The Provincial Court is trying six individuals accused of being part of a criminal organisation dedicated to the cultivation and purchase of narcotic substances in the Marina Alta, primarily cannabis and hashish, for subsequent distribution and sale in the United Kingdom. According to the Public Prosecutor’s indictment, the network operated several indoor plantations in 2016 located within the municipal boundaries of Calpe and Benissa.
The network’s modus operandi involved processing the drugs within the region itself. Once the harvest from the indoor plantations was collected, the defendants packaged the product inside tinned tomato preserves to camouflage it as food merchandise and manage its postal shipment to the British market.
For these actions, the Public Prosecutor classifies the offences as crimes against public health and requests the following prison sentences for the defendants: for the alleged leader of the organisation, the prosecution asks for a prison sentence of 15 years, considering him the main person responsible for the operational and logistical network; for the other five defendants, eight years in prison are requested for each one due to their involvement in the cultivation, handling and shipping of the substance.