Police enter a property in a crackdown on drug gangs.
Police yesterday smashed a drugs ring supplying crack cocaine to south London and the Home Counties in a series of dawn raids.
Ten members of a gang operating from the estates of Greenwich were arrested yesterday morning on suspicion of dealing Class A drugs. The raids followed three-and-a-half months of undercover police work and surveillance of suspected dealers and their supply lines.
Acting detective chief inspector Mick Reay said the raids had disrupted a “major distribution network between London and Kent”.
Police believe suppliers outside London delivered crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis to contacts in the Woolwich Boys gang.
From Woolwich, teams of dealers were dispatched to restock crack houses in Gillingham, 30 miles away, and sell drugs on the town’s streets.
Crack is created by “cooking” cocaine powder into “rocks”. Mules carrying hundreds of pounds worth of crack rocks hidden under their clothes made daily journeys to Kent using trains and buses.
About 80 officers from the Met’s Trident Gang Crime Command and Kent Police were involved in yesterday’s raids.
In one raid, police in riot gear battered down the door of a five-bedroom family home at 5.30am. A 21-year-old man alleged to be member of the Woolwich Boys was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. He lived at home with his parents and younger sisters.
Reay said: “We’re finding that these guys are moving some of their criminal activity outside of the London area. They have a perception that they will fall under the radar, but our message is we will keep targeting them.”
Ten males, aged 16 to 41, were arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs. Small quantities of Class A and Class B drugs and £1,000 were seized. The suspects were being questioned at south London police stations.