CRIMINAL gangs are exploiting kids as young as NINE to use as drug mules across Britain’s rail network.

The youngsters are recruited — and often kept there by threats — as part of “county lines” ­operations, where drugs are transported from major cities to supply dealers in smaller towns across the country.

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Drug gangs are exploiting kids as young as NINE to use as drug mules across Britain’s rail networkCredit: Getty
 

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The Sun spent a day with the BTP taskforce looking for county lines victims at a train stationCredit: The Sun
British Transport Police recently caught two 11-year-olds carrying drugs on the network in the South East.

And last week The Sun spent a day with the BTP taskforce looking for county lines victims at Preston train station.

The unit involves uniformed and undercover officers, as well as their secret weapon, police dog Ash, who reacts to the smell of drugs.

We witnessed two suspects being searched and patted down after Ash followed them through the station.

Then cops received a tip-off about cuckooing — when drug gangs take over the home of a vulnerable adult to use as a “trap house” where they store and sell drugs.

Officers raced to the property, where they arrested two men for drug offences and discovered a vulnerable male living there.

As part of our investigation, The Sun can also reveal that vulnerable children are facing increasing violence and sexual abuse in trap houses.

Some are even robbed of the drugs they are carrying — by the gangs they are actually working for — so they owe them money for the lost drugs, which in turn keeps them enslaved to the gangmasters.

If they refuse to work, dealers threaten to stab their parents or hurt younger siblings.

One cop told us: “This is a huge societal problem. We’re just putting sticking plasters on a massive cut and we’re not stopping the bleed.”

Around 46,000 kids in England and 2,300 in Wales are believed to be involved with criminal gangs, according to The Children’s Society, which says the real figures are likely to be higher.

Of that number, statistics from a report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council show that more than 2,500 children were officially identified as victims of exploitation between April 2024 and March last year.

The dossier also exposes the extent to which drug gangs have a grip on society, with 6,500 county lines operating across England, Scotland and Wales in that same year.

The review estimates that around 11,600 youngsters have gone missing too, leaving them open to exploitation.

Teens are being caught with zombie knives, swords and other weapons, often hidden down their trousers, as they run the gauntlet of police while carrying drug packages on trains across the UK.

One undercover officer, who asked not to be named, explained how kids who have been exploited by drug dealers rise through the ranks to become “soldiers” and then recruit more youngsters.

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Police stop and search a potential victimCredit: The Sun
He told us: “There’s a chain and the big guys are at the top. It’s like the old-fashioned movie Mafia-type organisation with layers, and at the bottom you’ve got young boys, and sometimes girls, running around.

“The youngest we’ve dealt with at British Transport Police was a nine-year-old found with drugs in the south of England.

“The average age is between 12 and 14 and lots carry weapons, usually concealing them in their trousers. I’ve had a knife pulled out on me by a 15-year-old before.

“The gangs involved all want these kids. They lure them in by giving them a sense of belonging to something, especially if they have a fractured family life. It breaks my heart when I see these youngsters who are just looking to belong and nobody else is giving them that.”

He added that run-down seaside towns, crippled by geographic isolation, poor transport links and the downturn of British tourism, are the worst-hit areas — with gangs running children to drug houses in Scot- land from places such as Blackpool and Rhyl.

Since its inception in 2019, the work of the BTP county lines task force has resulted in 66 charges relating to modern slavery and the identification of more than 1,300 vulnerable kids and adults linked to organised crime.

As of last week, the unit has seized 1,201 weapons, including 874 knives and blades and 105 firearms as well as batons and knuckle dusters.

Last year BTP had one of its biggest ever takedowns after drug dealer Lakan Illsley, of Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, was jailed for ten years for modern slavery offences after two 16-year-olds were detained, 130 miles from home, at Blackpool train station.

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Lakan Illsley was jailed for ten years for modern slavery offencesCredit: Staffordshire Police
They were carrying 50 wraps of cocaine, 39 of heroin, a burner phone and £300 in cash.

One was also carrying a knife. Illsley, aged 28 at the time of his sentencing, looked stunned when officers arrested him for modern slavery and they had to explain that it related to him running kids for county lines.

But the force is fighting an ever-present battle against dealers, who are so brazen they recruit kids on social media and in playgrounds and even hand out slips of paper with their numbers on.

Children are promised wads of cash, new tech and pairs of trainers.

Youth intervention specialist Dr Junior Smart knows just how terrifying it is for young people who get involved in county lines.

Dr Smart served a ten-year prison sentence for drug and gang-related offences in his twenties and later founded the St Giles’ SOS project, London’s largest gang exit programme.

He said: “It’s horrific for the kids involved, really scary. They are kept in ‘debt bondage’ to gang masters , who arrange for them to be ‘robbed’, leaving them owing the gang money. They can miss phone calls or not be where they’re supposed to be, and that can accrue a new debt.

“There’s an image that there is easy money to be made in drugs but the reality is very few of these youngsters make any real cash.

“They’re constantly living in fear, not just from gang leaders, but users who are hankering for a hit. If they are robbed by them, they’re given a weapon and told to go and get the drugs back. They are constantly living in a hyper-vigilant state.”

Once lured into gang culture, youngsters are also at risk of violence and sexual abuse as they are paid to man phones and sell drugs at trap houses across Britain.

Transport cops at Preston were on the lookout for victims, including dishevelled kids who can often smell after days unable to wash or even feed themselves.

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Youth intervention specialist Dr Junior SmartCredit: Supplied
James Houghton, safeguarding operational lead for the BTP county lines taskforce, said: “Those premises are often used to store drugs and weapons and also to sell from. If you’re a child put in there for two or three days and your job is to answer phones and sell the drugs, that’s an extremely heightened environment where there’s a sense of violence and people coming in desperate for drugs.

“They are often places with no utilities where children can’t make food or keep themselves neat and tidy so the smell of damp, the smell of neglect, of drug smoking and people using other drugs will be in youngsters’ clothes and hair. County lines is linked with homicide and violence. Police reports on children being stabbed don’t always make a connection with drugs.

“We know that there are all forms of harm, including the rape and sexual abuse of young girls and boys.

“Children can become involved very easily. Maybe they are offered some cannabis and smoke it, then are asked how they’re going to pay for it. They are then in debt to the gang.

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Gun, bullets and drugs recovered by police after arrestsCredit: GMP
“It can be as simple as that. And victims can be young.”

As Britain’s kids are sucked into a vortex of drugs, violence and sexual abuse, what is the answer?

Dr Smart said: “The first thing is prevention and awareness. We need proper one-to-one support and no time limit on cases, because these youngsters engage and disengage a lot.

“We need to support charities doing the work and need a real level of enforcement because these gangs won’t stop what they’re doing without that.”

The undercover cop who spoke to us for our investigation said: “We can’t police our way out of this. The only way we’re going to sort this is by sorting the issue of fractured families, which is beyond the police.

“I dealt with one lad who had a knife on him and managed to turn him around, with intervention from his dad, who was a strong father figure who’d split with the mum. ­The kid is now an apprentice mechanic.

“Sadly this is just one success story out of so many that don’t end well.”