Four men were arrested in Motril by the Policía Nacional, aged between 22 and 33, suspected of running marihuana crops under a chiringuito.

The four men are thought to be behind the running of a two-room plantation with 329 individual plants beneath a chiringuito on the Costa Tropical – the town wasn’t mentioned in the press release.

The police investigation began in October after receiving numerous complaints from neighbours about a smell coming from a hidden plantation near a paseo on the coast.

They searched the area and narrowed it down to a chiringuito that was closed for the season. They requested a search permit and carried out an inspection of the inside. In the basement they found two rooms that had been adapted for the cultivation of marihuana on a large scale, equiped with ventilation systems and electrical installations. In one room there were 105 plants and in the other, 224.

On these sorts of operations the police always take an Endesa engineer with them to check for illegal hook ups. On this occasion although the chiringuito had a legal supply, there was also a hook up prior to the meter so that the consumption wouldn’t registered.

(News: Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)