Hampshire Constabulary seized over £78,000 of Class A drugs as part of a national week of action to tackle county line drug dealers, it has been revealed.
National county lines intensification week, which targets drug traffickers who often recruit children and vulnerable adults to supply drugs across the country, ran from Monday 7th to Sunday 13th March. Over 1,400 people were arrested and 671 vulnerable people were safeguarded across England and Wales during the week of action.
Police from across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight joined all other police forces in England and Wales engaged in operations to crack down on county lines. Highlights from Hampshire Constabulary’s contributing activity include:
- 12 warrants executed
- 31 arrested – 30 men (6 were aged under 18) and 1 female
- 43 mobile phones seized
- £13,575 cash seized
- £78,480 of drugs seized
- £47,120 crack cocaine seized
- £1,190 heroin seized
- £24,800 powder cocaine seized
- 48 education visits carried out including 10 taxi firms
- 134 cuckooed addresses visited
- 5 landlord visits
- 34 vulnerable individuals safeguarded including 4 children.
A vital reason to tackle county lines is the safeguarding of young children and vulnerable adults, often groomed to run drugs from one city to other parts of the country. Grooming is often followed by extreme violence and coercive behaviour.
During the past week, 671 were actively safeguarded nationally; 34 of these vulnerable individuals including 4 children, were identified and safeguarded by Hampshire Constabulary and local partners. This number is likely to rise in the coming days as further interventions take place and collaboration with partners continues.
In Hampshire, in the last 5 months alone, 39 children have been identified as being concerned in county lines activity both in and outside the Force area. Police work with relevant services, agencies and charities to help safeguard children and vulnerable adults, and use a variety of options available to them, including Rescue and Response referrals, strategy meetings, safety plans created and Modern Slavery Crime reports.
Police can also bring victimless prosecutions for modern slavery offences, just one of the many ways officers are protecting young people. Victimless prosecutions ensure children and vulnerable adults are spared the ordeal of having to go through the court process to give evidence and face the violent and abusive individual responsible for their suffering.
Cheif Inspector Ricky Dhanda, Hampshire Constabulary’s tactical lead for County Lines and Drug Related Harm, has said:
“Our involvement with this national week of action enables us to work cross borders with other forces and our South East Regional Organised Crime Unit (SEROCU) to ensure we are continually making our towns and cities a hostile environment for drug dealing, by disrupting and dismantling these networks. We’ve had a successful week of intensification with a significant amount of drugs taken off our streets and those involved arrested and charged. It’s important to add that a lot of educational work is done by police and partners continually throughout the year. The week provides a focus on the high harm these drug gangs pose to our communities and to young and vulnerable people in our society who they often exploit and bring misery too.
“Officers across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are fully committed to ensuring that local communities do not suffer as a result of drug-related harm or County Lines drug dealing activity. We are actively working to disrupt County Lines drug dealing constantly and our aim is to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable people, while making sure that Hampshire remains a safe place to work and live”.
Given the racially charged atmosphere the UK has to endure these days why are the origins and ethnithicy of these criminals not being released?
Please could we have the figures for the Isle of Wight?
Total scum these drug dealers peddling their filth. I bet none of them get locked up.
Someone please help us. My reports on here keep being deleated, or the article is pulled.
I cannot live in peace as drug dealers rule my village of Freshwater and have attacked me in the past. No interest from Police for years. It is playing havoc with my mental health, as these drug running youths run round every evening – they RULE this area and there is nothing anyone can do.
Every sympathy for you.
But it seems to me, that you are the only person in your village that gets so upset about alleged offences/offenders.
Just ignore them, just like everyone else does, including the police.
They don’t pose a risk to you personally, unless you keep moaning about said people on such s regular basis.
Are you sure the problem is not you ?
If the police ain’t concerned, then neither should you be.
Live and live. Stop worrying about other people, and just concentrate on your self. (No offense intended).
It’s a Point of View, to just ‘live and let live’, however to accept that would be to ignore the negative effects of this activity.
Just locally, we have seen children taking drugs, sometimes as a result of peer pressure and we know some of the tragic results which this can lead to, as cannabis leads onto heroin etc. Think if these were your offspring, how you might feel about these dealers.
Think also of the fact that in buying from these heartless distributers, one is effectively funding drugs gangs, the County Lines network. Those that cannot keep up the cost of maintaining their habit or addiction invariably turn to crime, which affects us all..
Here one can easily recognise those individuals damaged by drugs and that’s tragic in itself..
I agree with you to an extend but you’re giving me elderly and deluded vibes. You don’t really know what you’re on about. Just young stoners being stoners. They’ll keep to themselves.
And maybe if the government actually pulled the finger from god knows where, then there would be actual funding for the youth centers, better education, just general better opportunities but no. The deluded voted for the Torys and now we don’t have any of those things. Cost of living is rising and they ain’t doing anything to sort it. They’re getting richer and we’re getting the peak side of life. And then everyone wonders why dealers etc exist. Gotta live somehow.
Might I suggest working for a living, be it in employment or self employment.
It teaches one self respect and respect for others, one experiences camaraderie, responsibility and hard work is actually good for you !
Could not agree more mate.
If it was/is such a big problem then you would have more than the one person commenting on this one subject all of the time.
Maybe, it is an age thing ?
But it does sound like she may need some help from the authority’s, or the doctors.
Here we go again…
Also you don’t have a vpn
You’re a low life negative bottom feeding scum bag.