Two London drug dealers have been jailed following their arrest in Boscombe.

Amaan Khan-Brown, 20, of Brixton Hill, and Lee Wedderman, 21, from Barking, appeared at Bournemouth Crown Court on Friday 21 October where they were sentenced for two charges of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

Khan-Brown was sentenced to three years and two months in prison and Wedderman received a jail term of two years and two months. Both also have to pay a £190 victim surcharge.

The pair were arrested following an operation involving officers from the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Neighbourhood Enforcement Team (NET), working with specialist officers from the Metropolitan Police and support from the Boscombe Neighbourhood Policing Team.

Dorset Police’s Operation Viper has seen dedicated teams of officers working with national and regional partners to disrupt the activities of county lines drugs gangs and take proactive action to identify offenders, secure evidence and safeguard vulnerable people who are subjected to exploitation.

Information obtained by officers indicated the two defendants were running a county line supplying class A drugs in the Bournemouth area and were exploiting children as young as 13 to act as drugs runners.

On Monday 16 May 2022 officers attended an address in Boscombe, where Khan-Brown and Wedderman were located and a quantity of suspected class A drugs as well as around £1,000 in cash were recovered.

The drugs were confirmed as cocaine and heroin, with a total street value estimated at more than £1,200.

Police also seized two mobile phones from the address, which were found to contain evidence that they were being used for the supply of class A drugs.

Inspector Nick Lee, of the BCP NET, said: “Through our investigation, which was supported by the Metropolitan Police, we were able to identify two drug dealers who played a significant role in a county lines operation in the Bournemouth area and take action against them.

“This has also ensured that we have been able to safeguard a number of vulnerable young people who were being exploited by these defendants to peddle drugs on their behalf.

“This case sends another strong message that we will not tolerate people coming into our area to operate drug supply networks in our communities and that we will take robust action against those involved.”

Police and crime commissioner for Dorset, David Sidwick said: “Week after week we are seeing the positive results of Operation Viper here in Dorset. The work of Dorset Police’s Neighbourhood Enforcement Teams in disrupting the activities of county lines drugs gangs, identifying offenders, gathering evidence, getting good cases to court and has directly resulted in more and more drug dealers being sentenced to years and years in prison.

“My thanks go to the whole team behind Op Viper and I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the residents and communities of Dorset, who give vital information and community intelligence to the police, in order to help stop county lines and drug criminality – such valuable information is vital if we are to make Dorset the safest country.”

Dorset Police continues to encourage anyone with information regarding the supply of drugs in the county to report it at www.dorset.police.uk/contact or by calling 101. If a crime is in progress, please dial 999. Alternatively, independent charity Crimestoppers can be contacted anonymously online at Crimestoppers-uk.org or by calling Freephone 0800 555 111.