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4 - Grinding

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2021

Simon Harding
Affiliation:
University of West London
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Summary

The daily chore of wrapping drugs, bagging them, taking phone calls, delivering drugs to user, 27/7 from a local dealing Hub or trap house is referred to by the runner/dealers as ‘grinding’.

Establishing a user database

Upon arrival in a new dealing location the first action is to immediately construct a user database – this will become the County Line phone line. The police commented upon familiar and proven techniques used by CL operatives to build their user database:

‘On WhatsApp you send a voice message. They talk constantly about building up the round, build up the round, and that just means they come into an area, infiltrate the area and over two to three days, build up a customer database. They go down to [town] High Street at 11 am, sit outside the tunnels. You’ll see them going to score drugs. You’ve only got to approach one of them, “Hello, mate, y’alright, where you getting your gear, blah, blah. What's your name? I sell a bit of gear. What's your number? What's your mate's name? How many mates you got who take kit?” In one conversation you’ve got six names and numbers of people in town that are addicts. In two or three days you can build up a round. You’ve only got to give them a couple of free samples that they know your gear is good and they’ll spread, “Oh, there's a new fellow knocking about. He's knocking out some gear. His name's so-and-so.”’ (Police 02)

Product delivery

Product is supplied from parent gangs in London to CL destination, for example seaside town. Product delivery mechanisms depend upon the weight to be shifted. Product is shifted every few days by USG Olders in a car. Alternatively product is dispatched via CL Operatives using cars or public transport. Often transportation functions are considered the work of girls, young women and trusted ‘soldiers’.

‘She’ll get there, meet the boys who take the drugs from her and she's catching that cab straight back. Then the boys they will go into the park or field, it's like a nine bar of each so it's all bagged up in G packs, you’ve got two G packs and then you would have 20 packs of stuff, all in 20s.

Type
Chapter
Information
County Lines
Exploitation and Drug Dealing among Urban Street Gangs
, pp. 101 - 142
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Grinding
  • Simon Harding
  • Book: County Lines
  • Online publication: 25 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529203097.006
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Save book to Dropbox

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  • Grinding
  • Simon Harding
  • Book: County Lines
  • Online publication: 25 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529203097.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Grinding
  • Simon Harding
  • Book: County Lines
  • Online publication: 25 February 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.46692/9781529203097.006
Available formats
×