of Cuenca and it took two days for over two tons of marijuana, worth over 11 million euros, to be removed and taken to be destroyed.

On that occasion four Albanians were arrested, and a month previously another 4,600 plants were discovered in the natural park of the Sierra Norte in Guadalajara in September. In both cases the cultivators lived in a camps in the forest and had built separate drying shelters for their “harvests”, and a similar scenario was discovered recently in the forests between provinces of Huesca and Zaragoza, where the 16,000 marijuana plants taken into police custody constitute the largest plantation ever found in the region of Aragón.

The police report that the plantation was located in an area which is difficult to reach, where a clearing had been created among the pine groves of Agüero and Murillo de Gallego. The crops were watched over 24 hours a day by members of the group who lived in the forest camps, and the same group has also been found to be responsible for 10 robberies and other offences in committed in the city of Huesca and in Sariñena and Nueno.

It was in April of this year that investigations began into these robberies, which were carried out in bars and petrol stations where the gang completely removed the cigarette machine from the interior, took it away on a trailer and dismantled it in the nearby countryside. Investigation officers determined at this point that the individuals identified could be involved in the growth of large amounts of marijuana, and eventually the plantation was found in an area which was reached by first driving 4-by-4s for half an hour in the woods and then making another 30-minute trek on foot.

In order to grow the marijuana the gang had diverted natural water runoff channels and ditches, feeding them into a series of pipes and hoses. Generators were then used to pump the water to the plantation, and due to the remoteness of the location and the difficult terrain the whole plantation was considered to be adequately protected from the prying eyes of the law.

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