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BBC
February 2, 2014
Some of London’s most dangerous gangs are increasingly expanding their criminal activities across the UK, the Metropolitan Police has warned.
Officers say 54 gangs from the capital now have “tentacles” in other towns and cities, selling drugs and causing violence on a larger scale.
Police liken them to businesses, saying areas are selected depending on demand and whether other gangs operate.
Raids across the UK on Thursday targeted one south London gang.
Twenty-nine people aged 18 to 47 were arrested in the latest phases of an operation said to be focused on the so-called GAS gang, based in Lambeth.
Simultaneous raids took place at 23 properties.
The Met Police searched nine addresses in Lambeth, one in Southwark, one in Hackney and another in Brent.
Seven properties were targeted in the Thames Valley, two in Edinburgh, one in Essex and one in Bedfordshire.
Police said the operation illustrated how gangs were targeting new areas to confuse investigators and generate more profit.
Officers say the 54 London gangs that they believe have made criminal advances around the regions are already behind two-thirds of gang-related crime in the capital.
Det Ch Insp Tim Champion, from the Met’s Operation Trident Gang Crime Command, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What we are noticing is that gangs are spreading their wings, so rather than working in London, they are going into the counties, even Scotland, to deal drugs. So basically it’s an expanding trade.
“We have communication with all our colleagues in the county forces and in Scotland, so distance isn’t an issue if you are actually talking about operations from a London perspective, but we work with local forces from up there. So it’s not always the case we have to go up there ourselves.”
But there are questions over whether the UK’s other police forces have the same expertise and resources as the Met to tackle to complexities of gang organisation and crime.
