POLICE in South Essex have taken more drugs worth more than £3million off the streets in the last five years.

Figures obtained by the Echo under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed that the force has seized more than 117kg of cannabis, 11.1kg of cocaine and 1.7kg of heroin in that period.

In Southend alone just under 10,000 cannabis plants were seized between April 2008 and March this year.

Det Chief Insp Stuart Smith, of the Kent and Essex Serious and Organised Crime Directorate, said his unit is kept very busy by the drugs trade.

He said: “A large amount of the work we’re involved in, whether it starts off as a drugs operation or it starts off as other organised crime, there will usually be drugs somewhere involved.

“There’s an awful lot of drugs used in a number of biggest crime groups. The way that other activities are funded is often down to the drugs business and its money.”

The last financial year saw a five-year record high of cocaine taken off the streets of Thurrock – a whopping 1,840 per cent increase year on year.

Officers took in 3kg of cocaine in Thurrock between April 2012 and March 2013, compared to just 156.8g the year before.

Officers try to find drugs using any tactics that they can.

Mr Smith said: “There are as many different ways as you can imagine. A lot of them may come from a stop check, from a police officer doing a stop and search under Police and Criminal Evidence Act, during a search of a person or a vehicle.

“But there are other, proactive operations where police have purchased drugs from drug suppliers. There are operations where it can be more long term – higher up in the drug supply. That would involve all sorts of tactics that could be utilised.”

Mr Smith said that both officers and drug dealers tactics are always changing.

He said: “I suspect how they make the money and selling at street level hasn’t changed one iota for years.

“But in relation to how the drugs are moved around the country that continually changes in response to our enforcement tactics.”

Echo:

ONE of the most famous examples of the unit’s tactics was demonstrated in Basildon during the operation to catch the notorious “Bush Boys” gang last year.

The gang, who were from west London, peddled heroin and crack cocaine on the streets of the town.

Thirteen of its members were convicted of drugs offences in September.

During their trial it emerged that an undercover policemen posed as drug addicts in order to gather evidence of their activities.

One brave cop who managed to infiltrate one of the gang’s bases was subjected to a vicious attack after they rumbled his cover.

Basildon Crown Court heard that the officer – known as Deano – was locked in a room, interrogated, beaten and nearly stabbed. He had to jump from a first-floor window at Rodegate, Basildon, in order to escape the horror.

Prosecuter Martyn Levett said during the trial that after the officer had been subjected to a savage beating, one of the gang ordered his henchmen to get a knife.

He said: “Those shouts for a knife were enough that Deano decided it was time he made his dramatic decision.

“To stay, would he be killed? Or to run, would they catch up with him?

“So he jumped out of the window and ran for his life.”