Eight arrests, maxi-seizure of marijuana (2.3 tonnes in total: if resold at retail it could have brought in more than 20 million euros) and three Brescia farms in the sights of the police: this is the balance of the operation, underway from the early hours of dawn on Monday 27 May, conducted by the soldiers of the Economic-Financial Police unit of the Guardia di Finanza of Brescia, in co-delegation with the Central Organized Crime Investigation Service. The military is implementing a provision of 8 precautionary measures issued by the investigating judge of the Court of Brescia, against as many people originating and residing in the province of Brescia: the investigations, coordinated by the Prosecutor’s Office, would have allowed the emergence of significant elements of accusation for cultivation, production and trafficking of narcotic substances.
The investigations of the Fiamme Gialle, in collaboration with the air-naval division of the corps, began following in-depth investigations into three local agricultural companies, two of which were formally established for the cultivation of “legal” hemp sativa, and which instead were apparently dedicated to the cultivation open air of an illicit marijuana-type drug.
THC outlawed: laboratory analyses
The laboratory analyzes conducted on the plant substance, cultivated as well as on that stored in large warehouses and already subjected to seizure during the investigations, revealed high values of THC (“delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol”), an active ingredient with a high narcotic effect and psychotropic. Further investigations also made it possible to ascertain that the marijuana inflorescences obtained from illicit cultivations were also subjected to complex mechanical processes and innovative chemical procedures, with the aim of extracting other derived substances, such as oils with a high concentration of THC, hashish and BHO – Bhutan Hash Oil, the latter obtained from the extraction of marijuana resins using butane gas.
During the judicial police investigations, the Brescia Economic-Financial Police Unit also seized a new narcotic substance, called HHC (“Hexahydrocannabinol”), with a high psychotropic effect, subsequently inserted, also following the repressive activities in question, by the Ministry of Health in the tables of prohibited substances.
More than 2.3 tons of drugs seized
Overall, the investigations made it possible to seize over 2.3 tons of dried marijuana-type narcotic substances ready for subsequent processing and marketing, 4 kg of hashish and 0.5 kg of HHC, as well as machinery and equipment used for the refining and processing of the aforementioned narcotic substances. The searches are underway, also conducted with the technical-operational support of the Central Organized Crime Investigation Service with the use of modern technological instruments and three “cash dog” canine units of the Guardia di Finanza for the search for cash and drugs .
