Operation Puglia: 70 arrested in dawn raids as part of drug dealing crackdown

Almost 70 suspects have been arrested in a string of dawn raids in one of the biggest police crackdowns on violent drug dealers in a decade.

A total of 2,775 officers from the City of London police and the Met have been working on Operation Puglia, targeting heroin and crack cocaine dealers across west London.

The operation, which has been six-months in the planning, resulted in 250 officers today swooping on different gangs in Kensington, Westminster and Chelsea, arresting everyone from low-ranking teenagers to some of the most violent suspect offenders.

So far, 67 people have been detained and 46 charged with a total of 210 drug-related offences, 17 of whom are teenagers.

In one dramatic scene, a teenager jumped from a third-storey window to as police burst through the front door of his mother’s home in Chelsea.

Detective Superintendent Raffaele D’Orsi, who led the operation, said: “These people know we are looking for them it may take us a while to get the evidence but they know when we do come they will get significant sentences.

“Operation Puglia is all about violent individuals who come to this area to deal drugs. It will have a huge impact on the criminal fraternity.”