Despite being armed to the teeth, this wasn’t an anti-terror operation: they were raiding marijuana plantations — which are increasingly run by gangs with serious weaponry.

With its eight million residents, this wealthy northeastern region of Spain has in recent years morphed from being a transit route for drugs to becoming a notorious European production hub, mainly of marijuana.

And as a result, guns are becoming increasingly visible and instances of armed violence are on the rise.

In their pre-dawn raid in Constanti, which lies 100 kilometres (60 miles) down the coast from Barcelona, police burst into seven homes that had been taken over by squatters.

READ ALSO: Barcelona starts to wage war on its cannabis clubs

Inside, they found 2,000 marijuana plants growing under powerful lights in rooms equipped with large fans.

“We’re fighting to stop this whole area from turning into a mini narco-state,” said Tarragona police chief Inspector Ramon Franques, referring to police efforts across the region.

‘Military grade weapons’

Regional police say there has been a worrying rise in gun violence brought on by the growing presence of drug gangs.

“The trafficking and cultivation of marijuana is worrying, but mostly because of the associated increase in violence,” explained Carlos Otamendi, head of criminal investigations at the Mossos d’Esquadra regional police.

On June 23, gun violence exploded into the public eye when a man pulled out a weapon, allegedly a Kalashnikov, and shot dead two people during an argument on the outskirts of the northern city of Girona.

Initial indications suggest the argument was not drug-related but the alleged perpetrator — who is still at large — belonged to a gang involved in marijuana trafficking.

In a separate incident around the same time, police seized five weapons, two of them military-grade, while breaking up a group that had smuggled hashish into the region by boat, an increasingly common practice.

“Gang violence didn’t start now with drug trafficking, nor with the establishment of organised crime networks smuggling marijuana. But this use of military-grade weapons is new,” said Gerardo Cavero of the anti-trafficking arm of the Barcelona prosecutor’s office.

READ ALSO: What you need to know about cannabis clubs in Spain

Growing number of gangs

According to the EU’s Drugs Agency (EUDA), cannabis is the most widely-consumed illegal substance in Europe, be it in the form of hashish, marijuana or derivatives.

In 2022, 69 percent of all cannabis resin seizures across the EU was in Spain, along with 47 percent of weed and 81 per cent of cannabis plants, EUDA’s latest report says.

The findings highlighted Spain’s “significant role” as both a transit country for cannabis and a production area, it said.

READ ALSO: What’s the law on cannabis in Spain?

In 2022, Spanish police seized more than 36,700 kilogrammes of marijuana from Catalonia alone, interior ministry figures show.

And there are a growing number of gangs in the region who are “setting up plantations and then distributing the plants across Europe,” the office of Spain’s public prosecutor said in its latest national report.

For those running these lucrative operations, which are also prevalent in the southern Andalusia region, protection is essential.

“If there is one thing that characterises organised crime in respect to drug trafficking, it is the use of violence,” said Cavero.

More drug-related violence 

Last year, police seized 1,171 weapons in Catalonia, an increase of 28 percent from 2022.

During that period, armed attacks in marijuana plantations rose by 78 percent, while the related number of deaths in such incidents rose to five.

Four more were linked to the booming hash trade. In 2022, just one person died.

But with a murder rate lower than the European average, the Catalan authorities insist that the region is “safe”, with levels of criminality far lower than in other parts of the world.

In the latest regional survey, respondents were asked to identify issues which caused them concern, and only 7 percent spoke of personal safety.

But something is changing.

“I don’t want to say we’re getting used to it but it’s a type of violence that is becoming more normalised,” said journalist Fatima Llambrich, an expert on the subject.