Police in Spain discovered a huge marijuana grow operation that took up three floors of a disused hotel north of Barcelona.
Nearly 2,500 plants were seized by the Mossos d’Esquadra, or Catalan police force, at the hotel in the scenic coastal town of Pineda de Mar, RT reports. Two Russian women and two Spanish men were taken into custody as part of the operation on Wednesday, March 16. The Mossos d’Esquadra tweeted several photos of the bust the following day, which showed officers entering the hotel, as well as numerous plants in various stages of growth inside the hotel.
In a statement issued last Thursday, the Mossos d’Esquadra said that the operation, which reportedly began at least a year ago, occupied three of the five floors in the hotel, and would have eventually taken up the entire building. As the report noted, “The group was preparing other rooms on other floors to increase the area of cultivation.” The estimated value of the plants seized in the raid was 60,000 Euros (approximately $67,000 U.S.), and required multiple truckloads to transport to custody.
The operation, which was conducted with the help of local police, also seized equipment used by the group to care for the plants, including ventilation equipment, air conditioning and humidification systems, and fertilizer. Despite the amount of plants and related material uncovered in the raid, Silvia Biosca, third deputy mayor of Pineda de Mar, said the operation appeared to be the work of amateurs. “I don’t think that this involved an influential criminal organization, but was a group of friends who built their own little business in this hotel,” she told VICE News.
According to Biosca, police were alerted to the operation by neighbors of the hotel, who complained about the smell of marijuana coming from the building. The four individuals arrested in the operation will appear in court to face charges of public health offenses, association with a criminal group, and energy fraud—the latter due to the alleged theft of public electrical power to run their equipment. The Pineda de Mar raid came on the heels of another marijuana grow bust in Barcelona, where some 756 plants were seized, according to RT.