Many street gangs are involved with the supply of drugs. This can be a way that gangs make money. Dealing in drugs, like running a business has many different roles and levels of people controlling the entire operation. County lines (also known as ‘going country’) are a tactic used by individuals, or more commonly by OCGs to establish a drug dealing operation in an area outside of their usual localities.

This typically involves gangs moving their operations from large urban cities out into more remote rural areas – particularly coastal towns, market towns, or commuter towns close to large cities.

Criminal exploitation of children is a geographically widespread form of harm that is a typical feature of county lines criminal activity: drug networks or gangs groom and exploit children and young people to carry drugs and money from urban areas to suburban and rural areas, market and seaside towns.

Key to identifying potential involvement in county lines are missing episodes, when the victim may have been trafficked for the purpose of transporting drugs and a referral to the national referral mechanism should be considered. Like other forms of abuse and exploitation, county lines exploitation:

• can affect any child or young person (male or female) under the age of 18 years;
• can affect any vulnerable adult over the age of 18 years;
• can still be exploitation even if the activity appears consensual;
• can involve force and/or enticement-based methods of compliance and is often accompanied by violence or threats of violence;
• can be perpetrated by individuals or groups, males or females, and young people or adults; and
• is typified by some form of power imbalance in favour of those perpetrating the
  exploitation. Whilst age may be the most obvious, this power imbalance can
  also be due to a range of other factors including gender, cognitive ability,
  physical strength, status, and access to economic or other resources.

Source and further information: https://www.solgrid.org.uk/education/safeguarding/child-protection/issues/county-lines/.