Spanish authorities have released footage of a helicopter airlifting thousands of marijuana plants out of an illegal farm hidden deep in a Catalan national park, two days after another major drug bust in the country.
The video released by the Catalan authorities on Friday shows two illegal farms consisting of thousands of cannabis plants secretively growing in the national park of Montnegre. Huge quantities of picked marijuana are seen drying, spread across large canvas tarps.
Aquestes dues plantacions de marihuana estaven amagades al Parc Natural del Montnegre i el Corredor. Ocupaven mitja hectàrea d’arbres talada. Dos detinguts a presó ?https://t.co/RTcbxp9rbmpic.twitter.com/5gBGPSrERq
Tents, clotheslines and a makeshift kitchen are also visible in the footage of the hidden cannabis farm.
Police helicopters flew over the dense cannabis plantation and then airlifted bags of confiscated narcotics from the farm. The aerial video revealed the magnitude of the operation, scaling half of a hectare in size, according to the Mossos d’Esquadra (police of Catalonia).
The police seized 6,412 marijuana plants and 32 kilograms of marijuana buds. Two Albanian men, who were sleeping in the open air of the protected national park at the time of the bust, were arrested on sight.
The footage comes only two days after another video was released, by Europol, showing authorities raiding a warehouse cannabis farm in Catalonia. The warehouse bust was part of a major drug operation in Spain, linked to an Albanian drug ring, and resulted in 107 arrests and the seizing of 25,000 cannabis plants.
Media sources labeled Catalonia as the “marijuana capital of Europe” last year, due to the high profit margins and low risk of long jail time there.
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