We've got nothing else, so why not?' says Joe. Their father pays them from his £3,000-£4,000 weekly proceeds.įor Joe and Daniel, brought up in a bleak, deprived part of a major British city, with little formal education and few career prospects, running drugs is now their life. It has been a lucrative decision for both boys: they are each paid £150 a week for selling and distributing 200 bags of heroin and 200 rocks of crack between them. The brothers are now entrenched in the £6.5 billion-a-year UK illicit drugs trade, carrying out dozens of daily drop-offs to addicts. With a grim inevitability his father also recruited Joe's younger brother Daniel once he turned 15.

He has been acting as a 'runner' for two years, carrying small bags of heroin or rocks of crack from his father to 30-40 buyers every day and returning with pocketfuls of £10 and £20 notes.