Police hold 14 in heroin network raids

Fourteen people were being questioned tonight after police smashed a suspected heroin network in the North.

The suspects, 12 men and two women, were arrested during a series of raids in Ballymena, Co Antrim.

The move against alleged street dealers, codenamed Operation Sturge, was the biggest anti-drug offensive in the North for years.

More than 120 officers were involved in early morning swoops on at least 17 locations, which had been planned since January.

Quantities of Class A and C drugs, along with cash, were also seized.

Ten houses were initially searched in Ballymena, an area ravaged by drugs.

Properties in Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, and Kilrea, Co Londonderry, were also targeted.

But CID and Drugs Squad’s focus was firmly on Ballymena, where up to 600 heroin addicts live.

Three people in the town have died from overdoses in the last year alone, the Police Service of Northern Ireland revealed.

Detectives believe the drugs are being smuggled in from Dublin and UK cities.

In a second phase, another five addresses were later raided in a bid to disrupt the distribution of heroin in the town.

Detective Inspector Mark Dennison, who headed the operation, said: “The supply market within Ballymena will dry up because of what’s happened today.

“This will have a significant impact.”

Surveillance was used to gather intelligence before specialist units went in.

Tactical support units used battering rams to break down doors on the suspects’ homes.

At one location on Waveney Road, Ballymena, officers burst into all three floors in a block of flats before finding their target.

A semi-naked 29-year-old man, who appeared just woken, was told he was under arrest.

As he hurriedly dressed officers searched his ground floor apartment, informing him he was being held under the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Mr Dennison said evidence had been built up between January and March.

The scale of the swoops were the biggest since Operation Galiot in 2002, which led to 14 heroin dealers being charged after searches in Ballymena and south Belfast.

As the raids took place, church leaders in the North called for greater support for young people with drug and alcohol problems.

Loyalists launched a new police funded anti-drugs initiative where flute bands will hand out leaflets at parades.

Mr Dennison denied the problem in Ballymena was worsening, but accepted dealing still took place.

“Our job is to catch more of them, convict more of them and to treat more of them,” he added.

“It should be noted that Ballymena police have convicted almost 60 people in the last three years for supply of Class A drugs.

“As a result of the arrests today that figure could rise significantly.

“The operation today is not only about enforcement. Ballymena PSNI work with a range of statutory and voluntary agencies in the district.”