Spanish police seize largest amount of marijuana ever worth $64M

This undated handout photograph taken in Vilassar de Mar, near Barcelona and released on July 7, 2022 by the Spanish National Police shows a police officer walking in an illegal marijuana plantation. (Photo by Handout / Spanish National Police / AFP) 

MADRID — Spanish police said on Saturday they had seized 32 tons of packaged marijuana with a street value of at least 64 million euros ($63.74 million), which they said was the largest amount ever found in Spain or internationally.

Police raided a series of farms and production plants across Spain in an operation called Gardens. They arrested nine men and 11 women, who were aged between 20 and 59.

READ: BOC seizes marijuana shipped from Spain

“The Civil Guard has seized the largest cache of packaged marijuana found so far,” Spain’s Civil Guard said in a statement.

“It was equivalent to approximately 1.1 million plants.”

Police said the gang dried the marijuana plants, packaged them and sent them to parts of Spain, Switzerland, Holland, Germany and Belgium.

The gang were detained in Toledo, Ciudad Real, Valencia and Asturias last month but details of the operation were made only public on Saturday.

In June, the Spanish Tax Agency said, in reference to a different drugs operation, that cannabis was worth “between 2,300 euros ($2,290.80)and 2,500 euros($2,490.00) per kilogram.”

($1 = 1.0040 euros)

/MUF