CHILDREN being groomed by drug gangs to traffic drugs in the county is a ‘sad reality’, an Essex police officer has revealed.

Following a report that said gangs are grooming children ‘as young as 12’ to control the drug markets in towns outside London, Andy Prophet, Asst Chief Constable for Essex Police, said: “This is a sad reality and it’s not limited to inner cities. It affects communities in Essex and many other counties.”

The tactic which the gangs use is called ‘cuckooing’, where they take control of a home and use it as a base.

Gwenton Sloley, a director at Cryin Sons, a group which works to stop young people moving into gang activity, told The Times that gangs from London will use homes rented through services such as Airbnb to run operations in Southend.

Mr Sloley said: “The kids are still in the cuckooed house, but an older figure will rent an apartment for a week and demand that each time the drug money hits £1,000, the cash will be brought to him.”

During October of this year, Essex Police made 53 arrests for gang or drug-related crime.

The scheme, called Operation Raptor, seized nearly 1,000 wraps of Class A drugs – including heroin, cocaine and crack cocaine – were seized as well as nearly £4,000 in cash.

A gang from North and East London, the Jay Boys, were also convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court after it was found they used the home of a drug addict in Clacton as their base.

The group were also found to have use the tactic of ‘cuckooing’ in order to obtain the base.

The report said that according to the National Crime Agency (NCA), young girls and boys groomed by gangs had suffered from ‘sexual exploitation’ and that children were often forced to traffic drugs inside their bodies.

The NCA also said that the county lines where drugs gangs operate have widened in the past three years in order for them sell across the country.

Five out of 43 police forces across England and Wales had reported there to be no lines in their area, however, the agency said that it was ‘present in some form in all force areas’.

Matthew Reed, chief executive of The Children’s Society added: “Too often, these young people are seen as having chosen to get involved with gangs and as a result they are criminalised, when they should instead be recognised as victims of trafficking and exploitation.”

Airbnb said that there was no evidence of dealers using homes as their bases.