Grow house busts continue

THE GUARDIA Civil dismantled four marijuana plantations in Los Alcázares with approximately 500 plants and advanced lighting, heating, irrigation and ventilation systems.

This year officers have been inspecting homes outside the town centre which belong to banks or estate agencies but were illegally occupied. Some of the squatters not only lived there but had also set up sophisticated greenhouses capable of producing several harvests each year using equipment illegally connected to the electricity grid.

When officers raided the homes they caught a man looking after the plantation at one of them. A 28-year-old Spanish resident is accused of a public health offence, occupying housing without consent, and electricity fraud but further arrests have not been ruled out.

Guardia Civil in San Juan de Alicante dismantled two more plantations. A Lithuanian man fled the house he was renting when officers arrived but was caught hours later by local police. Four rooms had been converted to grow marijuana, using a system to control the temperature and light via the internet. Officers seized 641 plants, 900 grams of marijuana buds, 28 grams of hashish, €600 in cash, and equipment including lights, fans, humidifiers and air conditioners. A judge remanded the 37-year-old suspect in custody. Officers also raided a house in Alicante city, where the tenant – a 66-year-old Dutch man – used two rooms to grow marijuana.