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29TH SEPTEMBER - 5TH OCTOBER 2020 - EDITION 858
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Your Essential Weekly Read
Major drugs bust on the coast There were dramatic scenes this week as armed Guardia Civil raided villas on the coast in a major, coordinated drugs bust.
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Officers arrested twelve alleged members of a drug trafficking gang that had five marijuana plantations hidden in the underbuilds of rented luxury villas. The officers carried out eight simultaneous raids in San Miguel de Salinas, Rojales and Orihuela Costa, where they seized 2,953 mature marijuana plants, 1.6 kilos of buds already packed for distribution and various doses of cocaine, MDMA and
hashish oil, some believed to be for the personal consumption of the members of the gang. The Guardia Civil estimate that the value of the seized drugs on the black market would be in excess of €60,000. The investigators also seized €45,000 and 4,000 pounds sterling in cash, five highend cars, a gun, two electric pistols and numerous luxury watches, among other effects. Police sources say that the leaders of the gang lived the high-life, spending €2,000 a night on expensive champagne and installing luxury gyms in the rental villas for gang members to enjoy. The Judicial Police Team of the Guardia Civil in Pilar de la Horadada began initial investigations after a complaint was filed at the end of January by a member of the public regarding the occupation of a house in San Miguel de Salinas. The house had already been vacated but officers realised that it had been used to grow marijuana and thus began an arduous investigation to uncover the network. Investigators discovered that the gang searched for large unoccupied houses
with gardens and then used falsified rental contracts in the name of foreign people to register for utility services such as water and electricity. Once installed in the house, they then prepared the properties for the indoor cultivation of marijuana. For this they relied on one of the gang members who had studied agronomy. The two gang leaders are aged 23 and 28 years old and in their personal homes the Guardia Civil located hundreds of bottles of top-quality champagne, as well as designer clothing and jewellery. According to investigators, the group was also obsessed with security. They hired alarm and video surveillance services and also kept all kinds of weapons close at hand to deal with any surprises. As if that were not enough, in each house had dangerous breeds as guard dogs. During the raids, police wore body cams and dramatic footage of the officers swarming the homes, and of the arrests can be seen at: https://youtu.be/s98j7gq9No
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