HIGHLAND DEATH TOLL HITS NEW HIGH
police launch crackdown
Drugs deaths in the Highlands have hit a record high as police warn English county lines gangs are targeting the region.
Police intelligence has identified the Moray Firth basin – which takes in Inverness, Ross-shire and Easter Ross – as a hub for county lines operations in the north west. Last year there were 40 drug-related deaths in Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands’ division compared to just 16 in 2014. But police say they are hitting back – by working with police forces in England to go after the gangs in their home cities.
DCI Michael Sutherland, DCI for Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands division, said: “County lines for us generally circulates around the Merseyside, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Sheffield areas. “They have identified the Highland area as a market and predominantly based themselves in the Moray Firth basin, so that would be the Inverness, Ross-shire, Easter Ross areas. Our main concern is they are very good at identifying vulnerable people in the community and taking over their houses. They stay for short periods of time, exploit that individual or individuals for drug dealing, then they move on very quickly.” Police have run a number of successful operations which have led to arrests being made in the gangs’ home cities.
DCI Sutherland said: “We’ve had successful operations from the Highlands and islands where we’ve taken the fight back down the road and we’ve arrested people from the big cities involved. These groups are operating from big cities so they have access to weapons, they threaten people, they use threats of violence.”
Last year an addict from Liverpool was jailed after being sent to Inverness to sell drugs. Graham Ball was “presented with unpalatable options” after running up a drug debt to the crime gang. He was jailed for two years after £11,600 of heroin was recovered following a police surveillance operation in Inverness and Elgin. Co-accused, Laura Beckwith, who was jailed for a year, had also been used by the gang to drive consignments of heroin from Liverpool to the Highlands.
She sobbed in court as it was revealed she was a firsttime offender who had turned to crime after becoming addicted to slot machine gambling. Father-of-three Matthew Wilson also was jailed in 2016 at Inverness Sheriff Court after he admitted acting as a middle man in the sale of cannabis and cocaine for a Manchester-based gang. Wilson, from Dingwall, was recruited by the drugs gang because he was a habitual user and owed £15,000. The devastating impact of drugs is also felt beyond the areas where police intelligence suggests county lines gangs are operating. The popular tourist town of Fort William saw three confirmed drug-related deaths between December 2017 and June 2018. Community councillors have also written to the police highlighting a growing problem with cocaine abuse. Last week a 15-year-old girl from the town needed hospital treatment after apparently taking an illicit substance.