Belgium: searches in a chain of horticultural stores
After Cannabis Social Clubs, our Belgian neighbors are going after garden stores. This Thursday, June 1, 2017, some thirty searches were carried out in Belgium at a growshop chain. The investigation concerns a limited liability company (SPRL) that «allegedly acts as a facilitator in the production of narcotics» according to Rtl.be.
The case concerns a gardening business, Terra Terra ,a company specializing in gardening and horticulture, with several stores in various Belgian cities. The company's website offers online purchases of equipment, as well as videos based on horticulture. Searches were carried out in Brussels, the country's capital, as well as in Hal-Vilvoorde, Antwerp and Namur.
According to the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, some twenty people, including company managers and sales staff, have been arrested for «in-depth questioning».
The file, initiated in the second half of 2016 by the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office, refers to an alleged criminal organization set up by Terra Terra and the directors of this SPRL. This accusation is based on telephone tapping. However, the public prosecutor speaks of simple phone calls from investigators posing as customers asking how to grow cannabis at home.
These stores, located in the communes of Ixelles, Jette and Jambes, in fact have all the resources needed to produce cannabis, or any other plant for that matter. A warehouse in the town of Genval has also been closed for an «indefinite period».
The dossier emphasizes that the company's activities take place all over the country, and have done so for several years. « The current state of the investigation shows, however, that under cover of the company's official corporate purpose, its essential activity is in fact to offer for sale all the highly specialized equipment required for cannabis cultivation, including advice on how to use this equipment and optimize cultivation», stated the Belgian Federal Public Prosecutor's Office.
These suspicions should soon be confirmed, according to the Belgian press.
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Kushin
2 June 2017 at 18 h 55 min
maximum hypocrisy (ah bon growshops sell equipment to grow canna....) or just another Belgian story?
bluecheese
3 June 2017 at 12 h 55 min
It's easier to wiretap growshops that do business and will therefore, on principle, do their utmost to satisfy the customer, no matter what he or she grows, than it is to do real investigative work on mafia networks... No sooner have we taken one step forward than some morons take us 2 steps back, really sad.
bluecheese
3 June 2017 at 12 h 55 min
It's easier to wiretap growshops that do business and will therefore, on principle, do their utmost to satisfy the customer, no matter what he or she grows, than it is to do real investigative work on mafia networks... No sooner have we taken one step forward than some morons take us 2 steps back, really sad.