THE threat of vicious Jamaican Yardies targeting Gwent became a reality yesterday. As the Argus revealed, over 250 officers from four police forces including Gwent raided 15 addresses in the city, arresting 25 people involved in drugs trafficking.

Among those arrested were people suspected of working as part of organised gangs of Jamaican drug dealers - known as Yardies.

Fifteen of those arrested were today still being held in custody and ten were released on police bail pending further inquiries.

In May the Argus revealed police were warning Yardie gangs were heading into Gwent from Bristol and London.

And yesterday warnings the gangs had infiltrated Gwent were proved true. But Superintendent Nigel Russell said officers hit the gangs "early and hard". He told the Argus: "Gwent is not a soft touch and we would want to make to sure that Gwent and Newport in particular are seen as the hardest place to deal drugs.

"We will commit whatever resources we need to deal with that problem. "We hit them hard and early, if we had waited another six months to a year they would have been more deeply entrenched."

The drug ring setting up in Newport resulted in an increase in street robberies, police say. Chief Superintendent Kevin Price (pictured) said an increase in house burglaries in the city were probably due to drug addicts trying to fund their habits.

He added: "There has been an increase in the number of overdoses of heroin and these signs paint a very bleak picture."

The operation formed part of Operation Tarian - an unprecedented co-operation between the Gwent, South Wales and Dyfed Powys forces to target suppliers of class A drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Officers in yesterday's raids recovered £30,000 of crack cocaine and £10,000 of heroin from just one of the addresses.

Firearms and other offensive weapons and large amounts of cash were also recovered from some of the addresses.

A lot of the intelligence which led police to set up operation Corolla came from members of the public. Superintendent Russell added: "We ask the public to remain vigilant and feed information to us.

"We will act on it; however we may not be in a position to act as quickly as they feel we should."

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