00:00At Scotland Yard in London on Thursday, Commander Paul Brogdon, the National County Lines and Gangs
00:05Lead, highlighted the rare nature of some of the items seized by police. He told the Press
00:11Association they have had an unusual seizure. They had a gold bar seized. Kent Police said the small
00:17pure gold bar, which could be worth as much as £13,000, was seized during a search of an address
00:23in Maidstone on the 2nd of March, along with a large quantity of cash and cannabis hidden in
00:28frosted apple bags. Mr Brogdon said social media is increasingly being used to entice children into
00:35drug dealing with offers of trainers and football shirts. The officer explained that young people
00:40are being targeted with informal posts offering money-making opportunities, almost like a job
00:46application, he said, with Snapchat, the most prevalent platform. The officer said that those
00:51involved with drug gangs are predominantly men of violence, with about half of dealers having some
00:57sort of involvement in terms of violence against women and girls. Mr Brogdon said County Lines
01:02operations are becoming more localised and are moving out of cities into more rural areas. He added,
01:10we're seeing things like doctored vapes starting to feature more, things like ketamine and cannabis
01:14edibles. During last week's operation, police seized more than £1.5 million in cash and around 200kg of
01:22class A substances, as well as more than 10,500 wraps of class A drugs and around 15,000 cannabis
01:29plants.
