A crackdown on gangsters using vulnerable people to store and move drugs in Aberdeen has been “particularly successful” this year, the region’s top police officer has said.
Next week councillors on the public protection committee will discuss the findings of the north-east division’s annual report from April 2018 to March 2019.
The report said that while organised crime gangs, mostly hailing from major English cities, continue to operate in the Granite City a new approach working with other partners to identify vulnerable people and protect them from the gangs was bearing fruit.
Known as cuckooing, dangerous criminals will often look for vulnerable people, like the mentally ill, drug addicts or the elderly, to use to store or move drugs in ‘county lines’ operations.
During the reporting period, 147 drug search warrants were executed in the city and the report says the criminals are being “proactively targeted” by police.
In a foreword to the report, Chief Superintendent Campbell Thomson wrote: “We have continued in our efforts to target serious organised crime not only through enforcement activity such as stop/search and warrants but through proactive engagement with partners to disrupt and deter ‘cuckooing’ which has been particularly successful.”
