30 organised crime gangs operating in Sheffield, reveals South Yorkshire Police

Chief Superintendent Jamie Henderson’s appointment in the role of District Commander for Sheffield was announced last month (June 2024), and saw him take over from Assistant Chief Constable Lindsey Butterfield following her promotion to the senior command team.

He stepped into the role having previously led the force's response to tackling gangs and the criminal use of firearms during his time as Head of Serious and Organised Crime.

Chf Supt Henderson intends to use his expertise on tackling organised crime groups - or gangs - and the criminal use of firearms in his new role, and says disrupting and dismantling such groups is one of his priorities.

Commenting the number of such groups operating in Sheffield, he told The Star: “There’s around 30 mapped OCGs in Sheffield at this minute in time, but the threats are very wide and varied. That might be firearms, some of that might be drugs. And of course drugs are probably crack cocaine, heroin and cannabis.

“And then some of these groups might be involved in fraud, it’s grown into one of the most prevalent crimes in the country, I think 40 odd per cent of crime that's actually reported is fraud now.”

He explained how the force has a four-pronged approach to tackling OCGs.

“We do this under a ‘4P’ approach. “So it would be pursue, which is predominantly our warrants, our arrests, our recovery of drugs.

“There's also prevent, that’s working obviously to try and prevent people becoming involved in organised crime or getting really involved when they're come out of prison for instance.

“Protecting our communities...making communities stronger and to be able to resist the threat of organised crime. 

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“And preparing them for the threat so it's a ‘4P’ approach,” Chf Supt Henderson said.

He added: “Recently, there's been some amazing results, recovery of guns seizure of quite a large amount of controlled drugs

“Individuals from some of these groups being incarcerated for tens of years at a time.

“But it's a moving feast because there are wider socio-economic issues around drug use. Unfortunately, some people don't don't want to seek help however, as much help as is out there and continue to use Class A drugs. 

“Socially we see that cocaine use is quite acceptable within recreational circles now. There is that culture around people going out on Friday and Saturday night and doing the line so that is there. Those more recreational users of drugs, so that's right there. 

“And when we take one dealer out, there’s always someone that comes in and that’s  one of my real challenges around that exploitation and vulnerable people particularly around county lines, cuckooing where people just exploit vulnerable people to try and continue this level of criminality. 

“So, that's why it's important that we do look at the various different tiers of OCGs, we look the individuals that are lower down because they're given that opportunity of using intelligence to identify those people that higher the level the ones that might be importing drugs into the country or funding it.

“And then we can try and target those and then again work with that colleague in the regional organised crime units or whether it be the National Crime Agency so then identify those ones even higher up the chain that might be international that are sending the drugs in the country or bringing the firearms into the country.

“So it's a very different tiered approach and it's always evolving in terms of us those identifying the threats, being able to respond to it and then making sure that when we’ve tackled an OCG that there isn't that vacuum that sometimes is created.

“Taking them out and doing what we can to try and build sort of like the communities’ strength to be able to bring about infiltration of OCGs in certain communities.”