- Cooperation between the Civil Guard and ENDESA is proving essential in the fight against marijuana cultivation with the creation of joint work teams in order to eradicate a recent growth in the marijuana market
- Agents specialising in the fight against drug trafficking attached to the Judicial Police of the Civil Guard, ENDESA managers in Catalonia, the Dean Judge of the Courts of Reus and the Special Anti-Drug Prosecutor of Tarragona were the speakers for a group of investigating agents from the Judicial and Fiscal Police from all Spanish provinces, the Fiscal and Border Headquarters, the Technical Unit of the Judicial Police, as well as the Coordination Body Against Drug Trafficking (OCON in Spanish) and the Regional Centre for Analysis and Intelligence against Drug Trafficking (CRAIN in Spanish). ENDESA managers, technicians and operators also attended
- In 2020 and 2021, 16 plantations were dismantled in the province of Tarragona, and so far this year, two more plantations have already been dismantled as a result of 6 searches with a total of 15 people arrested. So far, in 2022 nearly 20,000 marijuana plants have already been seized. Crime associated with marijuana plantations has grown exponentially in recent years, as well as irregular connections to the network associated with this activity.
On 1 and 2 June in installations belonging to the Command Headquarters of the Civil Guard of Tarragona, a training and coordination activity was held on the fight against the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana. The conference was opened by the General Responsible for the Civil Guard in Catalonia José Luis Tovar Jover, the Sub-delegate of the Government in Tarragona Joan Sabaté Borrás, the Chairman of the Provincial Court in Tarragona Joan Perarnau Moya and the Distribution Manager for ENDESA in Catalonia Francesc Alemany.
The Forum was framed within the recommendations included in the National Action Plan against Organised Crime Associated with the Production and Trafficking of Marijuana, as provided for in Instruction No. 7/2021 of the Secretary of State for Security last December.
The Civil Guard of Tarragona has been investigating the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana. On numerous occasions this has involved the creation of joint work teams with ENDESA operators and technicians which have made the investigations very effective and enabled ENDESA to improve its activity in the detection of fraud in the electricity circuit, a fraud that has been seen to be increasingly specialised.
In 2020, 8 joint actions were undertaken with a total of 23 searches and 34 people arrested. In 2021 there were 8 joint actions, 12 searches and 33 people detained, while so far this year 2022 there have already been 2 joint actions with 6 searches and 15 people detained.
With regard to the total number of marijuana plants seized, only in the province of Tarragona, the data indicate that 13,957 were seized in 2020, 22,238 in 2021 and 18,880 so far this year.
It should be pointed out that not only have the actions on the cultivation and trafficking of marijuana in this province increased, but also that, in its fight against organised crime associated with the production and trafficking of this substance, the Civil Guard at a national level is achieving results which clearly indicate the significance of this type of crime; so far this year at the national level, the Civil Guard has been involved in more than 2,100 actions relating to planting or direct seizure of marijuana, having seized about 21,000 kg and more than 650,000 marijuana plants.
In 2021 and through e-distribution, Endesa detected in Catalonia a total of 677 irregular connections to the grid associated with marijuana plantations. The energy recovered as a result of the disconnection of these supplies was 119 million kWh, which corresponds to the annual consumption of 34,000 homes and represents 74% of the total energy recovered by Endesa throughout Spain after discovering fraud associated with indoor marijuana plantations. In the case of the province of Tarragona, 112 irregular connections associated with marijuana were detected in 2021, resulting in the recovery of almost 25 million kWh, equivalent to the annual consumption of 7,140 households.
In all the territories where Endesa operates as a distribution company, the energy recovered resulting from fraud linked to marijuana plantations last year amounted to 159 million KWh, the equivalent of the consumption of 45,000 homes.
These figures show that fraudulent connections associated with marijuana plantations represent a significant volume of energy defrauded since they represent 20% of the total energy consumed irregularly in the average for those territories where e-distribution operates, a figure that amounts to 27.4% in the case of Catalonia. The fact is, a marijuana plantation may consume the equivalent of 80 homes.
This training activity should not only be seen from a police or criminal point of view, but also as posing a severe risk to people, both to those who actually establish that connection, as well as to the people around them and of course to the property involved. With any irregular connection there is a potential risk of causing a short circuit or a fire, which can result in anything from burns, to electrocution and fires that cause much more serious damage.
This type of crime seriously harms the neighbourhood, since it involves severely overloading the network. This means that, in order not to suffer severe damage by transmitting receiving such an amount of energy (remember that there are plantations that can consume like 10 normal homes), the electricity line switches off automatically in order to protect itself, which users perceive as power cuts. A situation of continuous overload on the grid, leads to breakdowns which need to be repaired. This situation affects both private homes, businesses and even health and industrial installations that would have their services interrupted.
This activity is aimed at technicians and detectives from other Civil Guard Command Headquarters where ENDESA or other electricity companies undertake their activity, with the aim of extending the work protocols to all Spanish provinces.
The issues being addressed are not only related to the cultivation of marijuana indoors but also to outdoor cultivation, as well as other issues of a technical/police nature and different operational protocols.
The speakers address a number of topics, including "The cultivation of cannabis plants, types of plantations, installations and criminal structures", "Procedure with regard to time measurements and technical sheets", "Material and technical procedures", "Operational recommendations and their risks", "Cultivation of industrial hemp", "Investigation phase" and "Obtaining the circumstantial evidence relating to crimes against public health, marijuana and hemp", the latter two presented by the Dean Judge of Reus and the Delegated Anti-Drug Prosecutor for Tarragona.
It will end with a round table with the presentation of a number of theoretical-practical cases and then a general debate from which an attempt will be made to draw valid conclusions for all participants.
The accumulated experience of the Civil Guard of Tarragona in the fight against the cultivation of marijuana, with the inclusion of ENDESA technical personnel in its teams, is making it possible to improve the detection of both indoor and outdoor plantations and therefore the detection of electricity fraud, with the aim of showing how it works and how it can be applied in other territories where the results may not currently be so satisfying.