Team in Birmingham will develop intelligence and act against serious offenders

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A team of 38 investigators have begun a national crackdown on county lines drugs gangs, which send children to provincial towns to sell heroin and crack cocaine.

The county lines coordination centre, based in Birmingham, is aimed at developing a national intelligence picture of the drugs networks, after increasing awareness of the tactic.

County lines gangs enlist young people from cities to carry class A drugs to market towns, coastal areas and rural locations. Ringleaders operate mobile phone hotlines to market the drugs to local users, with the young drugs mules conducting the sales.

Investigators say a typical line will turn over £2,000 to £3,000 worth of drugs per day.

A recent assessment by the National Crime Agency said there were more than 1,000 lines in operation across the country, and 200 active investigations into them. But tackling the operations, which usually cross police force areas, has hitherto been hampered by a lack of coordination.

The launch of the centre was a key commitment in the government’s serious violence strategy, launched in April in response to a wave of violent crime across the country that has been linked to the drugs trade.

According to the Home Office, the proportion of homicides where the victim or suspect were known to be using or dealing drugs increased from 50% in 2014-15 to 75% in 2016-17.

Steve Rodhouse, the director general of operations at the National Crime Agency, said the centre would go beyond police work to help develop a “multiagency approach” to identify and safeguard vulnerable young people caught up in the drugs trade, confiscate profits from dealers, and understand what drives demand for drugs.

“County lines is a national problem,” Rodhouse said. “Supply gangs are responsible for high levels of violence in addition to the exploitation and abuse of vulnerable adults and children.”

The Home Office has funded the centre for two years, at a cost of £3.6m, with its staff – detectives from police forces and analysts from the NCA – also tasked with prioritising action against the most serious offenders, and engaging with partners in other agencies, including in health, welfare and education.

A spokesman for the department was unable to say by what criteria the initiative would be judged a success of a failure, and it was not clear what plans were in place for 2020, when funding ends.

The deputy assistant commissioner, Duncan Ball, the national policing lead for gangs, said: “The very nature of county lines offending means that we can only truly tackle it by bringing together all UK police forces, law enforcement agencies and other partners to create a unified national response.”