Children as young as eight are being used by so-called ‘county lines’ gangs to traffic drugs into rural areas of the UK.
Gangs from big cities are expanding their spheres of influence into smaller towns and villages where police forces are less able to deal with them.
A conference at the House of Commons has now heard of the increasingly young ages of children groomed to work for them and the extent of the groups’ activities.
The gangs are making up to £5,000 a day from selling cocaine and heroin in rural areas and the NCA believe more than 1,000 phones lines are being used in the expanding networks, the conference heard.
City drugs gang running so-called ‘county lines’ operations to take substances into rural areas are targeting children as young as eight, it emerged this week
In the two weeks alone, a teenager who was dealing to pay off a city drug gang was jailed in Bristol, police in the rural Powys county of Wales charged seven people over a county lines plot and a woman has been charged with possession of heroin in Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire in a case also thought to be linked to the gangs.
Youngsters are drawn in by the promise of easy money, made to work to pay of ‘debts’ or simply threatened with violence to get them to work for dealers.
Children can be targeted through social media, though the gangs are said to favour using children in care, who are more vulnerable and easier to get involved.
Teenager Cassius Hodson was found with heroin and told police he was dealing to pay off debts to a gang in Bristol
Just last month, officers in Staffordshire smashed their way into two properties in Burton-upon-Trent and found two vulnerable children who were missing from the local area.
The children then run drugs out into rural areas, allowing the top players in the gangs to avoid detection.
Younger children and so-called ‘clean skins’, those without any history of interaction with local police, are favoured because they are less likely to be stopped.
Cassius Hodson, who was jailed two weeks ago, was picked up by police in the small Wiltshire town of Westbury and was found in possession of heroin and mobile phones.
The 18-year-old told police he had racked up a debt with a gang in Bristol and made to work for them to pay off his debt.
After his sentencing, local police officer PC Simon Margetts said: ‘This is a good example of how getting involved in any sort of drug dealing can lead to your life being taken over and spiraling out of control – soon you are ransomed by drugs and those who deal in them.’
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has identified more than 720 county lines networks running between London and Wales, Merseyside and Cumbria and London and the West Country.
Officers smashed their way into two properties in Burton and found two missing children
One line to Somerset was called the ‘Max Line’ by the London gang who ran it because it was so lucrative.
Following the conference in Parliament last week, Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock called for a single police force to be the nationwide lead on tackling county lines gangs.
He said: ‘In my own county of Cumbria, there have been 78 people convicted of county lines-related offences in the last 18 months, and there have been 22 drugs-related deaths since September. County lines is killing people and causing untold harm to our communities.
‘Although there must be a police response, we cannot simply arrest our way out of this problem.’