Daily Mail, Tuesday, August 13, 2019 Page 13DRUGS IN JAIL
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is driven by drug users getting a 24-
hour ‘dial a dealer’ service. The busi-
ness model of using young runners
means a Mr Big can peddle huge
quantities of drugs without ever
meeting a customer, thus reducing
the risk of being picked up by police.
Children’s Commissioner for Eng-
land Anne Longfield blamed county
lines for a surge in children under
13 taken into state care to stop
them transporting and selling
drugs for gangs.
The youngsters, some just 12, tar-
get rural towns and villages from
the Lake District to the Cotswolds
to the South Coast seaside resorts.
The National Crime Agency esti-
mates that one county lines mobile
phone number can generate
income of £800,000 a year. And the
ringleaders have become very rich.
Recently, it emerged that police
are to auction the possessions
bought from the £175,000 gains of
30-year-old Stefan Miller, the jailed
kingpin of a county lines operation.
He bought £13,000 of designer
trainers and shoes and an 18-carat
Rolex watch worth £27,450.M
iLLER used two boys,
aged 14 and 16, as drug
runners to take cocaine
and heroin to Cheltenham
and Gloucester from London. The
boys were put up in hotels and pro-
vided with taxis in the two towns,
but police say Miller controlled the
county line from his home area of
Wandsworth. Last month, 16 Lon-
doners linked to a gang called ‘67’were jailed for using young runners
to ferry hard drugs to towns in
Kent, Surrey, Berkshire and
Hampshire.
They established four county
lines – named Jeezy, Si, Pepsi and
AJ – to run the illicit business.
Some of the gang boasted of hav-
ing weps (guns) and skengs
(knives), the lyrics used in drill
songs which glamorise violent drug
crime.
A particularly nasty part of
county lines is ‘cuckooing’, where
gangs set up local distribution
hubs for young runners to collect
drugs and answer mobile phone
calls in the homes of desperate
drug addicts. in many cases, the
addicts are ‘paid’ in drugs by their
new (and unwelcome) lodgers –
hence the name cuckoo – whichreinforces their addiction and,
therefore, gang dependence.
This modus operandi is well
known to Bedfordshire Police,
which is the first force to reveal
details about the number of drug
users in its area and the link to
county lines. it says the most pop-
ular buy is cannabis (80 per cent)
followed by cocaine (29 per cent)
and other Class A drugs including
heroin. Ecstasy represents 18 per
cent and amphetamines five per
cent of the market.
A quarter, or even more, of cus-
tomers are believed to be in regular
work. For £40 people can buy a
gram of coke, say the police. Oth-
ers mix a cocktail of drugs, includ-
ing amphetamines, that can kill.
Evidence of this never-ending
supply chain came in a court casein June. A 21-year-old from Croy-
don, south London, was jailed for
four and half years after operating
in Bedford. Abdirizak Alassow was
the mastermind of a gang linked to
a phone number which sent
‘mailshots’ advertising drugs for
sale across the town.
Ewa Wabasemba, 20, from Wands-
worth, south London, was recently
sentenced to three years in a young
offender institution. He was found
in Bedford with 14 wraps of cocaine
and heroin, £326 in cash and four
mobile phones. He claimed the
drugs were for his own use but in
court it was proved he was working
in a county lines operation.
Within a train-horn’s sound of Bed-
ford station is Alexandra Road – aAnd as county lines
gangs surge, tragedy
of the two brothers
that’s a parable for
drug-soaked Shires
Preyed on: Michael Higginson and brother Tom’s
deaths were drug-relatedРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's V1News" VK.COM/WSNWS