How county lines ‘slaves’ mingle with morning commuters on their way to deal class-A drugs in the suburbs
Their backpacks crammed with thousands of pounds' worth of narcotics, the 'slave' teens wait to shuttle drugs for ruthless gangsters
THEY stand out among the early-morning commuters at London’s Euston station.
Just before 7am, a time when most teenagers are struggling to get out of bed, youngsters dressed in smart hoodies and expensive trainers are visibly on edge.
Eyes furtively scanning the station display boards, they make sure they buy the correct ticket for their journey so they will not attract the attention of ticket inspectors — or worse still, the police.
They are among Britain’s 10,000 “disposable children” who shuttle drugs around the country for ruthless gangsters.
Groomed and hoodwinked, they are “going country” — heading out of London to work.
Their backpacks are crammed with thousands of pounds’ worth of class-A narcotics, including heroin and crack cocaine.
They carry knives to protect their cargo and defend the £5,000-a-day racket to which they are enslaved — known as county lines.
At Euston we watched three pairs of youngsters heading out to the shires to work as part of a fast-expanding underworld network that has seen the number of British children used as slaves double in a year.
There are now 2,000 county lines operating in the UK, sending children as young as 11 and 12 from London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester to country towns the length and breadth of Britain to deliver drugs.
In just three months, British Transport Police patrols caught more than 100 child slaves using the rail network.
Now the force plans to use CCTV on trains and at stations to compile a list of youngsters at risk of being exploited.
'GROOMING'S EASY'
County lines drug networks, which are estimated to make £500million a year, are blamed for the number of modern slavery cases involving children soaring from 676 in 2017 to 1,421 last year, according to shocking new figures released this week.
But experts believe the statistic is just the tip of the iceberg.
In a recent crackdown, police took 600 teenagers and 400 vulnerable young people away from county lines operations in just seven days.
And the charity Safer London reckons around 4,000 boys and girls from the capital are being used to package and deliver drugs.
This week a judge who jailed five dealers from two warring gangs in Bedfordshire claimed county lines were “the worst blight in the UK”.
It followed a Parliamentary hearing on Tuesday when MPs learned that children as young as eight were at risk of being lured into gangs.
One youth worker told the Home Affairs Select Committee that young children were targeted because they are “easier to manipulate”.
Now former gang leader Matthew Norford has revealed to The Sun how he deliberately groomed younger boys in Manchester to join his Rusholme Mandem Gang.
Matthew, who by the age of 15 had carried out shootings and kidnappings, says: “Grooming them was easy. These kids are poor and vulnerable. There is no love at home.
“They don’t know the meaning of family and they have nothing. Most of them can’t even afford to eat.
“So a nice guy comes along and starts buying them gifts and paying their bills. It’s easy to get them on board.
"As much as I was grooming the young boys, I was grooming the mums, too.
“I would act as a father figure for the kids. They didn’t have anyone else.
"Often the mothers were aware of what was happening but their boys were bringing in money from working with the gang.”
Father of six Matthew, 36, now runs a charity, Mission 1, to help youngsters escape the clutches of gangs.
He says there is a stark reason why county lines crooks deliberately target white boys and girls.
He continues: “In rural areas the police will always suspect black kids from London roaming the streets.
“So you find and groom young white boys outside the school gates because they can sell the drugs without the police blinking an eye.
“I’d do the same with women. I would groom white women so that they could drive me and the drugs without raising suspicion.
“There were times that I would have a relationship with them but it wasn’t love, it was convenience.
“It would be a place to eat, sleep and have sex but I would stash the drugs there.”
Youngsters lured with the promise of smart trainers, cash and even drugs are led to believe the gang is their family.
The perpetrator moves on to the next child. They are a commodity and disposable
Wendy Tinkler, Detective Inspector of Cleveland Police
But according to Detective Inspector Wendy Tinkler, of Cleveland Police, when youngsters are caught because of their age there is rarely a criminal investigation.
She says: “The perpetrator moves on to the next child. They are a commodity and disposable.”
