Unprecedented drug purity levels 'fuelling rise in crime across the West Midlands'

West Midlands Police Chief Constable Dave Thompson has revealed drug purity levels are the highest they have ever been, which is having an adverse affect on criminal gangs operating in the region.

The high quality of drugs, which is thanks to good harvests in Colombia and Afghanistan, means organised crime gangs can no longer make as much money as they used to due to the increasing competition the pure drug levels are creating.

This means as well as expanding their drug dealing territory, which explains the rise in county lines crimes, gangs are now looking to diversify and make their money elsewhere, such as through car crime.

Mr Thompson explained: "What has become evident is that the purity of drugs coming into the UK is at a higher level than it ever has been. What we have seen is a good harvest overseas and that availability of high purity drugs has a number of effects.

"The first is that it suppresses the cost because there's more availability and also creates more competition in the drug market. As we've seen with county lines the patches for drug dealers has had to get bigger as they try to increase their profit as the purity of drugs reduces their ability to cut them down as much.

"Another issue is that it has made criminals diversify into other areas. We cannot prove it all conclusively but what we can say is that drug purity has improved at a time when we have seen an uplift in crime start to happen and our view is that it is impacting on criminal markets at the moment."

The West Midlands is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of car crime, with cars being stolen to order for their parts to help rebuild previously written-off cars thieves have bought.

Asked if this was the kind of crime criminals were now turning to as the drug market becomes less lucrative, Mr Thompson said: "Organised crime gangs will always want to launder money legitimately and car crime is a good way of doing that. The second hand car market is quite buoyant at the moment as we buy less new cars.

"What we're seeing is a high proportion of cars that are being scrapped are capable of being returned to the road and some of those salvageable cars are being purchased for cash and are a good way of laundering money.

"You cannot say that drugs are all the factors but there's definitely a consistent factor around drug purity increasing that is creating more competition around organised crime and more consideration being given to other areas of crime."