Introduction

The ‘standard story’ on county lines begins with cold and calculating criminals shipping off some poor exploited teenager to the farthest corners of the country to live in filth on the floor of a crack den, sustained by nothing more than a mobile phone and a backpack full of drugs. While this most certainly happens, and it is abhorrent when it does, our county lines case studies start very differently. Here, crime opportunities come second to family commitments as explanations for gang proliferation and gang member migration.

Do for love

Our first case study starts with an adult, Grease, saying his goodbyes to family and friends, standing next to his car, which is “packed out” with bedding, children’s toys, furniture and the other essentials for family life. Grease is moving out to try and reconcile with his estranged partner Mary and their children. Mary left Grease a few months prior and moved from Glasgow to A-Town to be closer to her brother, who lives there too, her mother and father, who live in a nearby village, and several aunts, uncles and cousins. Mary was now settled in A-Town, happy even, so this was Grease’s desperate final attempt to make things right and make their relationship work. He was moving to the “outback” in the “middle of nowhere” for love – for Mary.

Never one to let a good opportunity go to waste, Grease’s family and friends, many of whom were deeply embedded in Glasgow’s criminal underworld, had an ulterior motive for Grease’s relocation.

“Grease mate, you know what you’re going to do once up there right?”, Billy asked.

“Aye mate, I’ve got it sorted. No need to worry about it”, replied Grease.

Billy had heard words to this effect many times before from Grease. Billy and Grease were like brothers, but Grease always had a habit of “fucking shit up”. Even more so when the task at hand was presumed to be “unfuckable”.