Six years in prison for couple who cultivated cannabis in a tunnel under the A2. They will remain in preventive detention until the ruling becomes final..
A couple, who lived in a de facto union and both in preventive detention, were sentenced on Wednesday by a group of Judges from the Beja Court, to six years in prison each, for the co-authorship of a drug trafficking crime.
José Correia, of 55 year old, and Dina Guerreiro, of 51 year old, residents of Monte do Loendreiro, parish of São Barnabas, municipality of Almodovar, were detained at 1 March of this year, after an operation by military personnel from the Criminal Investigation Unit (NIC) of the Almodôvar Detachment of the GNR, of seizure 101.415,68 kilograms of cannabis are equivalent to 272.016 doses.
This was one of the biggest seizures of cannabis in the last decade made by GNR in the district of Beja, resulting from the direct cultivation of the narcotic product by traffickers.
In addition to the drug, were also seized 440 euro cash, greenhouses, scales, vacuum packaging machines and many other materials, intended for all traffic.
On land close to Monte do Loendreiro, the couple prepared a place, with pits and fertilizer, where they installed irrigation systems, for the cultivation of the narcotic, located in one of the rainwater drainage tunnels on the A2, next to a viaduct on the aforementioned highway.
At trial, the couple “passed†responsibility to third parties “to whom they had rented the drug cultivation land for a thousand eurosâ€, giving unconvincing explanations about the drug found in several places on Monte, in a warehouse and other annexes and for all the paraphernalia of instruments dedicated to the entire cultivation process, drug drying and packaging.
The couple will remain in pre-trial detention awaiting the final judgment of the ruling., him in the Prison Establishment (EP) Beja, and she on Odemira's EP.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
