Briton arrested in Altea drug swoop
A BRITISH man has been arrested in connection with a marijuana growing operation in Altea, Crevillente and San Fulgencio.
The 48-year-old is accused of working with two men from Montenegro, renting suitable houses for them to set up plantations.
According to a Guardia Civil spokesman, the investigation began after fire destroyed a house in an Altea urbanisation on July 15.
The occupants fled before the emergency services arrived, abandoning a dog of a potentially dangerous breed, which had to be taken to an animal welfare association in Benidorm.
The blaze had been caused by a short circuit on a large, illegal electrical installation for a cannabis plantation of in the basement, which had also been incinerated. Packages containing 4.5 kilos of marijuana buds were also found in the house.
Other evidence enabled investigators to discover, months later, that the same occupants had rented an isolated house in rural Crevillente for the same purpose.
Officers searched this house and arrested the two Montenegrins,
aged 44 and 42, catching one of them as he tried to escape across the rooftop.
In the basement they discovered 1,329 cannabis plants which had grown 1.2 metres high and were almost ready to harvest, as well as a large electrical installation.
They also found a rental contract signed just a week before, for a house in an urbanisation in San Fulgencio where the suspects apparently intended to set up another plantation. At the house in San Fulgencio, officers found several fake Slovenian passports which one of the Montenegrins had allegedly used a few days previously to obtain a foreigners’ identification number (NIE) to carry out the gang’s financial transactions in Spain.
The British man was located and arrested in Altea a few hours after the raid in Crevillente.
The value of the marijuana is estimated to be around €400,000 and that of the electrical equipment about €60,000.
The three suspects are accused of drug dealing, electricity fraud, document forgery and belonging to a criminal organisation, and a court has denied them bail and placed them in provisional custody.