POLICE’S WAR ON DRUGS
NORTH WALES FORCE FACE HIGHER CONCENTRATION OF ORGANISED CRIME THAN MOST UK CITIES... AND THEY’RE PRAISED FOR WINNING THE BATTLE
NORTH Wales Police are involved in tackling a higher concentration of organised crime than all but five other police forces in the UK.
According to the last official figures, it ranked sixth in all police force areas for “actively disrupting, investigating and monitoring organised crime activity” – higher than cities like Birmingham.
A report by the National Crime Agency (NCA) highlights the major organised crime challenges faced by British police forces, revealing there were believed to be 5,866 active gangs operating in the UK, comprising up to 39,000 members.
And it highlights that the supply of drugs from major urban areas to rural towns and villages along so called “county lines” is an area of key concern.
In North Wales, there have been a number of recent successful prosecutions of cases in which criminals from Manchester and Liverpool have been operating supply lines into the area, using so-called “graft” mobile phones to advertise the availability of hard drugs.
In June, four men from Liverpool were jailed for their part in the death of rival drug dealer Mark Mason from Rhyl, who was stabbed to death in the car park of the town’s Home Bargains store.
In March, two men from Merseyside were jailed for nine years between them for supplying drugs from Liverpool to the region.
And in September last year, a gang that had been involved in ferrying drugs into north east Wales were locked up for 20 years.
According to the last inspection of North Wales Police by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, up to July 2016 North Wales has a higher than normal amount of organised crime activity per million of population, with North Wales Police “actively disrupting, investigating or monitoring” 65 organised crime groups (OCGs) per one million of the population.
“This compares to 46 OCGs per one million of the population across England and Wales,” according to the report.
It added: “The force has a high number of OCGs, the sixth highest per population in all England and Wales forces. This reflects the commitment of North Wales Police to tackling the threat from serious and organised crime, and to deploy its specialist resources to identifying OCGs more effectively.”
All but one of the other five areas with a higher concentration of organised crime groups per head of population – the London Metropolitan area – were in the north west of England comprising Merseyside, Lancashire, Greater Manchester and Cumbria.
The NCA’s report highlights the problem of “county line” drug dealing as a national issue. It said: “There are two primary features of county lines that stand out from typical retail drug supply: ordering through anonymised ‘deal line’ numbers, and the exploitation of young and vulnerable people.
“The former describes the use of an anonymous mobile number, branded to a gang or network and commonly held close to or within the urban hub, into which customers place orders which are then supplied locally. Most markets are now subject of multiple ‘deal lines’.
“The other key feature is the persistent and systematic exploitation of young and vulnerable persons. Children as young as 12 are being exploited by gangs to transport drugs into county markets, store and distribute them. Girls are also vulnerable to sexual exploitation.
“Debt bondage has become prevalent. By orchestrating an event where the children are robbed of the drugs they are holding, they are placed in debt for that loss and put under greater pressure to continue criminal conduct.
“Vulnerable adults are also exploited, particularly through ‘cuckooing’, where the person has their home partially or entirely taken over to facilitate drug storage or supply.
“Violence, incidents of kidnap, use of weapons (including firearms), and ruthless customer debt control prevail as consequences of ‘county line’ markets. Gangs also resort to violence against each other when supply saturates demand and competition increases.
“Knife crime is a significant feature of these markets in addition to incidents of threats of and use of firearms. Increases in violent and weapons-based crime have been reported in many ‘county line’ market towns.”
One drug gang that ferried crack cocaine and heroin into North Wales was jailed in September last year. They were caught by Operation Baste, a taskforce that tried to disrupt organised criminal trafficking into the region.