• Complaints from neighbors and a house fire on January 17 prompted the operation

• The result has been the seizure of 742 marijuana plants after the search of nine homes.

September 2, 2026. The Customs Surveillance Service of the Tax Agency, in a joint operation with the Civil Guard, has dismantled several marijuana plantations in Alhendín (Granada), for which seven people between the ages of 20 and 55 have been arrested after the entry and search of nine homes. The result was the seizure of a total of 742 marijuana plants.

The investigation unit of the Civil Guard in Las Gabias, as part of Operation "EBGB Algarrobo", took over the investigation after receiving numerous complaints from residents and passersby about the intense smell of marijuana in several streets of the municipality, along with repeated power surges and outages that caused damage to household appliances and electronic devices.

These incidents even led to a house fire earlier this year, caused by an overload in the network, which affected other apartments in the same building and adjacent homes. The incident required the evacuation and rescue of people trapped inside the building and caused serious injuries to several residents, as well as to the Civil Guard officers who intervened.

After investigating the origin of the fire, it was found to be a short circuit in an illegal marijuana production facility. Based on these events, the agents reinforced surveillance and confirmed the existence of properties with activity compatible with the cultivation of cannabis sativa and with possible illegal connections to the electricity supply.

Following these verifications, a large police operation was activated between the Civil Guard and the Motril Operational Unit of Customs Surveillance of the Tax Agency to carry out the entries and searches in the nine identified homes, also having the support of the Citizen Security Unit of the Granada Command (USECIC), citizen security patrols of the Civil Guard Company of Armilla and with the collaboration of the Local Police of the municipality and the technicians of the electric company Endesa.

Once the operation was completed, illegal connections to the electricity supply were found in the nine homes and marijuana plantations in three of them, where 742 plants in different stages of flowering were seized. In addition, all fraudulent connections were removed.

The Civil Guard has brought seven people before the Santa Fe Duty Court for their alleged involvement in the aforementioned events. Two of them have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the crimes of marijuana cultivation and electricity fraud, while the remaining five, for an alleged crime of electricity fraud.