The fight against marijuana is enquista in Catalonia: « We are not winning » | News from Catalonia

The Mossos d’Esquadra began to Look at marijuana with concern in 2017. Much effort, communication and insistence later, they managed to place on the public agenda the problem of cultivation of this drug, perceived as soft. « If it is a country of passage, we have become producers: first of marijuana and, with it, other drugs, » laments sub -inspector Albert Full, head of the central area of ​​analysis of the Mossos, about the consequences of being one of the main gardens of Europe. Despite the dedication (only last year, the Mossos intervened more than half a million plants, started 400 plantations, arrested 2,000 people and directed more than 600 investigations), the drug escapes from their hands. « We are not folding the curve, we are not winning, » admits the subinspector, who says that all indicators show « an upward trend. » And alert that it is an introduction of young people to crime.

The biggest challenge lies in the settlement of criminal organizations in Catalonia, which has ceased to be a place only transit. « Organized crime is here and now looks for other spaces to traffic, » reasons the sub -inspector, who says that for the first time they have found and dismantled cocaine laboratories. They have also detected in the last two years a resurgence of hashish, partly due to pressure in southern Spain. « If the offender who in Catalonia dominates marijuana, in traffic Europe with cocaine, will take advantage of to traffic with this second drug also here, » he adds, on how the territory is already a base camp for criminal structures. Some organizations that also function as companies for hunting: the money they earn with marijuana reinvizes it in cargoes of other substances. « As they have enriched they have gained investment capacity, » he analyzes.

The most serious consequences are palpated in some very specific neighborhoods, in which drug trafficking functions as a virus, which infects the system, to turn it into a narcosociedad. « The risk has increased, » warns the sub -inspector, which cites two cases: The font of gunpowderin Girona, and La Mina, in Sant Adrià de Besòs (Barcelona). There the cultivation and traffic of marijuana, in the hands of family clans, has replaced a good part of the legal economy. The most visible face is the quarrels, shootings and clashes, even with the police. The traffickers « have been able to do more control », « there is a domain of organized crime over the State, » abounds. « They decide who occupies a floor and who does not, » they press, and even « force to give homes to mount plantations. » « These are cases in which authority openly challenge, not only the police, also of the State in general, » he insists. As an example, he quotes the case of the clans, the electrical wiring at night, and deciding the next day, when the technicians come to install them again, where they should pass: « closer to the houses that they have destined for marijuana. » It is a very worrying, but very limited situation, reassures the police command.

The fixed photograph of the way in which marijuana has also been cultivated since the police They walked, curious, by the macro spannabis fair: An annual legal market that surrounds marijuana, where everything necessary for crop is displayed, buys and sold. Of seeds, to fertilizers, through lights, fans, humidifiers and all kinds of remote controls … then there was a boom of people without a history, who approached that world with expectations and curiosity. They used to inform themselves in Growshopsthe stores where products that allow to set up a plantation are sold, but they did not know that some of them were directed by criminals. The groups sold everything they needed, they waited for the flowers to grow and grow, and then assaulted them. « They did not know that they had stolen them themselves, » with those who had contracted a debt, recalls the sub -inspector.

Almost a decade later, the marijuana business and its cultivators have sophisticated. From the hand of technological improvements, home automation allows to control the plantations almost at distance. Mossos compare the data with 2019 and prove that one of the most notable changes has been the reduction of exterior plants. « They have gone from 35% to 13% last year, » explains full. One of the key moments was drought, which made it more and more difficult to carry out the outdoor plantations, with the added complication of looking for remote places, with some possibility of irrigation, away from the view of the police drones. « Technological aids have played us in favor, » admits the sub -inspector, who says they also control them through satellite images.

The interior plantations are majority, more profitable and have also mutated. “The first ships were very technified, very prepared, in the hands of a crime that had taken the passage of the workshops (clandestine clothing) to the plantations Indoor”, Says the sub -inspector. Now the vast majority are“ medium ”plantations of some 600 plants, which are customary to grow in floors, houses or in industrial ships, in remote polygons. To protect them « Electric fraud » persists because it is an important expense. Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC, psychoactive substance) when the current average is 13%.

With the greatest profits and professionalization of the sector, the protection of traffickers has increased. « In the rural environment, we had found traps of all kinds: skewers on the ground, electrifications, even some ballistics, » recalls the sub -inspector. « Now, to repel narcoasaltos or to assault, the gardeners of firearms are provided, » admits the police command, about a reality that worries the Mossos (only last year the weapons of Fire linked to criminal acts, with 445 intervened weapons, including War 21). « It has even chosen to hire hitmen, with long, short and semi -automatic weapons, and is increasing, » alerts the police command. Those firearms are usually used in Turk (robberies between traffickers), which have grown in parallel. If in 2019 the Mossos They investigated 14 cases, last year they had knowledge of 79 Turktaking into account that it is a phenomenon with a high black figure: its protagonists do not usually denounce it.

The police do not see in the short term a better future, and warns that marijuana is the gateway to the crime of many people: approximately half of the detainees have no previous background. « It is an introduction sector for young people, which has not had a way out, which has not found an opportunity to place themselves in the labor market, » reflects the sub -inspector. And insists that the solution is not only police. « It takes a common effort, » he says, with an impact on other areas. « Medical, to study the danger of this drug; social, to find young people before they enter this world; legislative, to match penalties in Europe … », he proposes, about a global problem, difficult to eradicate.