Hucknall traffic stop leads Nottinghamshire Police to discover 'very large quantity' of Class A drugs

Officers from the force’s specialist knife crime team stopped the car on Baker Street shortly after 3.30pm on Thursday, June 18.

Inside the vehicle they found a substantial quantity of cocaine and amphetamines. A 22-year-old man was arrested at the scene and later released on bail.

A much larger quantity of drugs was found during a subsequent related search of a property on Canal Street, in Nottingham’s city centre.

Inspector Mark Dickson, responsible for neighbourhood policing in the Ashfield district, said: “We’d arranged for colleagues from knife crime team to support out local neighbourhood officers with some proactive stop and search activities – part of an ongoing commitment to disrupt people who are frequently involved in criminality.

“On this occasion the team pulled over a suspicious vehicle and got more than they bargained for, because this routine stop led to the discovery of a very large quantity of drugs.”

He added: “Drugs ruin lives and damage our communities. That’s why tackling their production and distribution remains one of our key policing priorities.

“Proactive, intelligence led police raids on domestic and commercial property remain a central part of our community policing, but, as this case demonstrates, there really are no safe spaces for people to store and distribute drugs.”

Sergeant Steven King, a member of the knife crime team said “Our team are committed to making the streets of Nottinghamshire safer for all. We deploy all over the county to support local policing.

“This incident was the result of excellent work by one of our patrols and has taken a large amount of drugs off the street.”

The bust is the latest in a series of successes for the force in tackling drug distribution.

Officers have seized of cannabis plants worth more than £4million over the last two months, as lockdown has meant more resources could be targeted at the problem and a spike in intelligence reports from people forced to spend more time at home.

For more information, see nottinghamshire.police.uk/cannabis.