French police seized four thousand cannabis plants with a yield of about 1,100 kilograms of hashish in a large internal warehouse dedicated to this type of cultivation in a village in southeastern France, run by citizens and others of Albanian nationality, the Public Prosecution announced Saturday.
The investigation took eight months, and six people who were imprisoned on the sidelines of the confiscation of these crops were arrested in the town of Moret, which has a population of about 400 and is located about 30 kilometers west of Grenoble, in the French Alps, reports Al-Rai daily.
At the end of October 2022, the judicial police in Grenoble opened a preliminary investigation, following a judicial notification about a warehouse likely to be designated for the cultivation of cannabis “in a closed place,” according to the Public Prosecution Office.
The investigation revealed the existence of a “large-scale trafficking” involving a team of Albanian partners of people from Grenoble.
A judicial police operation resulted in the arrest of four Albanians between the ages of 18 and 35, and then the next day, a 52-year-old partner from Grenoble and the 55-year-old owner of the warehouse were arrested.
The huge warehouse housed two groups. The first is a 375-square-meter production facility equipped with electricity, ventilation, humidification, UV lamps and drying systems, in which more than 1,550 plants were discovered, equivalent to 508 kilograms of hashish.
In a second facility of 300 square meters, 2,500 plants were confiscated, with a total yield of 693 kilograms. At the same site, with the permission of the Public Prosecution, agricultural equipment and plants were destroyed, the selling price of which is estimated at between 10 and 15 million euros.
This week, two Albanian “agricultural workers” were sentenced to seven and ten months in prison with immediate effect, and banned from entering France for five years.
On Friday, the other four suspects were referred to immediate trial and placed in pre-trial detention until their trial on August 9.
