Criminal gangs are using WhatsApp and Telegram to recruit delivery drivers with adverts offering £100,000 a year, while addicts are bombarded with cut-price menus for cocaine, skunk and MDMA.
The adverts mark a brazen shift in Scotland’s drugs trade, according to an investigation. Messaging apps now openly advertise the high-earning driver roles, and users receive menus of illicit substances with promotions and codes sent directly to their phones, even after blocking the sender.
Professional criminal industry
The gangs are using the same tools as legitimate businesses, including messaging apps, promotions, customer databases and targeted advertising, to find workers and sell to customers. One message exposed in the investigation promises £200 plus fuel for an eight-hour shift, with the claim that drivers can earn £100,000 or more a year.
Drugs on offer include cocaine, high-powered skunk and MDMA. Recovering addicts now have nowhere to hide from the life they are trying to leave behind.
Technology removes friction
The technology has removed much of the friction between wanting drugs and getting them. It is no longer necessary to know a dealer personally, make a phone call, or even meet someone face to face. Drugs are delivered with the convenience of an online takeaway, either into a person’s hand or to an anonymous online shopping locker box.
Those recruited at the bottom of these operations are expendable and will often be addicts themselves. They face arrest, prison, violence and intimidation, while those higher up the chain can sit behind encrypted messages and anonymous accounts.
New front against organised crime
This is a dangerous new front in the battle against organised crime, not just in Scotland but around the world. Police must go after the organisers and the money, not simply the foot soldiers. Technology companies must also face pressure to do far more to disrupt criminal marketplaces operating through their platforms.
Allowing hard drugs to become as accessible as an Amazon delivery will only cause Scotland’s addiction crisis to deepen.
