Israel’s clandestine police Shin Bet on Wednesday seized an olive grove in a park street between Ni’lin and Qabiya, northwest of Ramallah in Samaria, Ma’an reported Thursday.
Shin Bet agents acted on accurate intelligence received by the Shin Bet and Police Anti-Narcotics Department about the presence of contraband plants by the public road between the two towns outside Ramallah, and launched an inspection which led them to a nursery and a cave in a privately owned park adjacent to a residential street.
A police spokesman explained that there were two structures on the side of the road, with high-quality equipment for growing marijuana, including heat protection, ventilation, filtered water, pesticides, soil, drying tools and methods of treatment. A scientific estimate concluded that 400 plants were being harvested at the site, with a yield of about 5 kg – with a modest street value of $100,000.
According to the same spokesman, cited by Ma’an, the park was used to hold weddings and barbecue parties to cover the cultivation of drugs, and the growers used equipment intended to clear the smoke from the barbecue to camouflage the marijuana odor from inside the nurseries.
The force arrested five suspects, including the owner of the park, and confiscated the equipment. Indictments will follow.