MORE than £23,000-worth of drugs and cash have been seized during a single week as police launched a crackdown on ‘county lines’ dealers.

Thirty people were arrested across Dorset between October 8 and 14. One was a 14-year-old missing child.

A further 39 people identified as being vulnerable were given ‘safe and well’ checks.

County lines is the name given to urban drug dealers expanding their activities into smaller towns and rural areas.

Gangs will use people, including teenagers from other parts of the country, to come to Dorset and supply drugs. They will also target vulnerable people and drug addicts and will move into their address, usually against their will.

The practice is such a problem in the county that Dorset Police now lists it as one of their top priorities. According to the new crime figures released by the Office for National Statistics, reports of drug offences in Dorset are down 11 per cent on the previous year.

Detective Chief Inspector Andy Dilworth said the crackdown, known as Operation Voltage, was an “intensification” of police’s existing work against drugs.

“We have managed to conduct significant disruption,” he said.

One man arrested in Bournemouth was also wanted by the Met Police.

“While I’m extremely pleased with these results, our work to tackle county lines is ongoing and relentless,” DCI Dilworth said.

The ages of those arrested ranges between 14 and 51. Six women, 23 men and the teenager were arrested.

Police and crime commissioner Martyn Underhill said county lines “ruins lives”.

“It isn’t just happening in major cities.

“It’s happening right here in Dorset and I echo the appeal to our residents and communities to work with police on tackling this issue,” he said.

In July, Dorset’s top policeman said his officers will “cut the head off the snake” to tackle drug gangs who flood the county with class A substances. Chief Constable James Vaughan reaffirmed his commitment to tackling county lines after five young London men were sentenced for dealing drugs in Bournemouth.

As reported in the Daily Echo, Morgan Okhiria, 23, and Abdifathi Ibrahim, 18, were arrested in Suffolk Road on October 20 last year after attracting the attention of two police officers in plain clothes.

Between them, they had packages of crack cocaine and heroin worth more than £2,500 in their pockets.

Neither of the defendants had even visited Bournemouth or been in trouble with the police before, and Ibrahim, who was just 17 at the time of the offence, suffers poor mental health.

The men were sentenced to community orders.