The surprise text messages to criminals that showed police teams were on their tail

DRUG DEALERS targeting users in an affluent North Yorkshire town recently received a surprise text message from police as part of the force’s crackdown on County Lines.

North Yorkshire Police successfully applied to Newcastle Crown Court earlier this month to obtain three Drug Dealing Telecommunications Restriction Orders to tackle drug dealing in Harrogate.

The court order allows police to take over a drug dealer’s phone line and gives them the power to have it disconnected on a specified date and time.

The order also prevents the phone number and therefore its associated contacts from being transferred to any other device.

The valuable, protected and often branded phone lines allow out-of-town heroin and cocaine dealers to send mass text messages advertising their drugs for sale and when and where they can be picked up. Taking out the lines means no adverts, no sales and no profit for drug dealers.

They were known as the Jerry, Teddy and Pat lines and before being disabled, detectives from North Yorkshire Police sent a message to all contacts linked to each phone line to let them know that North Yorkshire Police now had possession of the lines and had taken all three down off the network. They were deactivated at 3pm on February 14.

Officers also signposted users to confidential help from drug support workers at the charity, North Yorkshire Horizons.

Detective Inspector Fionna McEwan, of North Yorkshire Police’s Organised Crime Unit, said: “The orders are a helpful disruption tactic to interrupt the flow of drugs. Police regularly seize mobile phones from suspected drug dealers, but the numbers and associated contacts can be reactivated within hours.

“The orders allow us to take down the line and remove the phone number from circulation permanently, meaning it cannot ever be reactivated on another device, depriving the dealers of the key means to sell their drugs.

“They also give us a rare opportunity to communicate direct with their customers, allowing us to provide advice direct to drug users who are often vulnerable and in need of support.

“We hope communities are reassured by the action we have taken and that when we say county lines drug dealing is a priority for North Yorkshire Police, we mean it. We urge people to report any information they have about drug dealing in their communities. We will take action.”