Edinburgh police chief vows to ‘crank up’ efforts to tackle County Lines drug gangs

Edinburgh’s police chief has vowed to “crank up” efforts to tackle County Lines drug operations which exploit vulnerable adults and children in and around the city.

Chief Superintendent Sean Scott, Divisional Commander for Edinburgh, says police are now using a “more sophisticated and cohesive” approach involving people from various disciplines based in more locations to spot signs of vulnerable people being pulled into gangs.

County Lines refers to drug dealers from cities who expand their operations into smaller towns and aim to exploit people to sell drugs, carry cash and weapons and may also take over a person’s house - known as cuckooing. The ‘County Lines’ is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs.

Chief Superintendent Scott said: “One area I would like to concentrate on is County Lines and the exploitation of vulnerable adults and children by these gangs.

Poilce carrying out a raid during Operation Venetic - the biggest ever UK operation into serious and organised crime involving Police Scotland, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and police forces across the country.

“We have specific processes and the structure to really clamp down on things like cuckooing, which facilitates their nefarious activities.

“We have had incidents of County Lines activity and it’s something we are starting to crank up.”

In September, during a County Lines week of action by Police Scotland, 11 people in Edinburgh were safeguarded and two people were arrested and £1,500 of drugs and £2,000 in cash was seized.

Another 13 people were safeguarded in the Lothians and Scottish Borders and one person was arrested and £2,000 in cash was seized.

Chief Superintendent Sean Scott. Pic: Neil Hanna

Across the country, a large quantity of controlled drugs, including heroin, cocaine, amphetamine and cannabis were seized. Tens of thousands of pounds in cash and weapons, including a Samurai sword, were also recovered.

Chief Superintendent Scott acknowledged some of the other new challenges for policing drug crime, such as catching criminals using encrypted online chat groups to buy and sell drugs and the use of prepaid ‘burner’ phones which are often quickly disposed of.

Encrochat

Earlier this year, police across Scotland seized £25 million worth of drugs and a number of guns and explosives in a major Europe-wide operation which dismantled several organised crime gangs.

The operation came after law enforcement hacked a military-grade encrypted communication system - using mobile phone messaging - used by organised criminals to trade drugs and guns following a massive international sting launched in April.

After four years of work by international teams, French investigators managed to access Encrochat, an encrypted platform used by 60,000 people worldwide, including around 10,000 in the UK, for what law enforcement agencies claim were purely criminal purposes.

The company, which charged £1,500 for a device on a six-month contract, sent out a warning to users in early June to say that its servers had been hacked by a government entity.

This left investigators with a race against time to make the most of the wealth of information available on the platform, targeting who they could before they could cover their tracks.

The activity in Scotland was part of Operation Venetic - the biggest ever UK operation into serious and organised crime involving Police Scotland, the National Crime Agency (NCA) and police forces across the country.

One raid in Kent led to the seizure of 28 million fake valium tablets (worth £14 million) destined for Scotland, while operations also led to "millions of pounds worth" of drugs being recovered on the M74.

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