WEST Yorkshire Police has made a huge county lines haul over a six-day period including machetes, drugs and children being arrested.
The force has taken drugs, weapons and cash off the streets as part of intensive efforts to target county lines crime.
County lines is when illegal drugs are transported from one area to another, often across police and local authority boundaries, according to the National Crime Agency (NCA).
This often is undertaken by children or vulnerable people who are coerced into it by gangs.
The NCA said: "The ‘county line’ is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs."
Police in the region ramped up activities targeted at disrupting county lines gangs between October 3 and October 9.
They arrested 20 adults and five children - 23 males and two females - as well as seizing drugs valued at more than £150,000.
This included cannabis worth more than £140,000 and cocaine valued at more than £10,000.
Officers also confiscated weapons, such as a taser, stun gun and two machetes.
Police seized more than £64,000 of cash, as well as other assets, such as a quad-bike, three motorbikes and seven mobile phones.
Educational sessions and school visits, which included lessons on how to spot the signs of county lines activities, as well as how to report it, were delivered in the county, and information visits were made to care providers.
The work was undertaken as part of West Yorkshire Police’s Programme Precision which is aimed at tackling organised crime in the force's communities.
Police worked alongside a range of partner organisations including the Yorkshire and Humber Regional Organised Crime Unit.
Detective Superintendent Fiona Gaffney, of West Yorkshire Police’s Programme Precision team, said: “County Lines is a serious issue that affects communities throughout West Yorkshire.
“I’m pleased that our activities have caused disruption to the organised crime groups that are targeting people in our communities, often using violence and causing misery.
“Through Programme Precision, West Yorkshire Police and its partners continues to take action to tackle the activities of these criminals and also to safeguard the young people who get tangled in with them.”
There are a number of signs which might help spot county lines in action.
The most common are:
- Unexplained gifts and cash
- Drug paraphernalia
- More than one phone (often known as a graft phone)
- Lots of travel tickets such as bus and train tickets
- New friends
- Increased missing from home episodes
- Secretive or withdrawn from family and/or friends
- Lying - unable to retell a story without confusion or holes in the story
- Receiving excessive calls or messages from "new friends"
- Getting picked up or dropped off by unknown people in unknown cars
If you spot any of these signs, have any concerns, or would like to make a report, you should contact police on 101, or using the contact options on the West Yorkshire Police website.
You can also call independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on: 0800 555 111.
You should always dial 999 in an emergency.
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