About 600 suspected members of county lines gangs have been arrested within a week.
The arrests occurred alongside the confiscation of £176,780 worth of cocaine, £312,649 in cash, £36,550 worth of crack, £17,950 worth of heroin and 46 weapons which included guns, swords and machettes.
The operation, structured and organised by the County Lines Coordination Centre (CLCC), resulted in the arrests of 500 men and 86 women, with another 519 vulnerable adults and 364 children taken into safeguarding.
The CLCC led the police in raiding Norfolk, Suffolk, Cheshire, Bedfordshire and other areas and also discovered about 30 people identified as potential victims of slavery or human trafficking
The growth of county lines – which a Sky News investigation found was worth £3m per day – contributed to the number of cases of modern slavery involving UK minors going from 676 in 2017 to 1,421 in 2018.
County line drug gangs are linked by a network of mobile phone lines and often coercing children and vulnerable adults who travel out of their usual urban territory into rural areas to sell drugs.
National Crime Agency (NCA) County Lines lead Nikki Holland said: “Tackling county lines and the misery it causes is a national law enforcement priority.
“We know that criminal networks use high levels of violence, exploitation and abuse to ensure compliance from the vulnerable people they employ to do the day-to-day drug supply activity.”
