This is called a big catch.
On Wednesday, the Spanish authorities announced that a gigantic industrial farm of 415,000 cannabis plants, spread over 67 hectares in the open air and with an estimated market value of 30 million euros, had been dismantled in the north of the country.
This exploitation was "the largest cannabis cultivation in Europe" discovered to date, say in a joint statement the Civil Guard and the police of the Navarre region.
These plants were intended for countries like "Switzerland or Italy" to be transformed into CBD (cannabidiol, the relaxing molecule without narcotic effect) and other derivatives, said the police.
Once processed, these hemp plants (cannabis sativa) could have reached a total value of 100 million euros on the market, according to the estimate provided in the press release.
Operación conjunta con @guardiacivil: desmantelamos la mayor plantación de cáñamo industrial de Europa destinada al tráfico de drogas.
415,000 plants, 87,500 kg cogollos.
Compañero fuera de servicio descubrió uno de los cultivos y commenzó la investigation #BuenTrabajo #cannabis pic.twitter.com/BW2U1hcqF8
— Policia Foral - Foruzaingoa (@policiaforal_na) April 13, 2022
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Three arrests
A large industrial hangar allowed the drying of these plants, distributed among 11 plots in the neighboring towns of Artajona and Olite, near Pamplona, the capital of Navarre.
The operations manager initially told investigators that the production was for “industrial use,” the statement said.
Use for industrial or pharmaceutical purposes is legal in Spain with authorization, but production for transformation into CBD and derivative products is illegal, explained a spokesman for the Civil Guard.
Three people have been arrested in connection with this investigation.
Spain is one of the leading producers of cannabis in Europe, with almost half of the plants seized in the European Union, according to the latest report from the European Monitoring Center on Drugs (EMCDDA).
More than 2.3 million cannabis plants were seized in Spain in 2021, three times more than in 2016, according to the latest figures from the Interior Ministry.
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