-from telegraph.co.uk-

By Natalie Paris and Agencies

Drugs raids targeting major international crack cocaine dealers and involving more than 400 police officers took place across Britain this morning.

Houses and flats were raided up and down the country in a bid to smash a network ferrying crack cocaine between London and Middlesbrough.

Police said the Class A drug is brought into Britain from Jamaica and then smuggled by train from London to Teesside to be distributed across the north east of England.

Cleveland Police Chief Constable Sean Price said: “Today’s action strikes at the very heart of a lucrative drugs network.

“The aim is to take out not just street level dealers, but the masterminds behind this evil trade.”

The raids began at 3am in the Ilford and Hackney areas, followed by 6am swoops conducted by strike teams on Teesside.

Further raids took place in the West Midlands, North Yorkshire, County Durham and Northumbria.

In the first raid on Teesside - at a flat in Essex Street, Middlesbrough - a woman in her late 20s was arrested after a quantity of crack cocaine was discovered in the property.

Cleveland Police said officers are conducting one of the most wide-ranging investigations of its kind in the country.

The raids were based on intelligence gathered from mobile phones seized during similar swoops aimed at taking out street-level dealers in September last year.

Det Insp Dave Lamplough, of Cleveland Police’s Organised Crime Unit, said the gang targeted operated by importing drugs into the UK from Jamaica through a string of mainly female couriers and shipments.