Vulnerable human trafficking victims and children are being used as mules by English drug lords to ferry cocaine and heroin to Edinburgh by train, police chiefs have warned.
Unscrupulous dealers from Birmingham, Liverpool and London are manipulating immigrants from South-East Asian countries in a sickening ploy, reports the Scottish Express. Detective Chief Inspector Arlene Wilson, of British Transport Police, said so-called County Lines gangs also exploited children to carry drugs on the rail network north of the border.
Intelligence suggests the kingpins are believed to be moving into drug markets in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, the Sunday Post reports. The dealers are understood to have avoided Glasgow and the rest of the west for fear of falling out with rivals gangs.
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Miss Wilson told the Sunday Post: "Scotland is on the receiving end of County Lines from England from various locations. These gangs are using vulnerable people, whether that's adults or children.
"They are being exploited and this moves into modern slavery and human trafficking charges that we are trying to target people with to stop it.
"Sometimes they are groomed by being bought a new pair of trainers or whatever it may be. If they lose the money or the drugs, that makes them even more vulnerable as they have a debt then.
"There have been people from Vietnam and other countries involved as well. They can come from anywhere. It's just people who have an underlying vulnerability."
In the past year, officers have seized around £250,000 in drugs either in Scotland or en route to Scotland on trains.
In January, a man was jailed for 40 months after he was caught travelling from Liverpool to Aberdeen in Wigan, Lancashire, with more than 500 grams of heroin and 100 grams of crack cocaine. It was said to have been worth £60,000.
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