In order to sell marijuana on a wide scale, they were cultivating a lot of it in an apartment in Elche and laundering the proceeds through a car wash in a Valencia town. According to sources involved in the inquiry, the National Police have dissolved the network after apprehending seven suspected members, all of whom are Bulgarian nationals.

The police started the investigation in November of last year after learning about a group of Bulgarian-born people living in the Valencia region who were heavily involved in the production and export of marijuana. The information obtained indicates that the suspects operated a business to launder the profits after exporting the narcotic via authorised transportation.

To dismantle the organisation, the General Judicial Police Station’s Illicit Vehicle Trafficking group and the Valencia Provincial Judicial Police Brigade’s Organised Crime group organised an operation.

The network’s ringleaders enjoyed a high quality of living, according to preliminary findings. According to the same sources, the trustworthy individual, who occasionally worked at the facilities, had a recent history of committing similar crimes to those being investigated. He was occasionally gone from the laundry to perform tasks associated with purchasing materials or supplies for marijuana cultivation, the agents discovered under monitoring.

As police investigations proceeded, detectives discovered that multiple scheme participants had visited a property in Elche that included “typical elements used in the cultivation of marijuana.”

130 kg of marijuana in the possession of a truck driver

Agents discovered a meeting between the suspects and a transporter at the end of last year. The transporter was travelling with a vehicle and trailer that had Bulgarian license plates. Following the interaction, they saw that they were giving directions to the truck driver, who proceeded to Castellón via the Mediterranean Motorway until being stopped by officers from the Castellón Provincial Police Station.

They looked inside the vehicle and found that the only items inside were eight cardboard cartons with about 130 kg of vacuum-packed marijuana buds. The impacts included the seizure of almost 1,000 pounds sterling.

Three searches in the province of Valencia and a fourth in Elche, where a marijuana plantation guarded by the truck driver detained in Castellón was dismantled, marked the operation’s conclusion on February 17th.

Seven persons were arrested, and the organization’s leaders were taken along with £33,000, €7,000 in cash, and five vehicles. The judicial authorities have already met with the arrested, four of whom had criminal records.

According to a statement from the Armed Institute, the Civil Guard has detained two males in connection with a pending theft case. The suspects are accused of taking gourmet goods worth over 1,700 euros from a Calp (Alicante) store.

Agents from the Civil Guard’s Investigation Department in this municipality of Alicante conducted covert surveillance on the morning of February 26th after noticing “suspicious behaviour” by a man inside a car stopped in front of a nearby supermarket.

A few minutes later, someone else walked out of the store with a backpack full of merchandise, hastily loading everything into the car’s trunk.

The officers then stepped in, recognised the two people, and searched the car. Numerous packages containing gourmet goods, such as fine canned seafood, Iberian gammon and particular pieces of beef, were discovered inside.

The Guardia Civil officers verified with the local supermarket that the items had been stolen and had not been picked up because the accused could not provide proof that they had bought them. The officers recovered the stolen goods and made arrangements for their donation to a charity, which was thereafter in charge of distributing them.

On the morning of February 27th, the detainees—two males of Romanian nationality, ages 40 and 59—were taken before the Dénia (Alicante) on-call court. They had prior convictions for comparable offences in other provinces. After that, they were freed on bail.

Three people—two women and a man—were taken into custody by the National Police in Elche on charges of selling illegal drugs from a business and abusing employees without a contract.

Spanish nationals who were arrested oversaw three companies in the municipality, one of which was shut down during the inquiry for irregular operations.

The National Police Corps claims that the inquiry started when the Elche Police Station learnt of evidence suggesting that there were employees operating in two particular establishments without a contract and in an unlawful manner.

The complaint claims that some of the employees who worked weekends and nights were paid five euros per hour. They also experienced issues being paid.

The same individuals who owned the first two establishments may also be selling illegal drugs, according to information the National Police received.

None of the employees employed by the individuals under investigation had Social Security registrations.

However, 120 marijuana packages and 25 hashish packages were found in one of the searched locations. At the time of the inspection, a portion of this material was on display in the institution alongside other food and sweet items, seeming to be different kinds of candy.