A €50,000 scam against a dependent couple in La Marina uncovers a synthetic drug laboratory in Dolores

The Civil Guard arrests the caregiver of a vulnerable couple and when searching their house they discover a large amount of chemical substances and arrest two other people.

An investigation by the Civil Guard of Santa Pola into the caretaker of a German couple aged 85 and 87 and in a state of absolute dependency, who allegedly took advantage of their situation to appropriate more than 50,000 euros of their assets, has led to the discovery of a laboratory for the industrial production of synthetic drugs in a garage of a farm in Dolores. The caretaker of the vulnerable couple, a 51-year-old Spaniard, was arrested in the Elche hamlet of La Marina and the drug laboratory was discovered when they were searching his home in Dolores. Two other people were arrested there who accessed the property when the Civil Guard was inspecting it.

The two arrested by the laboratory, defended by the lawyer Francisco Miguel Galiana Botella, entered prison after being brought to court in Orihuela as allegedly responsible for crimes against public health, possession and illicit trafficking of precursors, resistance and disobedience and fraud of electricity. The agents also located illegal connections to the electricity supply inside the facility. For his part, the couple’s caregiver was released with charges after being brought to court in Elche.

The Investigation Area of the Civil Guard of Santa Pola began the so-called “Operation Eternal Dignity” after a complaint filed on June 29 by a social worker from Elche who warned of the delicate situation of the 85-year-old German woman, whose husband died a few months earlier and had included her caregiver as a substitute heir.

According to the investigation, the caregiver took advantage of the couple’s situation of extreme dependence to assume exclusive control of the domestic, personal and patrimonial sphere of the elderly, whom he isolated from their social and family environment. In 2022 he began working with the couple through a caregiver company and after gaining their trust he was hired outside the company.

The Civil Guard estimates the money extracted from the couple’s accounts at more than 50,000 euros  and also accuses the caretaker of other irregularities, such as the theft of jewelry, and even of mistreatment due to neglect in the care of the marriage. She abandoned basic care, such as hygiene and personal hygiene, the house was in unsanitary conditions according to witnesses and even a nurse warned that they were giving the woman non-prescribed drugs, specifically Valium, which left her in very bad condition.

Keeping the inheritance

The Civil Guard believes that the final objective was to get hold of the entire inheritance and once all the evidence against the caretaker was collected, he was arrested on July 22 as he was considered the author of crimes of misappropriation, document forgery, mistreatment of work and coercion. The Civil Guard of Santa Pola went with the detained caretaker to search his home on a farm in Dolores and had to request an extension of the authorization after detecting that in an annexed building used as a garage there was all the necessary material to manufacture synthetic drugs. This garage, according to the caretaker, had been rented to some Dutch people who were going to buy the entire farm from him for 1.4 million euros.

The Organized Crime and Anti-Drug Team (EDOA) of the Alicanet Command was required to carry out the investigation of the drug laboratory and specialized machinery, large quantities of chemical substances and precursors, some of them highly toxic and flammable, were seized in the garage. The agents found a facility equipped with reaction cabinets, ventilation systems, mixers, heaters, vacuum filters, scales, drying equipment and large capacity tanks.

The characteristics of the assembly were compatible with a laboratory intended to produce synthetic substances industrially, possibly cathinones. However, the expert analyses must specify which products were intended to be manufactured and determine the composition of various liquids stored in unlabelled containers.

Among the seized material are 400 liters of methylamine, 600 liters of dichloromethane, ethanol, 150 kilos of baking soda and hundreds of liters of other substances pending analysis. Methylamine is a compound used in different synthetic drug manufacturing processes, while dichloromethane acts as a solvent. Due to the danger of the products, the intervention of specialized personnel was necessary for their removal and storage.

The laboratory was in a preparatory phase, as no final product was found and no clear signs that production had been completed. The researchers consider, however, that the volume of reagents, the complexity of the equipment and the logistics required point to the possible involvement of an organized structure.

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