County Lines are the use of dedicated phone lines to supply drugs from urban areas out to smaller towns across the country. This does however also occur from one area to another within the same city. In this investigation, this line was operating across North and Central Manchester.
In 2023, GMP’s dedicated County Lines Team received intelligence that a phone line was being used to sell class-A drugs across Manchester.
An investigation was launched, and it soon became clear that this phone line was increasingly busy, sending out thousands of flare messages to customers. A flare message is essentially a bulk message that drug dealers will send out to contacts on the phone letting them know they are open for business, and any deals they may have on.
From this phone, messages like ‘about in car’, ‘about fast’, and ‘on till 1’ were being sent out at all hours of the day, directing users to locations to collect drugs.
The next stage was identifying who was in control of the phone and where they were located. Using cell site analysis, police could see the mobile phone was in the vicinity of the Prescot/ Knowsley area of Merseyside on Monday 21 August.
It transpired that Jerome Gordon had been on a day out at Knowsley Safari Park but had continued to operate his drug business whilst enjoying a family day out.
On Friday 1 September, Gordon failed to stop for police in North Manchester, making off in his car. Shortly after, he crashed the vehicle and was detained by officers whilst trying to scale a fence. Inside his car, police found a mobile phone which linked the drugs line in question to Gordon. The top contact in this phone was his own number and his girlfriends.
On Tuesday 26 September, police executed two warrants at addresses linked to Gordon in North Manchester. Police recovered a burner-style phone, cash, a further iPhone and extra sim cards, snap bags, and scales with white residue on them.
Jerome Gordon of Hadlow Walk, Manchester, appeared at Manchester Crown Court. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years for being concerned about the supply of class-A drugs.
