The UK city becoming a ‘cocaine gateway’ as cartels flood ports with Class A drugs and dealers arm kids with CROSSBOWS
THE sign reads, ‘Welcome to the port of Southampton – the gateway to the world’.
But in the shadow of giant shipping cranes, the city is also becoming a doorway for drugs – as experts warn Latin America cartels see Britain as the “country of choice” for cocaine smuggling.
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Last month, the National Crime Agency (NCA) – dubbed Britain’s FBI – made its biggest Class A drugs bust ever when £450million of cocaine was found in cartons of bananas in Southampton’s port.
And the boom in illegal imports is being felt on the city’s streets, too, as local drug lords arm teenagers with guns and crossbows to protect their growing empires in bitter postcode battles.
Residents say Southampton is blighted by “blatant” drug use, with dealers using car parks as hubs and needles left discarded on streets.
One said: “You see lines of cars at 3am waiting for calls to pick off and drop off drugs. People will kill anybody for a tiny amount of drugs.”
NCA bosses tell The Sun that British ports like Southampton are facing increased threat from drug smugglers as Brits clamour for cocaine.
One in every 40 people admits to using coke, earning the UK the unenviable title of the ‘coke capital of Europe‘.
The record bust followed a number of other huge seizures at the port.
Cops last year smashed a Southampton drugs ring which imported drugs from Canada, Europe, and America, then recruited kids as young as 15 who were given guns, crossbows, and knives.
Ringleader Stanley Woods, just 21, and 17 accomplices were jailed for a combined total of 33 years.
Police seized 58kg of cannabis worth more than £500,000 and over £50,000 in cryptocurrency after discovering the gang were supplied drugs including MDMA and cocaine through the post.
Surge in violence
Hampshire police last month revealed that at least 80 kids were part of two gangs that used the city as their battleground as they moved to end a decades long feud between two postcodes.
A spate of stabbings, drug taking and robberies were linked to the war with police launching a special operation codenamed Operation Sabretooth.
In October last year a child and vulnerable adult were rescued by police in a house taken over by a drugs gang as they shut down three county lines gangs.
The city is ranked the ninth most violent in Britain.
Home Office figures show that in the year to March 2023, there were 14,555 crimes committed in the city – equivalent to 55.8 per 10,000 residents.
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Residents say they are sick of drug problems.
Pensioner Brian Masters, 69, said the city is full of drug runners at 3am “waiting for calls to pick up and drop drugs off.”
He said: “Drugs are all over the place. It’s a fact of life, you just have to live with it. It’s an everyday thing, it’s what young people do.”
Brian, a “jack of all trades” worker who lives in the Woolston area, said he had witnessed a “blatant” use of drugs in the city.
He added: “I had cannabis when I was young. I had a go with the hippies when I went to Glastonbury, but when you talk about Class A drugs they go mad on it and want to fight.”
Office manager Louise Hillier, 37, who has an 11-year-old daughter, says she sometimes feels unsafe walking through the city.
She said: “We have got car parks where people sit and smoke weed and there are certain places I avoid going to because there’s lots of needles.
“There’s just certain places I avoid because there’s drug users in the evening. It’s usually secluded spots or a car park where a lot of people hang out doing drugs.”
Drug empire takedown
At just 21, Stanley Woods had built up a drugs empire that would have impressed gangsters twice his age.
The baby-faced ringleader had cannabis, MDMA and cocaine delivered through the POST to his house and the homes of his associates before selling them on the streets of Southampton.
He recruited a gang of kids as young as 15 and armed them with guns, crossbows and knives to protect his illegal business.
Runners delivered the drugs all over the city and payments were turned into Bitcoin in an attempt to hide the profits.
During the police investigation, officers discovered Woods was exploiting a legal loophole to purchase antique guns before modifying them into working firearms.
The case led to a change in the law in September 2021 and it’s now illegal to buy antique guns without a licence.
Woods was jailed six years and eight months after admitting conspiracy to import/supply cannabis, being concerned in the supply of cocaine and two counts of possession of banned police phones while in prison.
He and his 17 associates were given sentences totalling 33 years 8 months between June 2022 and January 2023.
At a separate proceeds of crime hearing, Woods was ordered to pay back £774, 655 he is believed to have made from his drugs empire.
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Lifelong Southampton resident Carol Adams, 84, said she saw a young lad throw a “sugary packet” from a car window near her home in Woolston.
Families living in a block of flats near her home have previously complained about gangs of addicts blighting their lives by fighting and smashing up CCTV cameras.
Drug expert Tony D’Agostino, who trains frontline workers, said county lines gangs have been found to target “rural markets” around Britain’s largest cities and ports.
