Secret Greenhouses

The marijuana business in Germany is growing, Juergen Maurer, head of the organized crime department of the German Federal Crime Office, said on Friday.

Last year, police secured 83 cannabis fields and 347 sheds and greenhouses where the plant was secretly grown, according to an annual report released on Friday by the Federal Crime Office. Indoor plantations are preferred because the plants retain up to a 12-percent higher concentration of the intoxicating substance THC.

Though the 3.68 tons of hashish confiscated in 2007 represented a decrease of 34 percent compared to the previous year, police secured 28 percent more marijuana (3.77 tons). Both drugs are made from cannabis plants.

According to the report, Germany is no longer just a transit and destination country for cannabis and cannabis products, but is also becoming a producer.

Maurer said that Dutch gangs would sometimes loan money to cannabis growers looking to start a farm in Germany. Some sites were protected with booby traps and self-firing guns, he added.