The government is to spend £20m on tackling county lines drug networks, including recruiting more specialist caseworkers to deal with victims groomed into gangs, the home secretary has announced. County lines involves gangs in cities such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool using children as young as 11 to deal mostly heroin and crack cocaine over a network of dedicated mobile phones. In her speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester on Tuesday, Priti Patel said the extra cash would stop gangs “terrorising our towns and villages and exploiting our children”. The package will be spent on expanding the National County Lines Coordination Centre and setting up a dedicated unit within the British Transport Police, which will deploy visible and undercover officers at railway stations to disrupt county lines activity. The number of individual phone numbers identified by law enforcement officials as being used on established county lines networks is about 2,000 and the illicit industry is estimated to be worth at least £500m.

Source: The Guardian October 01, 2019 16:41 UTC