The Mossos d'Esquadra fear that the rains will cause marijuana plantations to grow in the mountains.

ValleysThe rain that fell this March has caused the rivers to run full like they haven't in a long time and has caused water to flow once again from the streams that had dried up. The news has pleased much of the country, but the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) who fight marijuana trafficking know that this increase in water greatly benefits traffickers who have marijuana plantations hidden in the Catalan mountains. The drought of the last four years has been a great ally of the police, since the greatest difficulty drug traffickers face in planting in the mountains is access to water. And this has, in fact, been the clue that has most helped the Mossos in their pursuit of this drug.

Cannabis, which is planted now in spring and harvested in October and November, requires daily irrigation to bear fruit, and in the Catalan forests, access to water is limited. One of the regions where the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) are working most intensively against this crop is Alt Camp, where 119,000 plants were found in its mountains in 2021, almost 20% of the total in Catalonia. "Last year we found that they had cleared a large area in the mountains, but that they had only planted part of it. And it's because they already knew they wouldn't be able to irrigate them all," explains Jaume Carbó, head of Rural Environment for the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) in Alt Camp, who is well aware that "the drought doesn't help them because the plants thrive."

The data proves him right: in 2021, 45% of the plantations found in Catalonia were outdoors (outdoor), while in 2024, after four years of drought, they only accounted for 13% of the total. The question, which can only be answered at the end of the year, is whether this downward trend will change now that the weather has improved. "This year, 2025, is an unknown. The drought hurt them, and now we expect them to rise, but we've been working hard for many years in a row, and we hope this pressure will be felt," laments Carbó. The team doing this work, some of the toughest in the force because it's very physical and involves a significant amount of danger, will be rewarded with a distinction awarded on squad day for their performance.

The rafts, a key factor

Much of the fighting between the Mossos d'Esquadra and drug traffickers takes place on the ponds owned by farmers or firefighters. Before starting a plantation, the drug traffickers first need a pond, and once they find one, they look for a hidden, more or less flat piece of land. Then they clear the land—a real job in the middle of the forest—and plant. Until now, to water the plants, they placed a pump inside the nearest pond and pumped out the water each time they needed to water. The problem with this system is that, sooner or later, the owner of the pond, be it a farmer, a shepherd, or a firefighter, would see the pump and alert the Mossos d'Esquadra, who would only have to follow the pipe to discover the plantation.

The problem, according to Carbó, is that the drug traffickers "adapt" to the police strategy to avoid arrest. The new system they use to get water is much more discreet: "What we're finding now 100% of the time is that, suddenly, an individual discovers that the water level in a pool is dropping, but they don't see a pump or where it's losing water. And it's because they install the pump at night and pump from a hole in the ground covered with a plastic sheet or a garden tarp," explains Carbó. Once the pools are filled, they remove the pump and they have water.

The Mossos d'Esquadra already have the pools under control and are increasing vigilance to detect any movement within their perimeter. The problem is that, with the increase in rainfall, there are streams that had been dry and are now full again, becoming sources for traffickers. "2021 was the year, by far, with the most arrests and it was a year with a lot of water. They no longer had to go looking for those pools because all the streams had water," explains Carbó. In some cases, they found that they had built dams on rivers and streams to bring the water where it suited them.

He omitted it from the Albanians

In a recent arrest by the Mossos d'Esquadra (Spanish police) of a "gardener"—the person who guards the plantation, as police slang refers to the person who guards the plantation—the detainee, who was on the ground with two officers on top of him trying to handcuff him, only worried about putting his fingers in his mouth and being able to whistle to warn his colleagues. "They are very loyal to each other," police sources explain. 90% of those arrested on these large plantations are Albanian and belong to different clans, who sometimes steal from each other. In fact, on many plantations, officers have found "means of defense" that they have to protect themselves from other clans and that they have almost never used to confront the police.

Before, they came to work for the entire season, but now, to make the police investigation more difficult, they only stay for a month and then another person takes over. gardener. For this month's work they earn between 1,800 and 2,000 euros, but the risk they run is very high, because they are normally looking after more than a thousand plants – on one occasion they found a plantation with 18,000 specimens – and that implies a long prison term. However, they never speak. "We managed to arrest the gardenersBut reaching the top is very complicated. They are very opaque and very protective of each other. They don't even say who they work for. We never get anything in police statements," explain sources from the force.

Another change that traffickers are implementing to make the police's work more difficult is to build the cabin where they sleep during the months they guard, further away from where the construction is located, where they have harvested all the weed. This way they save a trip with all the merchandise. If the Mossos d'Esquadra are unable to prevent it, this weed is transported by vehicle to central Europe, where it costs three times as much as in Catalonia.