Last year Swansea cops became the first in Britain to use modern slavery laws to tackle gang leaders from London and
Liverpool who sent youngsters to South Wales to deal drugs, resulting in jail terms totalling 180 years.
Among them were Mahad Yusuf, 21, and Fesal Mahamud, 20, leaders in the Dem Africans gang in Edmonton, North London.
They used social media to lure a teenage girl with the promise of work, only to hold her prisoner in a flat in Swansea where they forced her to store drugs in her body for them.
And, in January this year, Swansea Crown Court heard how a 16-year-old boy from London was forced to “run the line” after his brother was jailed, owing drug money to Jerome Wallis, 20, and Savion Browne, 25, from Southwark, South London.
Under threat of violence he was moved between crack dens in Swansea before he managed to escape and call the police.
They then found an armoury of knives, a stash of cash and drugs.
Although the police operation — codenamed Blue Thames — took the kingpins off Swansea’s streets, their place has been taken by more dealers sent from London.
A gangster from the capital, who took over the Swansea line following the police purge, gives his “workers” £500 a month to cut and package drugs in a terraced house and up to £1,000 if they are prepared to use violence.
They are paid monthly, rather than weekly, to stop them vanishing.
When I find the kids, they are already committing violent crimes but they’re not making money. They’re not doing anything, not going to school. At least they’ve got some money and focus here
gangster from London
The man, in his early 20s, claims to make £100,000 a month from the operation.
He also admits to ordering his recruits to use baseball bats to attack and knock out a drug runner from Tottenham, North London, who had tried dealing on his patch in Swansea.
He brags: “The kids are useless in some ways, but there’s something they’re good for — the violence. I’m too old to be knocking people out or messing around with knives.”
This modern-day Fagin recruits boys from West London and says local kids don’t have the right temperament for going OT — or Out There, slang for working the line.
He says: “When I find the kids, they are already committing violent crimes but they’re not making money. They’re not doing anything, not going to school. At least they’ve got some money and focus here.”
The younger of the two boys working for him in his smart flat in Swansea is a 15-year-old who spends three hours a day wrapping heroin into packets.
The lad, who has been excluded from school, sends money back to his mother in London.
He says: “She is probably glad I’m not with her. We don’t get on.
“The police used to be at my door every day. I was excluded loads of times for fighting.”
The 16-year-old working beside him adds: “One day I want to be running my own line. There’s loads of money in Wales from selling heroin and crack.”
Agony of TV's Alex
GOOD Morning Britain weatherman Alex Beresford spoke out about jail, knife crime and grooming on the ITV show – just days before his cousin Nathaniel Armstrong, 29, was stabbed to death in West London.
Alex, son of a white working-class mum and a black Guyanese dad, grew up on a council estate in Eastville, Bristol.
Returning a few years ago, he was horrified to see youngsters there delivering drugs by bike.
Alex, 38, said on TV: “Grooming is something we often associate with paedophiles but there are young boys out there that are being groomed into gangs.”
He later said: “While some boys actively choose to be part of a gang, many of them are not criminals but victims – young, impressionable boys who took a wrong turn without even knowing it.
“I’ve spoken to kids who tell me they were enticed into gangs by older boys who give them money and gifts before asking them to do a ‘favour’.
“Usually it’s a drugs run, but while they’re doing it the older gang members set them up to be robbed, leaving them automatically in debt to the gang.
“The only way you can pay off that debt is doing more drugs runs and, before you know it, you’re a fully co-operative member of that gang. Walking away isn’t an option – once you’re in, you’re in.”
It’s a horrible cycle — but as long as the drugs sell and the trains run, the gangsters look likely to be exploiting the system from what they hope is a safe distance, their young “slaves” taking all the risk.
Rhiannon Sawyer, of the charity The Children’s Society, which runs anti-child-exploitation programmes in London, Manchester and Birmingham, insists the baby-faced drug runners are no criminals.
She says: “These young people are all victims. We are hearing accounts of gangs trading very young children like commodities.”
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