Police Claim to Have Shut Down 56 Percent of County Lines Gangs in Britain

A senior police officer has claimed almost 56 percent of county lines gangs have been shut down since 2019. Detective Superintendent Dan Mitchell, head of the Metropolitan Police’s county lines coordination centre, said police have closed off 5,000 drugs lines in the last five years but he thinks there are still around 4,000 in operation. He was speaking after the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) announced 1,874 people had been arrested and more than 600 weapons, including guns and knuckledusters, seized during a county lines intensification week, which ran from March 4 to 10. Mr. Mitchell said there was a strong link between knife crime and county lines gangs and he said there had been a worrying escalation in the number of bladed weapons seized since last year’s intensification week....