400 police in UK-wide crack-cocaine raids

Six people have been arrested in London as police launched a major series of early morning raids across Britain to take out major dealers involved in an international drug trade.

More than 400 police officers took part in the operation, raiding houses and flats up and down the country in a bid to smash a network ferrying crack cocaine between the capital and Middlesbrough.

Four addresses were searched in Hackney, resulting in two arrests, three arrests were made in Ilford and one was made in the Isle of Dogs, police revealed.

Another 15 arrests were made in raids across the North East and one other raid was carried out in Wolverhampton, but no-one was arrested.

Police said crack cocaine was being brought into Britain from Jamaica then smuggled by train from London to Teesside where it is then distributed across the north east of England.

The earliest raids were carried out at 3am in Ilford and Hackney followed by 6am swoops on Teesside. Further raids, with strike teams battering in doors, were being conducted over the following hours.

Det Insp Dave Lamplough, of Cleveland Police's Organised Crime Unit, said: "The vast majority of the people being targeted today are Jamaican. Although the gang had their base in Teesside, the main co-ordinators of the operation were in London.

"We have hammered away at the bottom end in the past but this time we have the information we need to target key people. We are taking out the whole network."

He said the gang operated by importing drugs into the UK from Jamaica through a string of mainly female couriers and shipments then moved through the East Coast rail network for distribution around the North East.

Copyright Press Association 2007.

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