County lines gangs use dedicated phone lines and often exploit vulnerable adults and children to transport and sell drugs.
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UK police seized a gold bar, a gold suitcase, and even gold teeth alongside an “unusual” haul of guns during a week-long crackdown on drug gangs.
More than 2,000 people were arrested last week, nearly 10 per cent of them children, some as young as 14, as officers closed 335 “drug lines” suspected of supplying heroin, cocaine, and spice-laced vapes across towns and cities, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said.
County lines gangs use dedicated phone lines and often exploit vulnerable adults and children to transport and sell drugs.
Commander Paul Brogden, national county lines and gangs lead, highlighted the rare nature of some of the items seized, including a gold bar.
At Scotland Yard in London on Thursday, he said: “We did have an unusual seizure, we had a gold bar seized.
“I think it might be just indicative of the type of criminal lifestyle some of these drug dealers want to lead, the sort of bragging rights and things.”
Kent Police said the small pure gold bar, which could be worth as much as £13,000, was seized during a search of an address in Maidstone on March 2, along with a large quantity of cash and cannabis hidden in “frosted apple” bags.
Mr Brogden said social media is increasingly being used to entice children into drug dealing, with offers of trainers and football shirts.
The officer explained that young people are being targeted with informal posts offering money-making opportunities, “almost like a job application”, with Snapchat “the most prevalent” platform.
He said: “This is a crime and it’s one of the most dangerous crimes in terms of exploiting children.
“It’s a really dangerous environment for children to get involved in, but these criminals do try and coercively control them.”
The officer said that those involved with drug gangs are “predominantly men of violence”, with about half of dealers having “some sort of involvement in terms of violence against women and girls”.
Mr Brogden said county lines operations are becoming “more localised”, and are moving out of cities into more rural areas.
He added: “We’re seeing things like doctored vapes starting to feature more, things like ketamine and cannabis edibles.”
During last week’s operation, police seized more than £1.5 million in cash and around 200kg of Class A substances, crack, heroin and cocaine, as well as more than 10,500 wraps of Class A drugs and around 15,000 cannabis plants, the NPCC said.
Officers recovered nearly 400 bladed weapons, such as knives, machetes, axes and swords, 115 other weapons such as knuckledusters and a crossbow, and 121 firearms and ammunition.
Mr Brogden said the “unusual” number of guns were predominantly converted firearms.
There were almost 1,200 phones taken, along with dozens of vehicles and designer watches, more than £73,000 worth of designer clothing, as well as computer equipment, vapes, shisha and counterfeit tobacco, the NPCC said.
Twenty-three dangerous dogs were also seized.
Mr Brogden described it as the “best ever” operation of its kind.
A Snapchat spokesperson said: “Using Snapchat to buy and sell drugs is strictly against our rules and we are working hard to stop dealers from abusing our platform.
“We deploy detection technology to proactively find and shut down dealers’ accounts. We support law enforcement efforts, including police investigations to help bring criminals to justice and continue to educate our community about the dangers of drugs.”