72 jailed for 220 years as huge County Lines drugs gang smashed
A MULTI-MILLION pound County Lines drugs ring has been smashed by police with 72 gang members jailed for more than 220 years.
The huge organisation was infiltrated by undercover officers in a two-year covert operation.
Police found the gang were exploiting vulnerable children as young as 14 and using them to peddle crack cocaine and heroin on British streets.
County Lines outfits see drug dealers in big cities establish networks for the supply and sale of drugs in rural areas.
The kingpins often use vulnerable youngsters to carry, store and sell the drugs.
Honour
Northamptonshire Police launched a probe at the beginning of 2019 to infiltrate both County Lines and local drug dealing gangs across the county.
Officers gained access to the secretive criminal network and unearthed evidence of gangs operating in London, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Northampton.
Warrants were executed simultaneously and multiple arrests were made at the end of 2019, resulting in more than £1.3million of drugs being taken off the streets.
A total of 72 men and women have now been convicted and jailed for more than 220 years – shutting down 30 drugs lines across the country.
It is believed to be the biggest conviction of its kind by a single UK police force against a County Lines gang. Aways Osman, 28, Hussein Jimale, 26, Bruno Borges, 24, and Levi Bernard, 33, were described as the “big players” of the operation.
The London-based crooks were jailed for conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
Detective Chief Inspector Adam Pendlebury, of Northamptonshire Police, said: “We have always been clear as a force that it is the people at the top of these drug dealing gangs who we want to target.
“And this operation has done exactly that, leaving no stone unturned from London to Northampton in order to put these people where they belong – behind bars.
“Drug dealers like Aways Osman, Hussein Jimale, Bruno Borges and Levi Bernard truly think they are untouchable.
“They exploit vulnerable people like children and adults suffering with addiction, and make them take all the risks, while they sit at home counting their money.
“There is no honour in this. Over the past two years we have warned them and their associates directly that one day, we would get them. One day we would come through their door, and one day they would be looking at the inside of a prison cell.
“Today is that day and I could not be prouder of the work that has gone into this investigation by a group who made this operation their lives for two years. I hope the success makes our relentlessness to pursue offenders clear and reassures the community.”