ORGANISED crime groups are exploiting the most vulnerable people in society, including children and those with mental health or addiction issues, to move their drugs into Essex.

County Lines is the name given to this drug dealing where these groups use phone lines to move and supply drugs, usually from cities into smaller towns and rural areas.

Acting Detective Superintendent Lewis Basford is working day in, day out with Essex Police’s Serious Violence Unit to disrupt these gangs.

Every year there are two national intensification weeks to put this crime back into the forefront of everyone’s conversations.

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Mr Basford said: “County Lines are here, and the vulnerabilities as well that are attached to them.

“With intensification weeks it’s very much actually trying to discuss the pictures from top to bottom in a County Line of those offending but also those that are drawn into it from a vulnerability view.

“So very much for us it’s a week to actually put it back in the forefront that society needs to be awake and listening and looking and learning from all these things that are happening.”

Specialist officers seized 6kg of illegal drugs, more than £180,000 in cash and a haul of weapons as part of the County Lines crackdown in the likes of Clacton, Colchester, Southend and Basildon

The force’s Operation Raptor teams also targeted properties in Basildon, Leigh and Grays in the intensification week and made 55 arrests.

“In Essex, we do succumb to County Lines predominantly coming out of London so we’ll have those individuals who will come from the city to supply, and will do the supplying at a street level,” Mr Basford added.

“They need firstly a place to operate from and so they will look to try and house themselves within vulnerable adults’ accommodation.”

These adults will be vulnerable through disabilities or will be class A drug users themselves.

Gangs also target youngsters who are coerced to become street runners for them.

“It is very much a manipulative model that preys on vulnerabilities from top to bottom,” said Mr Basford.

The police now focus on taking out the whole County Line in one go in the hopes of sustaining public safety for longer.

Looking forward, Mr Basford knows they will never eradicate drug supply fully but he says they are suppressing it more now than ever.

He said: “We’re really having lines that don’t reappear and can’t rejuvenate because we’ve taken out the person who’s actually at the top, who’s key to it.”

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County Lines Intensification Week took place between October 11 and 17 and disrupted 13 county lines.

In total, 39 people were charged, 13 were released under investigation, and three people were released without charge.

As well as the 6kg of illegal drugs, police also discovered weapons including samurai swords, a zombie knife, a hunting knife and a machete.

There were 84 phone lines, including nine County Line phones found, and ten people were referred for safeguarding.

While the police will suppress these lines, they are also looking at diversion and safeguarding, and it has embedded a victim navigator for adults and children from the charity Justice in Care.

“We look to try and find individuals before they are fully enticed into this criminality,” Mr Basford added.

“It’s a lot of time, yes, it’s a lot of effort, but actually if they haven’t got the personnel they haven’t got the right supply network available to them then their operating model of a county line starts to diminish.”