Four arrested as police find 44 kg of cannabis in Idrija grow lab
Nova Gorica police searched premises in the Idrija region on 20 June 2024 and found a four-room cannabis laboratory holding 44 kg of vacuum-packed cannabis. Four men were arrested; a Serbian and a Croatian national were remanded in custody while a Slovenian and a Croatian national were released.
Officers and criminal investigators of the Nova Gorica Police Directorate found one of Slovenia’s largest cannabis cultivation laboratories in the Idrija region during a court-ordered search on 20 June 2024, following international police cooperation.[1]The laboratory comprised four specially adapted rooms with pumps, heaters, ventilation, data devices and vacuum sealers.[1]
Instead of growing plants, officers found cannabis vacuum-packed in 0.5 kg bags and packages of plant parts intended for resale, totalling about 44 kg.[1]Police estimated the suspects could have grown 2,500 to 3,000 plants in the laboratory and would have made about €130,000 from one harvest, with four harvests a year possible.[1]
Four men were arrested: a 54-year-old Slovenian and a 48-year-old Croatian were released after questioning, while a 39-year-old Serbian and a 51-year-old Croatian were brought before the investigating judge of the District Court in Nova Gorica, who remanded them in custody.[1]
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Vacuum sealer and bags of cannabis found in the Idrija laboratoryPhoto details
Nova Gorica police searched the home of a 51-year-old British citizen in the municipality of Kanal ob Soči on 3 November and seized eight suspected cannabis plants up to 2.3 metres tall, plus drying stems and dried plant material. Police also fined him for overstaying in the Schengen area and ordered him to leave the country.
Police from Murska Sobota searched the homes of two suspects in the Lendava and Murska Sobota administrative units and seized several larger cannabis seedlings, a larger quantity of dried plants, ammunition, a knuckleduster and a firearm silencer. No arrest was reported; police said a criminal complaint would follow laboratory analyses.
On 4 May 2026 criminal police entered a house in the Murska Sobota area, on Goričko, and caught seven people packing cannabis. With a further stop in Ljubljana they seized more than 86 kg and filed complaints against eight people.
Maribor police searched a 50-year-old man’s home on 30 July 2025, seized 58 cannabis plants, about half a kilogram of dried plant material, an automatic rifle with 466 rounds and two pieces of M81 explosive. He was detained on suspicion of unlawful drug production and a criminal complaint was expected.
