Bedfordshire Police seize large quantities of drugs, weapons and cash
Seven 'county lines' operating in the county were directly disrupted in national week of action
Last updated 21st Oct 2021
Bedfordshire Police have seized huge quantities of drugs, weapons and cash in a county wide operation.
Seven 'lines' were disrupted in the county as a direct result of the action taken by police, with nine people being arrested
It comes during week long national crackdown on county lines and our #LookCloser investigation into criminal gangs recruiting young kids as drug mules.
Detective Superintendent Nick Skipworth, Director of Intelligence at Bedfordshire Police, told Greatest Hits "If your child is involved in this sort of criminality, they're going to be missing. They're not going to be where they should be. They're going to need to go away from home and they are going to have to travel.
They're going to come back with bus tickets, rail tickets. They're probably going to have an extra mobile phone, which they carry.
They might occasionally have extra cash, or they might have things purchased for them, which is all part of that criminal grooming mechanism where they exploit that child and try to earn their loyalty
That's what parents need to look for. If they're seeing that behaviour, they need to reach out now."
He added:
"My teams are out there every single week taking action against county lines, and that isn't going to stop as long as that threat remains.
The national weeks of action allow forces to coordinate their activity a bit better, it's like attacking an area of criminality all at once.
However, the reality is for all forces, this is a continuous problem that we're always acting on
We've got great organisations who help young people. We've got educational establishments, teachers have been briefed.
There's an awful lot out there already for young people, but where we see this targeted child exploitative behaviour we do need people to help."