Victim of cuckooing tells Liz Perkins what life is like in a block of flats
AMAN claims machetewielding drug dealers have driven him from his home and forced him to sleep on Swansea’s streets.
The men, armed with knuckle dusters and blades, forced him to drug run for them, collecting £2,500 a day but paying him with just a couple of shots of heroin or some crack, he claimed.
In a phenomenon known as county lines, drug gangs from London, Birmingham, Reading and Bristol have targeted the city.
Some dealers move into the homes of vulnerable people, known as cuckooing, to carry out their deals before moving on when the electricity supply runs out. One man who claims to be a victim of cuckooing, who is too scared to be named for fear of reprisals, claims there are victims like him all over the city who have been forced to flee their homes and live in tents or survive on the streets as they are too fearful to return.
Police have said they take allegations of cuckooing “very seriously” and urged people to contact them with any concerns.
The man said he took drugs to cope with his mental health issues, including PTSD. Then he received a visit from the drug dealers to his home at Griffith John Street flats. He initially sold drugs for them, then decided he had to get them out of his home.
“I said ‘you have to go’ but they pulled a machete out,” he said.
“One of them had knuckle dusters and one had a normal knife and a large blade – they looked as if they would end up chopping you up.
“I went to sleep on the streets rather than being in the flat, I was gone for one or two weeks.”
He said that when he returned to the flat, everything was gone.
“The copper piping was ripped off, the radiators were ripped out, the boiler had been taken, there was black water everywhere – they even took the light bulbs. The TV, personal stuff, hi-fi, everything had gone. My depression hit me, I wanted to die, basically.”
He claimed new dealers were coming into the city on a regular basis and were targeting the most vulnerable for their homes.
“There have been people coming down from London with county lines,” he said.
“Every other day there is a new dealer from Birmingham, Cardiff, Bristol, London and Reading. I do not know whether it’s a place where people can easily sell drugs.
“You think the community will stick together but you cannot trust anyone anymore – people used to have a strong bond.
“It’s crack, gear, spice, mainly Class A drugs. They will come in and try to befriend you, they will stay and do whatever they want to do – they try to get users to let them stay there and people who aren’t even using are taken advantage of, such as a friend who has helped a drug user out.
“It’s usually the vulnerable ones, those who are physically impaired or have mental health problems or those who aren’t coping financially. If they get three days out of it at a house they can get £6,000 and they promise to pay people £40 or £45 just for a day, but by the next morning they do not give the cash to them and say they will give it to them tonight.
“Usually they will get a room to themselves or get a TV in the room, if you want to stay alive this is what you have to put up with.
“Some leave and are sleeping in a tent, they get away from it and because of the trauma they are going through they pick up a drug habit along the way. They cannot go back to their flat for weeks.”
He claimed bags of spice could be picked up for just £10 on the streets of Swansea, 10 shots of heroin or crack would set users back £20 and the majority of drugs, including crack, heroin, cocaine, MDMA and meow meow plus valium could be bought for only £20.
He said people underestimated the scale of what was going on in Swansea, but that drug dealers could be living on their doorsteps. He claimed the Griffith John Street flats in Brynmelyn were rife with drugs, and led the cuckooing victim to compare the area as “like the Bronx.”
“Some people are complicit with it and are happy for it to go on as they are getting their drug habit fed,” he said.
A spokesman for South Wales Police said: “We take allegations of cuckooing very seriously and our key priority is to safeguard any victims. We appeal for anyone who knows the identity of the man quoted in this story to contact us urgently so we can ensure he is safe.
“This part of Swansea city centre is a priority for local officers.”
A spokesman for Swansea council said: “The Western Mail has refused to provide details of the tenant to enable us to verify the claims made so we are unable to comment but we are not aware of any specific issue regarding the cuckooing of a tenant at Griffith John Street.”
The Western Mail could not disclose the tenant’s details to the council as they did not wish for their identity to be revealed.