"Drug gangs have moved off Britain’s streets and into vulnerable people’s homes. Addicts like my friend are easy targets, but the reality can be more complicated than it seems."
Duncan is a longtime friend of Max Daly, and a drug addict caught up in “cuckooing,” where dealers take over people’s homes as drug bases in exchange for product. Daly offers a sympathetic portrait of Duncan’s spiralling life, while opening a window onto a bizarre world where the most vulnerable exploit each other—and sometimes even form bonds.
Over the 2000s and 2010s, wave after wave of gangs fanned out from Britain’s drug supply hubs – London, Liverpool and Birmingham – to set up shop in smaller towns and cities across the country. They took over the homes of drug users and young women who had been groomed by older male gang members. As early as 2008 Suffolk constabulary reported that more than a third of Class A drug dealers arrested in Suffolk were under 21, and the majority were from London. (Before this period, most crack and heroin dealers in towns and smaller cities were “user-dealers”, addicted heroin users in their 30s or older, who were not as “professionalised” as the big city drug gangs.) Gangs often used sex workers, who targeted male tenants and moved in, bringing the young dealers with them. Community safety teams, who rescued 80 tenants in London in 2005, were the first to call the tactic “cuckooing”.
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| # | Наименование новости | Тональность | Информативность | Дата публикации |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sitdown Sunday: Gangs are 'cuckooing' vulnerable people's homes | 0 | 10 | 27-09-2026 |
| 2 | A Graveyard Shift with Britain’s Gen Z Undertakers | 0 | 8.62 | 28-09-2026 |
| 3 | My Two Front Teeth | 0 | 10 | 23-09-2026 |
| 4 | Then They Came for the Ostriches | 0 | 8.62 | 17-09-2026 |
| 5 | Advarer mot uvanlig farlig heroin: Én død og flere overdoser | 0 | 10 | 25-09-2026 |
| 6 | From crime reporter to clown: Why clowning is having a moment | 0 | 6.14 | 07-09-2026 |
| 7 | The Brits who shame us around the world: Global tourist hotspots where law-breaking UK nationals end up in jail - and the criminal activities they get up to from drug smuggling to nightclub brawls | 0 | 6.65 | 03-10-2025 |
| 8 | Murder-in-Law | 0 | 21.11 | 18-09-2026 |
| 9 | Sun, sea and smugglers: The scourge of narco gangs delivering drug shipments on Spain's tourist beaches in full view of holidaying families | 0 | 7.04 | 09-10-2025 |
| 10 | The Incredible Journey of a Migratory Shorebird | 0 | 9.74 | 22-09-2026 |