Fifty arrested in Scunthorpe operation against county-line gangs

Merseyside Police's Project Medusa team is the national lead on county-line crime

Fifty people have been arrested in a joint police operation against county-line drug gangs.

Merseyside Police worked with the Humberside force in northern Lincolnshire last week.

More than 60 officers seized weapons, drugs and cash and identified vulnerable individuals exploited by county-lines gangs in the Scunthorpe area, according to Merseyside Police.

The force's Project Medusa team is the national lead on county line crime.

According to the National Crime Agency, "county lines" drug gangs are defined as those transporting illegal drugs from one area to another, often across police and local authority area boundaries. The drugs are often moved by children or other vulnerable people and the "county line" is the mobile phone line used to take the orders of drugs.

Insp Stephen Morris said: "We regularly deploy to other force areas to target county-lines drug dealing. This operation with Humberside shows the results that can be achieved when working jointly to target those involved in this type of criminality.

"We will relentlessly target those crime groups who cowardly exploit vulnerable people in our communities.

"Those who exploit children will be caught, arrested and face justice for modern-day slavery and human-trafficking offences."

Police said the two-day operation resulted in six county lines being disrupted.

It also saw the the seizure of a significant quantity of Class A and B drugs and officers "identified 28 people as being at risk of exploitation and were signposted to safeguarding services".

A spokesperson for Merseyside Police said that since 2019 the Home-Office-funded Project Medusa team had closed more than 1,100 county lines and made more than 2,400 arrests for offences including drug supply, firearms and money laundering.

It had also identified 1,250 children and vulnerable adults who have been referred to safeguarding services.