Cocaine Capital: record London seizures by police but number of arrests tumbles

Cocaine seizures in London have soared by 1,576 per cent in a decade with more than a ton of the drug taken off the streets last year, Report informs via the Evening Standard.

Experts say the Class A drug, once the preserve of the wealthy and middle classes, is so common it is viewed as socially acceptable despite links to violent crime, depression, heart attacks and strokes.

The latest figures show the Metropolitan Police seized 1,048kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of £105 million in the year to March 2022 — the highest total on record. Casual use has reached such a peak, the force now removes from the streets two-thirds of the drug found by all British police.

Met detective Dan Mitchell said: “We know that drug supply and violence on our streets are inextricably linked, so disrupting all routes of drug supply continues to be central to our work in making London safer.”

The new data represents a 34 per cent rise on the previous 12 months in 2021 when officers uncovered cocaine weighing 778kg. Since the pandemic in 2020, seizures have rocketed 440 per cent.

The most staggering findings of the Standard’s investigation is a 1,576 per cent increase in seizures in the 10 years since 2012, when London hosted the Olympics. Back then, the Met and City of London Police found 62.5kg of cocaine, according to Home Office data.

Last year, Border Force officials intercepted 17,087kg — worth £1.7 billion — destined for cities as a result of operations at airports and ports. Despite the large seizures, the number arrested for possession of drugs in London has more than halved from 4,627 in June 2020 to 2,075 in June this year, according to the Met’s monthly crime dashboard.

Illegal drug use is linked to gun crime, serious violence, trafficking and money laundering. More than 4,517 people a year are also dying as a result of drugs.