A major police force is working with a university to prevent county lines drug dealers infiltrating campuses and setting up there to sell cannabis and cocaine.

It comes as academics and a charity warn that academic institutions are increasingly being targeted as a possible market for class A drugs across England and Wales.

Those involved in the county lines phenomenon – where substances are moved from cities to provincial locations, often using children as mules – are either enrolling on courses or employing young people at academic institutions as dealers and using their halls of residence as a base from which to sell drugs.

Quick guide What is ‘county lines’ and who are the victims? Show Hide What does the term ‘county lines’ mean? The name ‘county lines’ refers to the phone numbers, or lines, that criminal gangs which traffic drugs from urban to rural areas use to organise the sale of their wares. Gangs in cities such as London, Birmingham and Liverpool use children to deal mostly heroin and crack cocaine over a network of dedicated mobile phones to smaller towns and rural areas. Who are the victims and how are they recruited? The majority of victims groomed into working for gangs are 15- to 17-year-old boys but children as young as 11 have been safeguarded and girls have been targeted.

Many victims are recruited over social media, with offenders luring them with images of cash, designer clothing and luxury cars, but vulnerable girls and women are being targeted by men who create the impression of a romantic relationship before subjecting them to sexual exploitation. How big is the problem? In 2015, about seven forces reported county lines behaviour. Now, 44 forces, including British Transport Police, have recorded county lines behaviour on their turf. No one really knows how many young people across the country are being forced to take part. Children without criminal records – known as ‘clean skins’ – are preferred because they are less likely to be known to detectives. The Children’s Society says 4,000 teenagers in London alone are exploited through county lines, while the children’s commissioner estimated at least 46,000 children in England were caught up in gangs. How many children have been affected The number of individual phone numbers identified by law enforcement officials as being used on established county lines networks is about 2,000 – nearly three times the 720 previously established.



Police estimate the phone numbers are linked to about 1,000 branded networks, with a single line capable of making £800,000 profits in a year. The Children's Commissioner estimates at least 46,000 children in England are caught up in gangs.

Insp Jon Aspinall of North Wales police said the force was aware of the problem in their area and working closely with Bangor University to safeguard students. “We have a number of county lines running in from Merseyside, one of the highest areas of county lines numbers being released,” he said.

“We have found on occasions that if we stop individuals, they do purport to be students. There are a couple of occasions where that has happened and people have subsequently been found to be in possession of large quantities of drugs and cash.”

He said that in other areas, dealers would “infiltrate university and sign up as a student and run a line from that institution”.

Aspinall added: “We have become aware of that, as we are a close-knit community and have a good working relationship with the university, so we have an information-sharing agreement that helps us safeguard people.”

He said national sources had said it was a “tactic that can be used”. The force has a police community support officer assigned to the university, Aspinall added: “Anyone who they are concerned about they have got the reassurance that they can contact us and we can lawfully share information to help safeguard students.”

Mohammed Qasim of LSE’s Mannheim centre for criminology said: “Growing numbers of universities are now seeing county lines drug dealers who are posing as students. But the issue is that some universities are reluctant to talk about it as it damages their reputation. From my discussions with people – both academics and people on the ground – this has been established as something that is happening at increasing numbers of universities.”

Late last year a student who ran a county lines drug operation from his hall of residence was jailed for 30 months. Seif Hashim, 20, enrolled in a physiotherapy course at Kent University as cover while he was selling large quantities of cocaine, heroin and cannabis. Hashim used his course in Gillingham, Kent, to hide his activities.

Junior Smart, who founded the SOS Gangs Project, run by the St Giles Trust to help young people and ex-offenders, said it was not a new phenomenon. “If you imagine county lines is criminality evolved … a university is a prime space to run a business. Recreational drug use is commonplace at university, as well as colleges. So [in] some areas like Brighton, the move into university and student accommodations is an obvious one,” he said.

“[County lines dealers] might say to a young person, ‘We will pay for you to go to university’, but want the halls of residence. Or they may recruit someone already at university and say, ‘Here is a way to make money’.”

Smart said he would like to see more universities engaging with the problem and said further work needed to be done.

“The hidden truth is that county lines is not just operated [around] crack cocaine and heroin. There are loads of other recreational aspects to it. Powder cocaine and ‘uppy’ drugs are common,” he said.

Dr Qasim said it was an issue in a rising number of universities. He added: “I don’t think the universities are really focusing their energy on this. I think it is not being looked at as closely as it should and of course universities would say they have their reasons for not pursuing this given that they are reputable places trying to attract students from across the word.”

Dr Simon Harding, professor of criminology at the University of West Londonand director of the National Centre for Gang Research, said he was aware there were county lines boys who were using student accommodation or using people enrolled there as runners.

“It would be a lucrative little number if you are put up for free in someone’s bedsit and you and this student distribute drugs to relative groups. You could make a hefty sum that way,” he said.

Last year, the scale of the national drugs network crisis was laid bare as figures analysed by the Guardian showed the soaring number of cases in which vulnerable children were linked to gangs.

In 2017-18, 8,650 assessments by children’s services in England noted young people as being vulnerable, with gangs identified as an issue. This included 1,290 cases from the north-west and 3,130 from London, up from 3,680 in 2014-15.

MPs, academics and charities described the findings as shocking, saying the rise of organised criminal groups that use children to traffic drugs from inner-city areas to provincial towns, where they are used to sell drugs, was a key factor in the surge.



