BTP County Lines
PAUL STEPHEN investigates how a dedicated British Transport Police County Lines Taskforce is working in partnership with the rail industry to tackle the dual scourges of drug trafficking and child exploitation on the network
Behind the County Lines with the BTP taskforce tackling the dual scourges of drug trafficking and child explotation on the network.
On May 12, officers from the British Transport Police’s County Lines Taskforce arrested a man at Liverpool Lime Street on suspicion of carrying a Class B drug with intent to supply.
But this wasn’t any ordinary arrest. The 27-year-old from Wigan had been suspected of using the pram of his four-day-old baby boy to conceal a large quantity of cannabis.
Following the successful seizure of the drugs, the baby was taken into care while the man has now been released pending further enquiries.
The incident serves as a stark reminder of the extreme lengths that organised criminal networks will sometimes go to in order to evade detection.
The transportation of illegal drugs between different areas of the country using the rail network is more widely known as County Lines, because of the ‘County Line’ mobile phone line that is used by gangs to take the orders of drugs.
The actual movement of the drugs is primarily conducted by children or other vulnerable people. They are often coerced or intimidated into doing so by gang members.
Set up using Home Office funding in December 2019, the BTP County Lines
Taskforce aims to safeguard these vulnerable people from exploitation and the threat of violence, while also removing this type of criminal activity from the network.
The success of the initiative speaks for itself (see panel), with almost 500 arrests made since the Taskforce began and 26 young people referred to the National Referral Mechanism for safeguarding.
Meanwhile, more than 200 of the muchprized ‘County Line’ phones have also been confiscated (dealing a heavy blow to the gangs’ business activities), as well as £173,000 in cash and 75 illegal weapons.
Detective Superintendent and Taskforce lead Gareth Williams explains: “I’ve been involved in policing for 28 years and what has really piqued my interest in this area is the blurred line between victim and offender.
“We’re not seeking to criminalise young people, which is why working with the rail industry and train operators to spot the signs [of exploitation] is so important to us.
“We’re getting much better at seeing these signs and continue to improve as part of our ambition to make rail a non-viable form of transport for County Lines. This won’t happen overnight but is definitely achievable. It will mean that older gang members will have to find other means of doing it themselves, such as using hire cars.”
In addition to the BTP’s own operations, Metropolitan Police, West Midlands Police and Merseyside Police have also received additional government funding to tackle County Lines.
As part of a £ 25 million cash injection by government to dismantle these groups, the
The pandemic has definitely made it easier to detect the drugs runners as the opportunity to blend in has gone a little bit. The demand for drugs doesn’t abate for anything either. Gareth Williams, Detective Superintendent, BTP County Lines Taskforce Lead
four forces feed information into a National County Lines Co-ordination Centre where data can be gathered, cross-referenced and shared with other agencies.
Williams adds: “I’ll give you a good example of how we co-ordinate things, which is the story of a 17-year-old boy from East London who we arrested at Stratford station with two phones and £ 500 in cash. He was interviewed and then returned home, where he subsequently told his mother that he had been kept against his will at a house in Kent.
“She called 999, which allowed us to run further investigations. We could see from his phone data that he’d been in contact with another phone and we were then able to overlay the phone data with ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) to identify a vehicle.
“This resulted in us identifying three other boys who had been in the same position, while we also arrested two individuals on July 1 who have now been charged with supply of a Class A drug and modern slavery offences.”
As well as BTP working in partnership with other law enforcement and government agencies, Williams says the key to the Taskforce’s success has been the co-operation and assistance provided by train operators and other rail companies.
That is because station and train staff are often best placed to spot the indicative signs that possible County Lines activity is taking place, before passing on their suspicions to the BTP.
These signs include young people travelling long distances, alone and with a large amount of cash, and young people being nervous around and furtively avoiding any sort of authority at stations.
Lee Tilson, emergency planning manager at Avanti West Coast, says: “If you look at the dynamic of our network [which serves London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow], it makes us an obvious mode of transportation [for County Lines], so for many years our staff have received training and guidance on how to look out for vulnerable children and adults being utilised as drug runners.
“We’ve focused at safety briefings on what doesn’t look right, and all our frontline staff will be receiving bespoke training from Railway Children and other designated training providers to spot the little things, such as buying tickets with large amounts of cash or travelling a long way with no luggage.”
He adds: “We are often the eyes and ears to flag things up and then we can provide intelligence reports to the BTP or phone ahead for assistance. Our staff won’t do anything unsafe and it’s not for us to provide enforcement, but we know that the worst thing you can do is nothing, even if it turns out to be OK and legitimate.”
Operators such as AWC also work closely to support BTP investigations in other ways, by supplying CCTV footage, witness statements and data from their analysts that points to unusual passenger flows.
And as well as identifying suspects to the BTP, staff also keep their eyes peeled for individuals whom the BTP believes have boarded one of AWC’s trains.
According to Williams, it is this intelligenceled approach that has made the largest contribution to the Home Office funding beginning to pay dividends.
“Clearly, if you’re travelling 300 miles when you’re meant to be at school then you have to take the train,” he adds.
“But I’ve always made it clear from the outset that it’s not just the export of drugs from the big cities that we’re concerned with. It’s often easier to find the young people going back to London at 11pm on a cold platform in Norwich.
“It’s not always the people at Liverpool
Lime Street, Manchester Piccadilly and Birmingham New Street, but those at Norwich, Shrewsbury and all sorts of other places where we’ve had good results. It’s those guys on the ground who we have to thank, because we can’t be everywhere.”
Williams believes that the Taskforce was handed a further advantage earlier this year following the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.
That’s because the subsequent drop in passenger numbers of more than 90% made the drugs runners easier to spot - criminal activity and the supply of illegal substances continued regardless of the lockdown.
He explains: “If you’re trafficking drugs then you’re probably not too worried about a virus, so the pandemic has definitely made it easier to detect the drugs runners as the opportunity to blend in has gone a little bit. The demand for drugs doesn’t abate for anything either. And we’ve experienced a lot more support from other police forces.”
With funding secured up to the end of the year, the longer-term future remains uncertain for the Taskforce, especially if the recession that the UK is expected to suffer as a result of the pandemic leads to further pressures on government spending.
But Williams remains optimistic, given the results that have already been achieved and the ongoing importance of keeping young and vulnerable people away from harm, while also preventing the network from being used to support dangerous criminal activity.
He concludes: “We’re getting encouraging signs from the Home Office. But a lot of money is being spent by government during the pandemic, so who knows.
“But the Taskforce is tackling organised crime, child exploitation and youth violence. And if we’re not interested in those three things then we need to pack up and go home.”
We are often the eyes and ears to flag things up and then we can provide intelligence reports to the BTP or phone ahead for assistance. Lee Tilson, Emergency Planning Manager, Avanti West Coast