LONDON, May 23 (Xinhua) -- Ruthless organized crime gangs are driving the surge in street violence in London, one of the Britain's top law enforcement officials warned Wednesday.
Crime groups such as the Albanian mafia are importing Class A drugs into London and fuelling turf wars on the streets, said John Coles, head of special operations at the National Crime Agency (NCA), Britain's equivalent of the FBI, which targets organized crime.
He said a special task force of NCA officials and Met detectives had seized 450 kg of Class A drugs from gangs in the past six months. The 80-strong unit had also seized 90 firearms destined for London in the past year.
"These are gangs whose drug activities are in part fuelling the surge in violent crime in London," he said.
Last Friday the unit called the Organized Crime Partnership charged a Spanish woman following the seizure of 250 kg of cocaine worth 22 million pounds (some 29.36 million U.S. dollars) at the London Gateway Port, local media reported.
The cocaine was hidden inside an industrial fruit processing machine being imported from South America.
Police followed the delivery to take place at an industrial estate in Wood Green before making arrests.
In another case last Friday, a handgun was found in the locker of a health club in west London.
