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A notoriously violent gang rooted in Nova Scotia is recruiting girls and young women in Southwestern Ontario and pimping them out along the Highway 401 corridor, say police and women’s advocates.

Members of North Preston’s Finest are among gangs operating in the region, the OPP say.

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The gang has been connecting with area girls and women for more than a year, said the head of the London Abused Women’s Centre that has been focused on victims of sex trafficking.

“These are very dangerous people and these girls are terrified,” Megan Walker said.

These are very dangerous people and these girls are terrified

“They are trafficking guns, drugs and women and they are settling in Southwestern Ontario from Windsor up to Toronto.”

Since January the centre has helped 134 women and girls who say they’ve been trafficked and 75 at risk of being trafficked, Walker said.

She couldn’t say how many, if any, had been victimized by the Nova Scotia gang.

The North Preston gang surfaced in Nova Scotia in the early 1990s, and has since expanded ­beyond that province to traffic ­women, guns and drugs across Canada.