Maldonado department police raided a property in the Punta Negra resort, in the municipality of Piriápolis, where a report said marijuana was being grown without authorisation.[1] The search warrant was issued by the 4th-shift prosecutor’s office of Maldonado, and the brigade carried out the procedure on 27 March 2023 with inspectors of the IRCCA, Uruguay’s cannabis regulation and control institute.[1] Police detained five people at the property: a 57-year-old woman and four men aged 66, 64, 31 and 21, identified only by their initials.[1] Officers seized 34 kilograms of marijuana buds, 65 marijuana plants, several containers holding 600 grams of hashish, 33,130 Uruguayan pesos and two precision scales.[1]

Police also seized equipment used to process and maintain the crop, including a marijuana dryer, four electrical panels, a water pump, twelve solar panels, four light fixtures, eight batteries and three cookers.[1] Firearms and ammunition were also seized, along with a crossbow, an air pistol, a rifle, 181 cartridges, a telescopic sight, binoculars, a laptop, mobile phones, seven exterior video cameras and a pick-up truck.[1] The prosecutor ordered the woman’s release, and the four men were taken to the criminal court.[1]

At a hearing in the 11th-shift criminal court the investigation was formalised against the four men for the alleged offence of drug trafficking, two of them as perpetrators and two as co-perpetrators.[1] The man aged 66 was also charged with internal trafficking of firearms and ammunition in real reiteration with the drug offence.[1] The court ordered total house arrest for 60 days as a precautionary measure for all four men, together with the retention of their travel documents.[2] Maldonado Noticias reported that none of the four men was charged with planting, growing and harvesting under article 3 of law 14.294.[3]