A marijuana factory in the protected flats of Sant Cosme

The protected apartment blocks in the Sant Cosme neighborhood of El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona) have ended up being converted into a marijuana factory.

Locked in on themselves in a small island of seven buildings, the last phase of transformation of the neighborhood has ended up in a bunker, at the hands of two family clans, according to the Mossos, which not even postmen, Glovo delivery men or emergency services.

The Mossos d'Esquadra and the Local Police have carried out an operation against one of the blocks: 17 houses converted into a marijuana factory, where only one family lived there and the police suspect that they were gardeners of the plantations.

The police operation has involved three nights of disturbances at the hands of very young people and minors, with burned containers,

stones were thrown at the police station and burned vehicles.

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and exhibited on social networks like Tik Tok.

The property is a building with three stairs built in 2002, in what is known as the seventh phase of the reconstruction of Sant Cosme, on Riu Anoia street in the municipality.

"They were houses pure and simple dedicated to the cultivation of marijuana," explained inspector Manel Hermida, with a "very serious risk" of fire.

"There was a butron on the roof, with hundreds of square meters available under the roof", a direct connection to the general purpose, without meters... "Cables, adhesive tape, insulating tape... mixed with humidity and electricity", has lamented the head of the El Prat police station, at a press conference, about the risk posed by the building.

Added to the defrauding of electricity for a value of more than 200,000 euros, not counting the cost of water also punctured.

The houses had also been completely modified.

"It was a structural danger, with moved partitions and load-bearing walls," he recounted.

There were no bathrooms, no kitchens, and nothing that could be identified with a house.

"A situation so dramatic that the City Council has not wanted to tolerate it anymore": a concrete mixer unloaded the same day of the police operation 60 tons of concrete: about 20 cubic meters in each lobby, and in the accesses to avoid any type of reuse of the block, property of the Agència Catalana de l'Habitatge.

For this, the Consistory, governed from democracy by the ecosocialists, declared its uninhabitability.

In previous police operations they verified that the high security doors, known as

, were busted almost instantly, if not stolen before the operatives had time to install them.

The six initial detainees, between the ages of 20 and 79, have all been released with charges after going to court and despite totaling 57 police records between all of them.

The veteran of the group is also known in the media for his participation in the

broadcast by Cuatro.

The old man lived on the only floor where the police are aware that a family unit resided, although they suspect that they were actually the gardeners of the 12 intervened plantations, with more than 2,700 plants.

From each one, according to the Mossos, about 50 grams of marijuana are extracted, with a value of about 6 euros, which is multiplied by four or five in the Spanish market, and by 10 in the case of the European one.

Investigators suspect that the final destination of the drug was abroad.

The day after the operation, the agents found another 3,500 plants that “other growers” ​​deposited in the containers in the area, according to the police.

"They don't want to lose their homes," interpret police sources, who assure that some of the patriarchs of the

and

They have asked to meet with them, but they have been refused, due to the riots that are taking place in the neighbourhood, at the hands of very young people.

"They don't have to go to school, they don't have to make an effort" and they can have a "BMW or an X5" parked at the door, lamented the inspector, about the damage that marijuana cultivation is causing in the zone.

According to the calculations of the intelligence units of the Catalan police, a 40 square meter apartment generates 250,000 euros of profit, taking into account the four annual harvests of the plant.

"These are generations that are difficult to recover, with a very high purchasing power", added the deputy inspector of the local police of El Prat, Gustavo Molina, who has insisted on the idea that marijuana is a "stop on progress", especially the younger ones.

The small sector of the Sant Cosme neighborhood has become off-limits territory.

"They have coerced the people," insisted Inspector Hermida, about the families that are not engaged in drug trafficking and that have left the place.

“They have been abandoning the flats, nobody agrees to live there.

They do not want to have the eyes and ears of people who are not of the same purpose ”, he insisted.

Despite this, he has assured that no one has ever gone to the police station to file a complaint.

faith of errors

In an initial version of this article, it was mistakenly reported that the El Prat City Council poured 600 tons of concrete into the building to render it unusable, when in reality it was 60.

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