Is there any evidence before the arrival of County Lines drug gangs in small-town Scotland from cities in England in the last ten years that Scottish drug gangs at street level pushing drugs, were involved in cuckooing the vulnerable, using child drug mules, using extreme violence, diversifying into sex trafficking and adopting the business model exploiting markets in smaller towns and even in villages, across all of Scotland?

I can't be fully trusted. I'm angry, deeply angry at how the media operating in Scotland hides the reality of this deadly invasion. Heavy, experienced and familiar with the prison system in England, gangsters from almost entirely England's inner cities, schooled in a business model and culture, vicious beyond our experience in Scotland, rapacious cross-country, County Lines gangs are everywhere from Dumfries to Wick.

Ten years ago, we had drug gangs and climbing drug deaths but did we have anything like we have now?

I really do not think so, but lets ask an independent source with no dog in this fight for indepedence, AI.

No substantial evidence supports that Scottish street-level drug gangs were systematically using the full County Lines-style model (systematic cuckooing of vulnerable people’s homes, child long-distance mules, extreme violence specifically to control that network, diversification into sex trafficking as part of it, and a business model of expanding into and exploiting smaller towns and villages across Scotland) before English County Lines groups arrived in the mid-to-late 2010s.⁠https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50090140

Scottish organised crime groups (OCGs), especially Glasgow/West of Scotland ones, have long been heavily involved in the drugs trade. They have handled importation and wholesale (often via links to North-West England), engaged in extreme violence (turf wars, shootings, and stabbings in the 1980s–2000s “drug wars,” plus ongoing feuds such as Lyons vs Daniels), used local youth in street dealing, and supplied drugs beyond pure city centres. Academic work by researchers such as Robert McLean, James Densley, Ross Deuchar and others documents evolving Scottish drug markets, hierarchical OCGs, youth street gangs doing retail/social supply, and some distribution into surrounding areas. Drugs have never been confined only to major cities.https://scispace.com/pdf/exploring-county-lines-criminal-drug-distribution-practices-3jzawdds58.pdf

County Lines groups are generally less oriented toward the classic, ongoing, expressive “turf wars” associated with traditional Scottish (and older English) urban OCGs. More on this below:⁠

However, the distinctive County Lines package is different. Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency describe Scotland as predominantly an importer of county lines, not an exporter of the model to England and Wales. The largest single source into Scotland has been identified as Merseyside, with other English hubs (London, Manchester, West Midlands, Bradford, etc.) also active. Officials have repeatedly framed the rural/small-town expansion, dedicated mobile “lines,” systematic cuckooing, and use of child/vulnerable mules for longer-distance movement as linked to these English groups arriving and establishing operations in places such as the Highlands, Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, Dundee, Inverness and elsewhere.⁠https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-50090140

Key distinctions from the evidence:

• Cuckooing and child mules: Systematic taking-over of vulnerable adults’ homes as operational bases and the grooming/trafficking of children (often from care backgrounds or English cities) as long-distance runners is repeatedly tied in police, media and academic sources to the County Lines model that intensified in Scotland from roughly the mid-2010s onward. Local Scottish street dealing sometimes involved young people (including boys on bikes in Glasgow schemes) and occasional use of addicts’ homes, but this was not the same organised, mobile-phone-line, nest-forming, rural-expansion system.
• Geographic business model: Pre-existing Scottish supply reached some towns, but the documented surge into remote villages, Highland communities and previously less saturated markets is attributed primarily to English groups exploiting market opportunities. Rural dealers in Scotland sometimes linked into Glasgow SOCGs for supply, which is a different dynamic from Glasgow groups running English-style lines outward.
• Violence: Extreme violence has a long Scottish OCG history in urban contexts. County Lines brought additional associated violence, weapons and coercion into the new operating areas, which police have linked to the incoming groups.
• Sex trafficking: Diversification into sexual exploitation occurs among various OCGs (including more recent Eastern European groups active in cannabis farms and brothels), but it is not evidenced as a core, systematic feature of traditional Scottish street-level drug gangs adopting a County Lines business model beforehand.

Academic papers specifically examining County Lines in Scotland (e.g., Holligan, McLean et al., 2020) treat it as a growing/embryonic phenomenon with some local adaptations, while noting that drug supply networks had already been changing. They do not describe Scottish street gangs independently operating the full model across the country in the preceding period. Police figures on county-line child victims and intensification operations also show the sharp rise in recent years. https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/shock-rise-children-being-used-37353759⁠

In short, Scottish gangs had violence, drugs, and some local youth exploitation. The specific, portable, exploitative County Lines operating model that systematically targets vulnerable people and smaller markets across Scotland is primarily associated with the arrival and activity of English groups in the last decade.

Are the County Lines gangs less likely to get involved in such wasteful turf wars with other gangs than Scottish organised crime gangs have?

Yes, relatively speaking. County Lines groups are generally less oriented toward the classic, ongoing, expressive “turf wars” associated with traditional Scottish (and older English) urban OCGs, but they still use significant violence—just more instrumentally and selectively.

Traditional Scottish groups such as the Lyons and Daniels (and earlier Glasgow drug-war factions) engaged in protracted, often personal or postcode-linked feuds. These involved shootings, stabbings, and cycles of retaliation over local control of markets, reputation, and territory. Such conflicts were frequently wasteful: they drew heavy police attention, led to arrests and deaths, and disrupted business. https://unherd.com/2025/05/the-old-school-horror-of-scotlands-gangs/⁠

County Lines developed partly as a response to exactly those costs. Saturated city markets, high competition, and the risks of local gang violence pushed operators to expand outward into provincial towns, rural areas, and places (including parts of Scotland) with weaker established criminal structures. The model prioritises profit and mobility over fixed local territory:

• Dedicated phone “lines,” cuckooing, and exploited runners allow relatively low-profile, high-volume supply without needing to permanently control a neighbourhood.
• Academic and police accounts note a shift toward a more commercial ethos (“there is no war on drugs… business is business”). Young people from nominally rival groups can work the same line when it is profitable and disciplined. Territory becomes a marketplace to be exploited rather than an identity or postcode to defend at all costs.⁠Doi
• Expanding to less saturated markets reduces the need for constant local warfare. In some destination areas, high demand allows multiple lines to coexist with limited open conflict, or informal understandings develop.

Violence remains core to the model, however. It is used to:

• Control and punish runners/cuckooed hosts (debt bondage, threats, sexual violence, weapons).
• Suppress local resistance or take over existing dealing networks.
• Compete when rival County Lines groups (often from the same English cities) collide in the same provincial patch. Documented examples include murders and stabbings between Merseyside groups in places such as Shrewsbury, and ongoing disputes in other towns. The relative absence of strong local gangs can make these areas easier to terrorise initially, but competition between incoming groups still produces violence.⁠https://researchportal.northumbria.ac.uk/files/17910524/Working_County_Lines.pdf

Too much open violence is recognised as bad for business—it attracts police, disrupts supply, and can collapse a line. Groups therefore tend to prefer targeted, instrumental violence over the drawn-out, reputation-driven turf wars of older urban OCGs.

In short, County Lines operators are less likely to get locked into the kind of chronic, wasteful local feuds seen with traditional Scottish family-based or postcode gangs. Their model is more mobile, market-driven, and exploitative of vulnerabilities. When they do fight, it is usually over specific commercial interests in destination markets rather than long-standing territorial or familial honour. This is one reason the model proved effective at expanding into smaller Scottish towns and villages.

What can we do? Easy. Follow John Swinney's lead. Get independence, shut the border and destroy their business model by legalising drug use.