Police find marijuana growing in Mussolini tunnel

ROME: Italian authorities say they have discovered an illegal marijuana farm in a tunnel that late dictator Benito Mussolini wanted to be part of Rome’s subway system.
Italy’s tax police said Tuesday that officers discovered the illegal cultivation when they detected the smell of dried marijuana from an unused tunnel near a Rome train station.
The officers entered the tunnel Monday and found mushrooms being cultivated. Behind a fake wall, they thene found marijuana plants growing with the help of artificial lights and an irrigation system.
Police said there were 340 kilograms (748 pound) of marijuana, which would have yielded 340,000 individual doses. The Italian owner of the mushroom farm was arrested.
Mussolini had hoped to expand the city’s subway system but his project went uncompleted.