The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) said that more than four out of five of the violent organised crime gangs in the capital were involved in drugs distribution, and that half of all violent criminals had a drug offending background.
At the same time, the National Crime Agency (NCA) disclosed that as many as 2,000 “county lines” networks, in which children are used by older gang members to ferry drugs from cities to smaller towns, were now operating nationwide.
The NCA said that “serious violence” was resulting as gangs sought to “defend territory, intimidate rivals, and protect commodities that can be traded for significant profit”.
It said the gangs were exploiting “vulnerable adults and children, trafficking them across the UK, placing them into debt bondage, and taking over their homes in a practice called ‘cuckooing’.
In numbers
82 per cent
proportion of London’s violent organised crime gangs involved in drugs distribution
2,000
number of county lines networks sending drugs out from cities
600
number arrested in a crackdown on county lines last week
“Victims are coerced and controlled through physical and psychological methods, which often involve violence in the form of firearm, knife and acid attacks,” the NCA added.
Today’s warnings, which follow police complaints that middle-class cocaine users are prompting street violence, came as senior figures from the NCA and NPCC appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee.
Met deputy assistant commissioner Duncan Ball said “turf wars” provided “plenty of examples of violence by drug dealers or users to establish territory or control a situation”.
The police chiefs added that social media was “escalating violence between young people and enabling content that glamorises or encourages violence and crime”.
The NCA said that more than 600 people had been arrested in a coordinated national crackdown last week during which 140 weapons, including 12 firearms, machetes, swords, axes and knives, had been seized, as well as cash and drugs. Forty potential slavery victims had been rescued.
