Operation Torus yields least street-dealerarrests in NW

Fewer people were arrested (21) in the North West during the first few weeks of a drive to tackle petty drug dealers than anywhere else in Northern Ireland, it’s been revealed.
Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris watches as Rosie, a PSNI cash and drugs search dog, finds drugs in a car, at the original launch of Operation Torus in 2012.Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris watches as Rosie, a PSNI cash and drugs search dog, finds drugs in a car, at the original launch of Operation Torus in 2012.
Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris watches as Rosie, a PSNI cash and drugs search dog, finds drugs in a car, at the original launch of Operation Torus in 2012.

Nine per cent of people searched by the PSNI in the first few weeks of ‘Operation Torus’ occurred in G District.

Yet only five per cent of arrests were made in Londonderry, Strabane, Magherafelt and Limavady - the lowest collar tally province-wide.

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The PSNI re-launched Torus - which encourages members of the public to report suspected street-dealing - on September 23, 2013.

By early October 2013, 103 people in G District had been searched by the PSNI - nine per cent of the 1,177 searched across Northern Ireland.

However, these G District searches resulted in the lowest number of arrests in any policing district across the province.

Just 21 out of 392 arrests across Northern Ireland occurred in the North West - that’s just five per cent of the Northern Ireland total arrest tally.

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The police released the details in response to a Freedom of Information request.

In an accompanying statement the force warned: “Operation Torus is an ongoing operation and the above statistics change during each day and are not the same as those quoted in [an earlier] PSNI statement on Operation Torus. The statistics above also exclude 19 searches and five arrests which were carried out by other PSNI Departments and not by the Districts.”