County lines drug dealer trafficked girl 300 miles to sell heroin
A VULNERABLE teenage girl was trafficked 300 miles away from her home by a county lines gang and found with drugs hidden inside her body.
The horrifying case emerged in court yesterday as the leader of the gang, drill rapper Daniel Olaloko, was jailed for supplying heroin and crack cocaine in Cumbria.
Olaloko, 19, whose stage name is Trigga T, had run the operation from South London before his arrest at his student digs in Preston, where he was doing a pharmacology course.
He and his accomplice Peter Adebayo, 19, had used a sophisticated phone relay system in which users would call a number to place an order for drugs.
The gang would take calls in other parts of the country – including Manchester, Preston and London – and direct others to deliver the drugs to customers in Barrow-in-Furness.
The line was given the brand name Nation – after Olaloko’s drill music group Silwood Nation, who rapped about drugs, gang violence and sex in their YouTube videos.
Cumbria Police launched Operation Titanic last year to target local county lines.
A key breakthrough in their investigation came in March when they arrested the vulnerable 17-year-old girl inside a flat in Barrow.
Burnley Crown Court heard the girl had 53 wraps of readyto-sell heroin and crack cocaine hidden in her body and that Olaloko and Adebayo ‘had control’ of her.
Last month a Mail investigation revealed how hundreds of children are being enslaved by county lines gangs who use them to help move class A drugs from their inner-city strongholds to sell in provincial towns. Between
From the Mail, Sept 17 December and April, when Olaloko and Adebayo ran their operation in Barrow, at least 12 people died from drugs overdoses in the town.
One local said Londoners now ruled Barrow and it was ‘ easier than ever’ to buy illegal drugs.
Olaloko, a student at the University of Central Lancashire who unsuccessfully auditioned for The X Factor in 2016, was arrested in a dawn raid at his halls of residence in April.
Police found a sword, knives, four cheap mobile phones, wraps of heroin and crack cocaine and £480 in cash.
Adebayo was arrested in a simultaneous raid in Manchester. Both men pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs and were each jailed for seven years yesterday. Two others pleaded guilty to the same charge. Joshua Adams, 24, of no fixed address, was sentenced to four years and five months in prison, and a 17-yearold male from Manchester was given 18 months in detention and a training order.
Three other members of the gang were earlier given sentences of between five and 10 years for intent to supply class A drugs.
Detective Chief Inspector Nick Coughlan said: ‘These men operated as a sophisticated and relentless organised crime group. They targeted vulnerable people to facilitate their illegal activities and they used fear and intimidation to operate their business.
‘During this operation, officers removed not just drugs from being sold on the streets, but a substantial quantity of illegal and dangerous weapons.’
In a separate operation, 19 people have been arrested across London and Kent in a series of dawn raids targeting county lines gangs.
One woman and 18 men aged between 18 and 55 were taken into custody on suspicion of conspiring to sell class A drugs. Officers also seized knives, cash and packets suspected of containing crack cocaine and heroin in the raids between Tuesday and Thursday.