Police today promised to step up the fight against hard drugs as an Evening Echo investigation revealed how London dealers were targeting Essex.

Det Insp Simon Dinsdale, of Basildon police, admitted: "We're being overrun with drug dealers from London."

However, he stressed that Essex Police were successfully working with other agencies to control the problem.

"The fight against drugs is relentless, non-stop," he said.

Former gangster Bernard O'Mahoney, a self-styled expert on the drugs trade, today warned that drug deals in Essex could become increasingly violent. His prediction follows the jailing of three young north London crack and heroin dealers who peddled drugs in Basildon.

O'Mahoney, former doorman at Basildon nightclub Raquels and author of So This Is Ecstasy and Essex Boys, said: "There's more cocaine and harder drugs coming into Essex than ever before."

"There is much more gun crime involved and where drugs lead, the violence follows."

His comments come just a few days after a high-speed chase across Essex and Hertfordshire which led to the recovery of what is believed to be around £3.5million of cocaine. Police recovered 64 kilos of a white substance suspected to be cocaine from the boot of a car after the chase which started near Stansted Airport.

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Published Tuesday August 13, 2002

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