Catalonia is the major marijuana production center in Europe. It's grown in abandoned farmhouses in Les Garrigues, in the forests of Pallars, in abandoned industrial buildings in the Barcelona metropolitan area, and in houses built on the outskirts of many towns in La Selva. "In Vidreres and Maçanet, there are housing developments where every other house has a cannabis plantation inside," explain the police. However, despite Catalonia becoming the continent's main supplier, marijuana is now also arriving from abroad. The Spanish Tax Agency has seized 1,214 kilos of marijuana from Thailand and Canada at El Prat Airport and the Port of Barcelona. However, this figure doesn't include the 467 kilos that entered through the Port of Huelva and another 642 kilos that Canadian police seized at the Port of Montreal, which were also headed for Barcelona. This amounts to more than two tons of drugs seized in seven operations over the last six months.

It's not common to find large marijuana plantations in Barcelona. Space is limited, and apartments tend to be small. This is demonstrated by the fact that in 2024, 542,000 marijuana plants were seized throughout Catalonia. What percentage were found in the Catalan capital? Only 1.98%. Although uncommon, the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) have recently detected some worrying cases, not only because of the plantations themselves, but also because of the risks they pose to the building's residents. On the morning of November 30th, around 10:30 a.m., a fire on Zamora Street, in the Sant Martí district, required a rapid response from the Barcelona Fire Department. Upon arrival, the police determined that the fire had been caused by an electrical overload. And soon after, they discovered the source: inside an apartment, there were 1,200 marijuana plants in various stages of flowering, illuminated by 60 lights and ventilated by several air conditioners. All the electricity to maintain the setup came from the communal power supply, as they were illegally tapping into it. The officers arrested the person responsible for the plantation, who had no prior criminal record. The seized drugs would have a street value of €127,000. indoor "They are not only a risk to public health, but also to the neighborhood," warns Mossos d'Esquadra Superintendent David Sànchez, head of the Sant Martí Basic Police Area. In this regard, he urges residents "not to hesitate to call the police" if they detect such a case.

The apartment on Zamora Street that was raided was a rented unit with all the paperwork in order, which complicated the police investigation. The following day, the Catalan police responded to a similar incident: on Auger Street, at the other end of Sant Martí, another fire in an apartment building revealed an indoor marijuana grow operation with 700 plants. The alleged perpetrators, one of whom had two prior convictions for public health offenses, were trying to flee the scene by car, but were eventually arrested. Again, it was a rented apartment, and the electricity was illegally tapped. Together, the two marijuana grow operations dismantled by the Catalan police consumed the equivalent of 130 households' worth of electricity, according to Endesa technicians.

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Organized crime related to marijuana is expanding in Catalonia, and police resources alone are insufficient to address the magnitude of this "serious security problem," warned the Director General of the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police), Josep Lluís Trapero, on Friday. In 2024, there were 115 violent incidents related to marijuana trafficking—including two homicides—and firearms were used in 30% of these incidents. At the same time, the illicit presence of firearms on the streets has been increasing. Last year, police operations resulted in the dismantling of more than 400 plantations, the seizure of half a million plants, and 2,000 arrests nationwide. However, only 10% of those arrested were remanded in custody.

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Typically, in a police investigation, drugs end up leading to weapons. That is, first a marijuana plantation or a shipment of hashish is usually detected, and then the police end up discovering that the traffickers are armed, not so much to attack the police, which is very rare, but to defend themselves against robberies (known as narco-assaults or drug robberies). rollovers) that they suffer at the hands of other criminal groups. An investigation by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) has changed this order of factors and has become one of the first operations by the Catalan police against arms trafficking in Catalonia. As sources within the force admit: the weapons ended up leading to the drugs.

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Coca-Cola, snow, powder, white lady, parakeet, merchandise... These are all different names for the same drug: cocaine. It is the second most widely used narcotic in Europe after marijuana, and an estimated 2.7 million young people—twice the population of Barcelona—used it last year. In its latest report, the European Drug Agency (EUDA) warns that there is increasingly more cocaine available on the continent and that this has led to a "significant" increase in the "health and social costs" associated with this drug.

