YEOVIL NEWS: Buying illegal drugs is as easy as ordering a takeaway pizza

ORGANISED crime gangs from London are targeting vulnerable people in Yeovil and turning their homes into drug dens.

Steve Brewer, the community safety co-ordinator for South Somerset District Council, has said that drug dealers are coming down from the capital and manipulating vulnerable people – such as the elderly – by befriending them and before long taking over their homes to carry out their criminal activity.

Mr Brewer told members of Yeovil Town Council last night (Tuesday, June 7, 2016) that the use of so-called “county lines” was an emerging issue in the town.

The National Crime Agency has said that gangs are using a mobile phone lines – known as county lines – for their drug dealing.

Mr Brewer told councillors that placing an order for drugs was just as easy as ordering a pizza delivery.

He has urged anyone who might suspect that “something is not right” at a home in the town to get in touch with police.

“If anyone sees someone at an address who you think shouldn’t be – please let us know,” he said. “Even if it is just the lowest of suspicion, please let us know.”

A report from the National Crime Agency has said there is growing evidence of gangs using mobile phone lines to extend drug dealing into new areas.

The gangs introduce a telephone number in a new area to sell crack and heroin directly at street level. The phone lines represent a gang’s “brand” rather than an individual, do not change frequently, and are usually run from their “home” city.

Drug users from the new area ring the number and local runners are then dispatched to make deliveries.

Although Yeovil police have made a number of arrests in connection with drug-related activity in recent months – they know that the war against the drug dealers goes on.

If anyone has any suspicions about illegal drug activity taking place in their street or neighbourhood – please call police on 101.

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