Hundreds of children ‘slaves’ of drug gangs

THE number of children “enslaved” by criminals such as county lines gangs to courier drugs has increased from just 35 to almost 1,000 in two years, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has revealed.

In its annual report on victims of modern slavery and trafficking, the NCA said the number subjected to “labour exploitation” which includes county lines gangs had trebled from 301 last year to 987 in 2018, up from 35 in 2016.

Overall, the number of children referred to official agencies as potential victims of trafficking or modern slavery doubled in a year, fuelled by county line gangs, from 677 to 1,421, which represented a six-fold increase since 2016.

The NCA says the number of county lines, where urban gangs use children as young as 11 to courier drugs into rural and suburban towns, has almost trebled in a year from 720 to 2,000, and is now estimated to generate some £500million a year in criminal profits.

Liam Vernon, senior manager for the NCA’S national referral mechanism, said: “The younger they are, the more prone they are to exploitation through physical and mental violence and sometimes sexual abuse. We see them as young as 11 or 12 up to 16 or 17,” he said. “They are expendable. They are often clean skins. They will also make the gangs an awful lot of money.”

The NCA report shows 6,993 adults and children from 130 different countries were referred to agencies as potential victims of trafficking and modern slavery last year, up by 36 per cent from 5,142 in 2017 and almost double the 3,804 in 2016.