Two people have been arrested in Dundee as a result of an investigation into County Lines drug dealing and human trafficking. A man has also been arrested by police in the West Midlands following simultaneous raids there.

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Thanks to Robert Martin for suffering Reporting Scotland on our behalf and for alerting me to this shock development today.

There’s quite a long report on BBC Reporting Scotland at 1.30pm today, but the suggestion that this is a one-way flow from the West Midlands to Dundee, organised by an English County Lines gang, is not made. The viewer could just as easily think Dundee drug gangs are flooding the West Midlands as the opposite and, of course, accurate description.

It’s a wee start for them to at least use the term, ‘County Lines‘, their first since two occasions in 2019 and 2021 but they have some way to go to tell use what is really going on.

What is really going on?

Here’s one West Midlands gang much in the media there:

English County Lines gang forces children to swallow or insert ‘elsewhere’ sealed bags of powerful drugs, then travel into Scotland with them and cause surging drug deaths and violence in Scotland’s towns and villages seems like a no-brainer for investigative journalists like the one at BBC Scotland Disclosure.

Five years and 50 gangs, all from England, like a plague from Dumfries to Thurso but the intrepid (not) team at Pacific Quay seem to prefer to count broken e-car charging points (true), follow the wrong lorry of too-young calves all the way to Spain (true) and follow-up reports of pan-drop shortages in care homes (not true, yet).

To be fair, they did go and meet a wee old guy and claim then to have made him admit to a murder decades ago,

The latest in the County lines series is this news from West Midlands Police, much covered in their local media but ignored in Scotland:

Members of a gang running drugs lines in the Midlands have been jailed for a total of more than 35 years – with two of them locked up for exploiting children to operate the illegal trade. The operation was run by Brian Asante who co-ordinated the business from addresses in Wolverhampton and Stafford.¹

Why should BBC Scotland or any of our other media outlets be interested?

West Midlands ‘complex county lines’ gang using children to sell drugs from ‘trap houses’ into and across Scotland

From The Express & Star, in October 2020 :

Members of ‘complex’ County Lines gang who sent children to ‘trap houses’ to deal drugs are jailed. A drugs gang who recruited children to sell crack and heroin have been jailed for 30 years. After cornering the Wolverhampton and Stafford drugs market the gang opened up new drug lines in Corby, Northamptonshire and as far as Scotland.

Brian Asante, 23, from Canberra Drive, Stafford, would threaten and bribe vulnerable children to sell drugs for him in “trap houses” [cuckooing] in towns, leaving them vulnerable to attack from rival drug dealers.²

How do these children manage to get the drugs past traffic and other police into Scotland?

Coercive internal concealment is one element increasingly common in County Lines activity. It involves drugs being moved from one place to another (or stored for a longer duration) hidden in body cavities, commonly the rectum or vagina, to avoid detection. Criminal groups use threats, physical violence, and humiliation to coerce children or vulnerable adults into inserting drugs in their bodies. These processes are sometimes filmed, as a means of coercive control.²

How many county lines ‘trap houses’ based on cuckooing and run by English gangs are estimated by Police Scotland to be in parts of Scotland?

373 addresses believed to be used for the purposes of cuckooing were also visited.³

Are Scotland’s MSM keeping us informed on this plague?

BBC Scotland has only ever mentioned the term ‘County Lines’, in the headline to a story, twice, in 2019 and 2021 and never mentions that the flow of drugs is from English cities into Scotland. A BBC UK report in March 2024, mentions Scottish towns but does not use the term nor does it locate the gangs in English cities, as is the case, exclusively.

BBC Scotland is shamefully putting the interests of the Union ahead of the people of Scotland.

Sources:

1. https://www.westmidlands.police.uk/news/west-midlands/news/news/2025/february/drugs-gang-locked-up-for-more-than-35-years/#:~:text=Members%20of%20a%20gang%20running%20drugs%20lines%20in,for%20exploiting%20children%20to%20operate%20the%20illegal%20trade.
2. https://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2024/10/19/county-lines-gang-who-sent-children-to-trap-houses-to-deal-drugs-jailed/
3. https://www.oscb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/nhs-Coercive-Internal-Concealment-Rapid-Read.pdf

Here’s another English gang terrorising Dundee openly reported by the Times 4 years ago but ignored by BBC Scotland

In February 2020, The Times reported:

Organised crime gangs from England have seized control of the drug trade in Dundee, forcing police to launch a series of operations to counter them.

Cartels from Manchester have used violence and intimidation to establish and consolidate their presence in Scotland’s fourth city.

They use vulnerable young people to act as drug mules and couriers, flooding peripheral housing estates with crack cocaine. The gangs operate a “county lines” system to distribute drugs outside their own cities.

They are grooming teenagers into trafficking drugs with promises of money, friendship and status. The youngsters, many of whom are in care or have turbulent home lives, are then controlled using threats, violence and sexual abuse.

The gangs are also exploiting vulnerable adults with mental health problems or addiction issues by seizing control of their homes and using them as a base to sell and make drugs, a practice known as cuckooing.

Police Scotland confirmed that it had brought in its organised crime and counterterrorism unit to combat the groups targeting Dundee.

BBC Scotland did not cover this.

In June 2021, Dundee’s Community Safety and Public Protection Committee had:

Work has been ongoing to raise awareness of County Line and Cuckooing activities to a number of front-line services in Dundee, through the Health and Social Care Partnership and NHS. County Lines activity is the practice of English based Organised Crime Groups, travelling to Scotland to sell class A drugs, using young or vulnerable people to deliver to customers. Closely related is Cuckooing, a term indicating the act of taking over a person’s home by intimidation/coercion, exploitation or violence, to use as a safe house or accommodation for a drugs courier.

BBC Scotland did not cover this.

in October 2021 Police Scotland reported to Dundee City Council:

Two English males previously known for drugs and cuckooing offences were identified by Operation Argonite as being linked to these addresses. One of these males was arrested in relation to road traffic offences. He was subject to bail conditions not to 42 OFFICIAL OFFICIAL enter Scotland and after appearing at Court, returned to England.

BBC Scotland did not cover this.

And just one month ago, in the Daily Record:

Dad who brought £400k drugs into Scotland as county lines courier is jailed. Lukas Losinski was caught after police raided his home in Dundee last year. Lukas Losinski was responsible for bringing drugs worth nearly £400,000 north of the border during a series of runs from Blackburn in England.

BBC Scotland did not cover this.

Everybody else knows these are English gangs terrorising Scotland. Everybody else can say it but the British Broadcasting Corporation’s Scotland branch dare not say ‘English’ or even name the cities, in England.

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