Three men in court after English county lines drug raids

Three men have appeared in court in Aberdeen after a series of dawn raids across Greater Manchester last week targeting county lines drug gangs.

The crackdown – codenamed Operation Decoder – saw Police Scotland’s North East Division seize Class A drugs and a five-figure sum of cash from four properties in England.

The Press and Journal’s Impact investigation team joined police as they launched the action last Thursday.

Moses Nde, 34, Henry Okere, 32, and Beltus Amah, 29, appeared on petition at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and were each charged with two counts of being in possession of a controlled drug.

All three men made no plea and were committed for further examination before being released on bail.

Nde, Okere and Amah will all appear again at a later date.

Cops hit four linked addresses across Manchester

Detectives have spent months investigating the organised crime group which, from its base in Greater Manchester, was suspected of being behind a heroin and cocaine-dealing operation in Aberdeen.

The drugs squad was joined on Thursday by dozens of colleagues from Greater Manchester Police, who took part in a morning briefing at Openshaw Police Complex, three miles east of Manchester city centre.

Led by local officers, teams of police headed out in convoy under the cover of darkness to four linked addresses across the city.

The operation was being monitored by senior north-east detectives from a control room at Greater Manchester Police’s headquarters at Central Park.

At one of the addresses, a tactical unit made up of 12 officers in riot gear descended on a home address and, at exactly 6am, smashed their way in using a battering ram.

Police made one arrest at the property and carried out a forensic search involving sniffer dogs.

A vehicle was also searched outside the address.

‘We will pursue those who bring harm to vulnerable people’

Detective Inspector Martyn Thomson said on Thursday: “Operation Decoder is a protracted investigation led by the North East Division’s organised crime group unit, into an organised crime group operating a county line from Manchester, who were supplying Class A drugs in Aberdeen.

“Today’s significant arrests in Manchester demonstrate that we will reach far and wide and pursue those who bring harm to vulnerable people in the north-east of Scotland.”

For all the latest court cases in Aberdeen, as well as the latest crime and breaking incidents, join our new Facebook group HERE.