Police today smashed a suspected network of heroin and crack cocaine dealers supplying addicts in the Home Counties in a series of dawn raids in south London.
Officers swooped on 15 homes in London and further addresses in Northamptonshire, Essex and Somerset in simultaneous raids.
There were 10 arrests in the capital and one in Somerset. Suspected drug dealers and vulnerable addicts-turned-pushers were held in the 5am swoop codenamed Operation Break.
Detectives say they were targeting suspects mainly based in Greenwich who are thought to be trafficking Class A drugs to the Home Counties.
Officers from the Greenwich Gangs Unit, the Territorial Support Group and the Trident unit recovered a quantity of drugs and cash after searching the addresses.
In one raid police used a battering ram to crash through the front door of a flat in a housing block in Woolwich, which detectives said was being used as a “front” to sell drugs.
Greenwich police raid
After charging inside officers shouted “knife, knife” and minutes later a 41-year-old man wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt was led out in handcuffs after being arrested on suspicion of supplying Class A drugs.
At the same time police targeted a mid-terraced two-storey home two miles away near Woolwich Common. The intended target — a suspected drug dealer — was not inside but the house was searched for cash and drugs.
The raids follow a lengthy intelligence operation involving covert surveillance and undercover policing at known drug hotspots.
Greenwich commander Simon Dobinson said they were the culmination of more than six months of investigative work by officers from the borough’s Violent and Organised Crime Unit.
He said: “It’s important to recognise that by targeting our actions on the supply of drugs we are also helping those who have become involved with drugs because of their vulnerabilities.
“It is a vicious circle and the reality is these people get into a situation where they are held to ransom by dealers. These people are blighted by their addictions as well as being intimidated.”