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It all starts when someone lets their tongue slip. The information is that a ton of hashish is in a house in Ametlla de Mar, in Baix Ebre. "You have to drop everything and run," explains a police officer. It's already nighttime when they arrive at the residential area, where silence reigns. The patrol cars are stealthily fanning out across the area when, suddenly, a van speeds off. "I'm asking two officers to arrest him," continues the person in charge of the operation. But the traffickers didn't stop and rammed the officers. "Drug traffickers aren't afraid," he adds. The police officers were injured, but the drug traffickers were eventually arrested. They were carrying 800 kilograms of hashish, which they protected with a submachine gun and more than 100 rounds of ammunition. Inside the van, which they had stolen in the Netherlands and disguised with false license plates, were jammers, beacon detectors, and night vision goggles. They had unloaded the drugs just hours before in a hidden cove in the Ebro Delta and were beginning the road transport phase. Catalonia was just another stop on the hashish's long journey, and the traffickers were ready to, if necessary, open fire on anyone who stood in their way.

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He landed in Catalonia from Serbia to work on construction sites. A much more lucrative source of income emerged: entering the drug business. And the money started rolling in. He and his compatriots lived in luxury apartments in the Poblenou area of Barcelona. They enjoyed a high standard of living that made them forget the risks they were taking. Until the summer of 2024, after two years of investigation, the National Police dismantled the network dedicated to the production and export of marijuana, with four large plantations spread across the country.

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Japan is beginning to open up about drugs: the country is further tightening its zero-tolerance policy on narcotics. Since last December, consuming marijuana is no longer just a social taboo or a legal gray area: it's a criminal offense. At the end of March, Tokyo police arrested two people for the first time—a 44-year-old man and a woman—accused of using cannabis after failing a urine test.

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Until now, the marijuana clans in Catalonia had opted for the outdoor plantations, taking advantage of the extensive and lush forests that exist. However, in recent years this dynamic has been changing, especially because the country has become one of the main producers of this drug. These groups, mostly from Eastern European countries, began exporting inland plantations, which are very present in territories like the Netherlands. They have been locating them in empty warehouses or abandoned houses, and the technology they use, from lighting to ventilation, has become more sophisticated. And now, modernization is also coming in the way they occupy these warehouses and houses.

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In order for marijuana to grow indoors, lights, heaters, fans and other devices that need electricity to work are needed. And they need a lot of it. A marijuana greenhouse can consume the same amount of electricity as 80 large apartments, each measuring around 100 m2. In Catalonia, plantations in homes that used the same amount of electricity as an entire hospital have been dismantled. In total, according to the data published by Endesa on Tuesday, last year the cannabis plantations detected in the country defrauded an amount of electricity equivalent to the consumption of Canovelles, a town of 17,000 inhabitants. That's 162 gigabytes per hour, 26% of the electricity defrauded in Catalonia.

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The marijuana business is spreading in Catalonia and is sparking fraudulent energy consumption. In the last four years, the number of cases of electricity fraud linked to illegal marijuana plantations have doubled, according to Endesa's calculations. In 2021 the company closed the year with 684 reports linked to this illicit activity in residential buildings, twice as many as in 2018. This means almost two cannabis plantations using stolen electricity are discovered every day.

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The production of marijuana in Catalonia that is then sold to Europe continues to rise, and it is causing a new phenomenon: it is becoming a gateway to crime. Some 53% of the 1,998 people arrested last year for marijuana offences – up 14.5% from 2020 – had no criminal record. "That 1,066 people enter the criminal world may respond to job insecurity and the geographical mobility of people arriving in our country," the head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Catalan Police (Mossos d'Esquadra), Intendant Joan Carles Granja, explains. This is the second year in a row that more than half of those arrested for marijuana offences had no record, and the Home Affairs minister Joan Ignasi Elena warns of the magntic force this illegal business has, as it moves a lot of money and allows an "easy enrichment".

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