By John Robertson,johnrobertson834

Copyright talkingupscotlandtwo

Professor John Robertson OBA

In yesterday’s Sunday Mail, former Sun ‘Environment journalist‘ Dan Vevers makes a determined effort to have the County Lines drug gang business model adopted by at least one Scottish city, to share the blame for the current plague in Inverness, with:

Now a leading officer has warned that teens as young as 16 are being sent north from cities like Glasgow, Liverpool and London by drug gangs to claim turf and terrorise locals.

I’ve been monitoring media reports of county lines-style behaviour by individuals arrested in Scottish towns and everyone has been English. The above claim is a first.

Notably, however, the above officer states:

They begin to build up a network in the local area. Whilst we’ve had 16 and 17-year-old children, what we see predominantly is males in their later teens and early 20s. We’ve had some from the Glasgow area, from London, Liverpool, Manchester, the West Midlands. They tend to be individuals who have been through the justice system in England, may have convictions for violence. They may have gang connections and they may regularly be in possession of weapons.”

After at least 6 years of activity in Scotland by county lines drug gangs from England, it was inevitable that criminal networks in places like Glasgow would begin to franchise the model, but it remains one originating in England and primarily operated and controlled by individuals from there. That is utterly clear in the descriptions of those arrested.

With particular regard to the drug abuse problem in Inverness, Glasgow is never mentioned:

On 22 November 2024, in the Inverness Courier:

INVERNESS COUNTY LINES EXPOSED: 10 drugs gangs operating out of Highland capital preying on the most vulnerable

There’s something missing in that headline. Here’s a clue:

The criminal networks behind County Lines originate in major cities like Liverpool, London, and the West Midlands, and use a combination of coercion, exploitation, and violence to tighten their grip on the drug trade. Inverness is the hub of their northern operations but their reach extends as far as Alness.

10 English drug gangs but not a whiff of interest in this drama in BBC Scotland, even BBC Highlands & Islands News.

Here’s what you need to know:

From the Press & Journal, three days ago:

Cops say Inverness flooded with ‘endless supply of drug foot soldiers’ from Birmingham, Liverpool and London – Police are battling with drug gangs “every week” – and that trying to chase them is like a game of “whack-a-mole”.

Detective Constable Duncan Birse laid out the extent of the problem.

He said: “Being born and bred in the Highlands I assume most folk associate Inverness with the Loch Ness Monster and whisky.

“Probably most folk are unaware that actually we have a massive issue here with county lines drug dealing gangs.

“We are looking at six to nine groups operating at any one time from Liverpool or London or Birmingham.

“They will take over a vulnerable person’s house and use multiple addresses within the space of one day to avoid police detection.

DC Birse added that the actions of the gangs are contributing to Scotland’s drug death rates which are the highest in Europe.

According to the NRS, drug deaths in Highland region increased from 33 in 2020 to 42 in 2022: https://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk/news/highland-drug-deaths-rise-to-42-as-scotlands-grim-toll-show-324002/

In the same period, nationally, drug deaths had begun to plateau and fall before climbing again in 2023: https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/files/statistics/drug-related-deaths/23/drug-related-deaths-23-report.pdf

I’ve already reported here the associated surge in violent crime sweeping through small town and rural Scotland at the same time as crime plummets in more urban areas and in national data. This table for Inverness Central reveals the sharp increase in crimes of violence in the period 2018-2022, as County Lines gangs became established there:

Although still the least common form of crime, non-sexual crimes of violence increased from 178 in 2020 (88 in 2018), to 621 in 2023 and 561 in 2024, more than 300%! This pattern can be seen in similar areas across Scotland but in Glasgow where, I assume, English drug gangs are wary of entering, the trend is down.

The above story is actually taken from a BBC Scotland TV series yet BBC Scotland News will not cover the story, last used the term ‘County Lines’ in 2021 and have never identified the English cities from which they come. The Scotsman too last reported on this in 2021.

The Herald, reported ‘Thousands more illegal drugs phone lines running in UK – police figures‘ but only at the very end, and leaving the reader to make the connection, had:

County lines networks are typically urban-based, drug dealing gangs that use phone lines to sell drugs, mainly crack cocaine and heroin, to customers in other counties.

Police say the main areas that export lines are London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester, with more than 501 lines each recorded in Liverpool and London, and Birmingham and Manchester between 210 and 500 each.

The main forces where the drugs were sold to customers were Cheshire, Scotland, Kent, Essex and Cambridgeshire, the NPCC said.

You can sense the writer’s anxiety. With any other story like this – drugs, violence, death, dangerous outsiders – any journalist would be excitedly writing a dramatic headline to scare and to attract readers – English drug gangs terrorise Scotland and keep our drug deaths high.

No one at BBC Scotland News, the Herald or the Scotsman is telling younger journalists what to write. They can just sense what is wanted in institutions deeply affiliated with the pro-Union cause.