A Glasgow "wholesale" drug dealer told a film crew that Scotland's cocaine crisis is being supplied by "outfits" from Liverpool and Manchester. A new documentary, by Vice World News, explores the explosion of cocaine use in the Scottish capital.
The film, which is part of the channel's High Society series, heard from casual drug users and addicts who regularly inject the Class A drug intravenously, a rising problem contributing to overdoses and HIV.
In the documentary, presenter Josh Osbourne met with an anonymous Glaswegian "buyer" who had recently been "caught in possession" with £250,000 worth of cocaine, the Liverpool Echo reports. The man, who kept his identity hidden by wearing a balaclava and having his voice distorted, was asked: "So how does the cocaine get into Scotland?"
He replied: "Most of it's come up from down the road. Outfits from sort of Liverpool, Manchester, those kind of places. You're maybe making £50,000 to £100,000 a week, cash, x amount of houses, cars. The lifestyle was f****** phenomenal mate.
"You've got hundreds of cash here, hundreds of beak [cocaine] there, you've got the prostitutes, you've got all the kind of debauchery that goes along with it. The party lifestyle.
"I came away from the game for a while, and the kind of greed gets the better of you and you're back in. It's as much about the power and the thing you've got over people as well as just making money. It's very addictive, it's just as addictive as the drugs."
Presenter Josh asked the man about how big an effect police raids and drug seizures have on the trade. He replied: "When one person gets shut down, another person's going to move into that area. Simple as that mate.... It doesn't seem to be stopping any time soon."
Scotland still has the highest number of drug deaths in Europe. In 2021, 1,295 deaths were linked to illicit drugs in Scotland, albeit down from 1,411 in 2020 which represented the highest number on record.
Liverpool based street gangs do not appear to have been phased by the misery, death and addiction on the streets of Glasgow and other Scottish cities and towns, however. In 2018, a National Crime Agency (NCA) annual strategic assessment said: “Significant serious organised crime connections exist between Scotland and the north west of England, predominantly Merseyside.
"This analysis is consistent with intelligence that the north west of England, predominantly Liverpool, continues to be the primary source of drug supply into Scotland".
The Vice World News documentary is available on Youtube here.
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