How vulnerable teenagers are being lured into county lines gangs: Text messages reveal evil threats made to keep young dealers in criminality
Lee Primonato, a Bedfordshire Police Officer, found gruesome text messages on a young boy's phone as he was held in custody on suspicion of dealing drugs.
'We suspect he had been, out of Bedforshire, dealing drugs in a drug's den,' Mr Primonato said. 'Sometimes they are taken there by elder members of that criminal group.'
The new series of Channel 4 's 24 Hours in Police Custody captured the moment Mr Primonato noticed the threatening messages appear on the young man's phone.
'Your goin to make me do sum stupid,' the horrifying text reads. 'Blud il shank up u mum. Im going to wet up u mum [sic].'
In a preview clip shared with MailOnline, Mr Primonato is seen scrolling through the messages and saying: 'He's getting threats about his mum being stabbed up if he doesn't work off what he owes.'
'They're arguing about how many bits he's given and how much he's returned.
'When they start dealing for a line, they will be challenged when it's time to pay saying: "Where's the rest? You had more drugs than that. Where's the money?", when actually they didn't have more drugs than that.
'They then owe that line and then obviously debt bondage becomes a big issue. Threats of violence to not just them but their families as well so they tend to keep doing it even though they don't want to.'
Turning back to the young man in the police station, Mr Primonato said: 'This lad, bearing in mind he came back last night, he looks beaten, his head was down.
'He does genuinely look like a victim, I would say.'
A common feature of county lines gangs is the exploitation of young and vulnerable people, according to the National Crime Agency.
The dealers will target children and adults - often with mental health or addiction problems - to act as drug runners or move cash so they can stay unnoticed by law enforcement.
In some cases, the dealers will take over a local property belonging to a vulnerable person and use it to operate from.
This is what happened to Jordan who is also featured on tonight's episode of Channel 4's 24 Hours in Police Custody.
When questioned by the police about the 'multiple phones, tick lists and drug paraphernalia' found at his home address, Jordan said: 'To be honest with you, it's just a matter of me being involved with people who do hard drugs and you know.
'My place has different people in it quite a lot.'
Jordan said that the 'people' have been using his flat for 'a good six months to a year or so' - although he struggled to recall the exact time frame as he is 'pretty out of it most of the time when I'm there'.
The young man confirms to the officers that he used to take heroine but is 'two weeks clean'.
'At first they were abusing my addiction,' Jordan explained. 'They would fill me with drugs just to be there.
'But now that I'm clean it has become a problem for them.'
The officer then brings out a piece of paper with Jordan's handwriting on it. It reads: '£30 for 5L'.
Jordan admits that it means he sold five cocaine wraps for £30, proving that he had a hand in the dealing of drugs.
The officer asked: 'So you were helping out with the sell of drugs in the sense that you're the bookkeeper?'
'Not the bookkeeper,' Jordan replied. 'In the sense of not wanting to get my head kicked in.
'Whenever they had stuff, they would try and put debts on my head and so I would write down exactly how much money went in and out.
'They are confirmation that I didn't owe any money out or things weren't going missing in my flat, or anything like that.
'I made sure I had my back covered because otherwise they would put debts on my head and then they'd become abusive.
'Even if it was like £2 that had gone from anywhere, they would try to put it on me.'
'So you felt you had an obligation to allow these people into your flat?' the officer asked.
Jordan nodded his head in confirmation.
24 Hours in Police Custody on Channel 4, July 13 at 9pm.
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