He said: “The exploitation is particularly alarming as it often involves children as young as 12, and in some reported cases, even toddlers have been found in homes used by dealers.
“The gangs’ recruiting strategies are sophisticated. They promise lucrative lifestyles to entice children, then trap them in cycles of debt and violence that are hard to escape.
“This is exacerbated by the ‘cuckooing tactic’, where drug dealers take over the homes of vulnerable individuals to operate their activities.”
Changing supply routes
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The worrying number of kids involved in drug crime in Southampton comes as experts told The Sun how British ports face an influx of drugs from South America.
Drugs have historically come into the UK through northern European ports, but demand is in such high supply that British narcs have made their own cartel contacts and they are now being shipped straight to source.
The NCA says Britain consumes around 117 tonnes of cocaine a year. with organised crime gangs making an annual profit of around £4BILLION.
Andy Mason, the agency’s drug threat lead, said: “The UK is the country of choice for many trafficking organised crime groups due to the high demand for cocaine. Prices are among the highest in Europe.
Britain’s cocaine boom
Statistics from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ranked 41 developed nations on the proportion of adults aged 15 to 64 who had used cocaine in the previous 12 months.
- Australia – 4.2%
- United Kingdom – 2.7%
- Austria – 2.5%
- Spain – 2.5%
- United States – 2.4%
- Ireland – 2.3%
- Netherlands – 2.1%
- Canada – 2%
- Croatia – 1.8%
- France – 1.6%
“Cocaine trafficking is closely linked to serious violence throughout the supply chain, as well as gang culture and firearms and knife crime in our communities.
“There has been a marked increase in the use of knives and modified and converted firearms to resolve disputes in recent years, resulting in serious violence including murder, where the victims are often teenagers.”
Border Force officers seized 15 tonnes of coke – mainly from South America – last year and 46 tonnes of cannabis.
The record-breaking haul found in crates of bananas last month was being transported from South America to Hamburg.
It followed a previous seizure of £302million worth of coke, which was also found in boxes of bananas in April 2022.
A year earlier, in January 2021, almost a tonne of cocaine was discovered in yet another shipment of the fruit.
Bribes to staff
Ex National Crime Agency deputy director Roy McComb, an international consultant on organised crime, says all of Britain’s 120 cargo and 400 non-cargo ports are at risk from drug smuggling as gangs offer bribes to staff.
Corrupt port worker Michael Jordan, 45, of Portsmouth, was last July jailed for 21 years for conspiracy to import £118million cocaine into the city in April 2022.
His co-worker, David Oliver, 44, also of Portsmouth, was jailed for 14 years in January last year on the same charge.
Mr McComb said: “Organised crime is nothing if not flexible and look for the best opportunities.
“They think like businessmen and look at the cost benefit analysis, support costs, the outlay for corruption and payment of bribes and damages if a shipment is lost.
The exploitation is particularly alarming as it often involves children as young as 12
Drug expert Tony D’Agostino
“They are now thinking, ‘why send our product to Europe when some of the market ends up in the UK? Why don’t we just send straight to Britain.
“Over the last few years, British criminals have developed direct links into the South Americas. The market has changed, and we are seeing more shipments direct into the UK rather than through Northern Europe.
“Organised crime groups have perhaps understood a development of weaknesses in the system, perhaps corrupted some port officials or identified that the approach to narcotics isn’t robust enough in certain ports.
“Perhaps they feel more confident, or maybe other countries such as Hamburg or Rotterdam feel more challenging at the moment because they have stepped up security.”
Fighting back
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In Southampton, officials are doing everything they can to stop kids turning into mini-dealers or drug runners.
Donna Jones, the police and crime commissioner for Southampton, is funding programmes to educate children on the dangers of getting involved in drugs.
She said: “I don’t believe Southampton has a bigger drugs issue than most other cities, despite the port.
“The use of crossbows is very dangerous and the Government is currently consulting over whether greater controls should be introduced to ensure they can’t be bought by under-18s.
“Through our violent reduction unit, we fund programmes going into schools, particularly focusing on year nine, 10 and 11 pupils, about the dangers of being members of gangs and carrying knives.
“Once involved in gangs, they can become involved in criminality and quickly come up against other gangs in close proximity doing the same thing.
“When drug assets are seized under the proceeds of crime act, the money is spent on ways to try to reduce the impact of drugs on society.
“I use some of mine to pay for drug testing on arrest. If we find that young people who have been arrested have tested positive, reset navigators speak to them in custody to try to determine what issues they face and, if needed, refer them to a drug worker.”
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