Located north of Istán, it is a small municipality with barely 1,500 inhabitants. It is surrounded by nature and lives, above all, from tourism. The mountainous terrain that surrounds it, included in the , barely allows the cultivation of avocados and carob trees. Also, as the Civil Guard has managed to uncover in an operation – called Balatí – in which a plantation that included an irrigation system that illegally extracted water from the Verde River was dismantled. Its channel, a little further down, becomes the La Concepción reservoir, the basic pillar of supply on the Costa del Sol. One person has been arrested.
. In October, agents located the location. It was an area of more than 5,000 square meters that could only be reached by walking and in a complex way crossing “numerous steep paths and firebreaks.” The investigators also discovered that those responsible for the plantation had built a pond with a capacity of 6,000 liters to water the plants. They did it by illegally taking water from the bed of the Verde River.
The farm was divided into two areas. On one side, the area dedicated to cultivation, where there were several rows of plants. On the other, the space where they were processed. That is, after ripening, they were cut and laid out for drying, which was covered with tarps to prevent water from entering. Once dry, they extracted the buds. The premises was protected by one person, a citizen of Romanian nationality who had a gun and ammunition, who was finally arrested by the Civil Guard. He is charged with a crime against public health and another with illegal possession of weapons. .
Up to 6,500 marijuana specimens were counted in the cultivated space —— and it was dismantled with numerous problems due to the difficulties in reaching the place. In fact, to do so required the participation of a helicopter from the Civil Guard Air Service and the Mountain Rescue and Intervention Group (Greim), as well as a group of forest firefighters specialists from the Infoca device. They were the ones who cleaned the area “due to the high danger of forest fire due to the flammable materials that were in the plantation,” concludes the Civil Guard.
In the province of Málaga, other protected areas such as Sierra Bermeja or the Sierras de Tejeda, Alhama and Almijara Natural Park. According to sources from the armed institute, rural areas have become favorites of organizations dedicated to marijuana trafficking. Above all, forested areas with young trees that can be easily cut down to hide the plantation there. Likewise, as in this case, they choose spaces near rivers or streams to obtain the essential source of irrigation.
