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Updated 02/03/2021 13:34 GMT My Son Was Murdered By A County Lines Gang. Why Didn t Police Listen To Me? Blind spots from police, social services and even charities are allowing child trafficking to thrive. Here s what needs to change. This is the final part of a series by HuffPost UK about county lines drug dealing in Britain. One afternoon in August 2018, two officers knocked on Abdi’s mum’s door and confirmed the worst: eight months after he had gone missing, her son’s body had been found. “I’d routinely walk to a nearby creek just to see if his body would wash up there,” she told HuffPost UK. ....
Updated 01/03/2021 08:49 GMT ‘Your Dealer Is Nearby’ – How Drugs Are Delivered To Your Doorstep These are the substances driving county lines operations and how much Britain’s most popular drugs cost. This is part of a series by HuffPost UK about county lines drug dealing in Britain. Drugs are at the heart of county lines activity. The narcotics market is worth an estimated £9.4bn a year in the UK. About three million people took drugs in England and Wales in 2019, with around 300,000 in England taking the most harmful: opiates and/or crack cocaine. In the first three months of lockdown alone, drug offences rose by 27% across England and Wales despite total recorded crime dropping by a quarter. ....
Updated 01/03/2021 09:38 GMT Revealed: Drug Gangs Are Stealing Children From Loving Families – Even In Lockdown “County lines” operators are using jaw-dropping tactics to snare vulnerable children across the UK. A ruthless child-grooming gang flew a boy back to Britain so he could continue dealing drugs after his desperate parents sent him to Kenya for his own safety, HuffPost UK can reveal. Another grooming victim had to be held down by his mother and siblings as he tried to knife his innocent step-father, unrecognisable from the star pupil and keen footballer he had been a few years earlier. These are among dozens of horrifying stories from desperate families whose children have been threatened, attacked and ultimately trapped by county lines gangs with little hope of escape. ....
in some cases robberies are staged leaving the young dealers in debt to their groomers. This is part of a series by HuffPost UK about county lines drug dealing in Britain. For decades, children and young people have been used and exploited through a drug distribution model known as “county lines” – and it has evolved under lockdown. County lines are drug networks engineered by gangs and organised criminal networks that export illegal substances – typically heroin and crack cocaine – between the growing market in suburban areas and larger cities. The “lines” are both the dedicated mobile phone lines and the physical geographical and transport routes that connect dealers and users. ....