A ‘county lines’ drug crackdown co-ordinated by Thames Valley Police led to 121 arrests.

The force also helped seize 92 vehicles, 19 weapons and a “large quantity” of drugs during the three-day initiative.

It was joined by a number of other police forces to combat criminals exploiting the major road and rail networks to carry out offences.

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Thames Valley Police superintendent Andy Alexander said police were able to “disrupt and detect serious criminal offenders”.

Officers from Thames Valley, Surrey, Sussex, Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire, Warwickshire, British Transport Police and the Metropolitan Police were involved in the initiative from Tuesday (January 16) to Thursday.

Co-ordinated by Thames Valley Police, the operation used Automatic Number Plate Recognition technology (ANPR) and police intelligence to target vehicles on arterial roads and motorways.

The road network between force borders is often used to run ‘County Lines’ drug operations so the operation focused on tackling offenders involved in drug-related harm and serious theft offences such as burglary.

Superintendent Alexander said: “This has been a very successful three-day operation.

“Officers from a number of police force areas were able to pull together their resources and proactively police our road and train networks to disrupt and detect some of our most serious criminal offenders.

“This operation was a joint effort and involved sharing proactive intelligence and enhancing existing relationships across different forces to target those involved in drug, gang and weapon based violence.

“Organised criminal activity is not tolerated and offenders should know that police forces work together to disrupt them.”