In the following, Henry Reynolds posits that the “grooming gangs” are profiting off their victims by getting them hooked on and supplying them with heroin. Thus linking the rape gangs to the massive and deadly heroin trade in the UK.
As Jonathan Temperley, from the National Crime Agency, said in 2019, “Drug trafficking is a major source of revenue for crime groups, many of whom are involved in multiple crime types, such as modern slavery and people smuggling.”
Underdiscussed is the deeply unsettling nexus between grooming gangs and the heroin trade. At the epicentre of all this is an established infrastructure of Pakistani criminal networks, whose involvement in heroin trafficking hasn’t just devastated communities through addiction, but also more than likely serves as a calculated mechanism that facilitates the sexual exploitation of vulnerable children.
The numbers speak for themselves. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (“EMCDDA”) suggests that 1.3 million Europeans suffer from opioid dependency, with Britain accounting for just under a quarter of these cases with an estimated 300,000 heroin-dependents, more than any EU country. We also have one of the highest rates of heroin-related deaths in Europe. Britain is the only developed country in the world where the total retail value of its heroin is higher than that of other drugs.
In fact, at £4 billion per year, it is almost the same size as that of the European Union as a whole, which is estimated at €5.2 billion (£4.3 billion) per year. The raw tonnage of heroin imported into Britain is also higher than any EU country, and by some margin as well. Harrowing – and nor can this all be hand-waved away with the single word, “Glasgow.”...<<<Read More>>>...
