County lines drugs gang brag about stabbings in drill rap video as 16 gangsters who used kids as ‘slaves’ jailed
A GANG of county lines drug dealers who used kids as “slaves” and bragged about stabbing people in a drill rap video have been jailed.
The three-minute rap film was posted by the Yorkshire-based BBD gang after they dispatched teenagers 70 miles to peddle heroin and crack cocaine on the streets of Blackpool, Lancs.
Two schoolboys aged 14 and 16 were told to bed down in properties occupied by addicts in the seaside resort in a process known as ”cuckooing” before returning home with cash from illicit deals.
Police discovered the drill film on YouTube after launching a major crackdown against the gang, which was named after the Bradley, Brackenhall and Deighton areas of Huddersfield, West Yorks.
It shows the hoodlums disguised in balaclavas and bandanas, making gang hand symbols and gun gestures and rapping about drugs, money and violence.
The footage was uploaded shortly after one of the gang was arrested and showed a video of detectives raiding the suspect’s property.
Despite its illicit content, the film is still publicly available on YouTube and has been seen more than 25,000 times.
KIDS FOUND WITH DRUGS
During one of the raids, which started in May last year, a youngster enslaved by the gang was found with £850 in cash, along with 12 wraps of heroin and 51 wraps of crack cocaine.
When officers detained one senior BBD member he boasted of being a “big gangster” who would “smoke” anyone who dared to arrest him and said he and his accomplices had “terrified the communities”.
Prosecutor Jeremy Grout-Smith said: “This case has elements of modern day slavery.
“The operation depended, for a period of time on facilitating the travel of boys, aged 14 and 16, to the resort, where they were under the defendants’ control, told where to go, what to do and when, arranged or given transport, or given a base from which to operate.
”These were young, impressionable youths of tender age who did as directed in order to get in with the gang.”
After the footage was shown to a judge, 16 BBD members were jailed for a total of 80 years at Preston Crown Court.
The gang’s ringleader Ryan Ncube, 21 who was once charged with attempted murder following a series of tit-for-tat gang shootings managed the county lines racket and controlled three phone lines.
He would text a team of four drivers to take it in turns to ferry young couriers to Blackpool where they delivered drugs to users.
The youngsters would then supply the narcotics on the street.
GANG MEMBERS JAILED
Ncube admitted conspiracy to supply heroin and crack cocaine and arrange or facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploitation and was jailed for seven and a half years.
Sentencing Judge Philip Parry said: “County lines dealing is a horribly miserable trade fuelling misery on the streets of the towns where dealers target.
”You failed to grasp the utter and abject misery suffered by those gripped by addiction.”
Detective Chief Inspector Rebecca Smith, of Blackpool Police, said: “These jail sentences should send out a clear message that we will not tolerate county lines exploitation in Lancashire.
”Those who involve themselves in county lines criminality are not just responsible for the supply of drugs across the UK, they are exploiting vulnerable children and adults.
“In some cases, they are making these children travel hundreds of miles away from home in order to act as runners for the organised crime groups, placing them at significant risk of serious violence.
”This gang will certainly not be making any more YouTube videos while they are serving their sentences in prison.”
