London’s Metropolitan Police launched a blitz on crime gangs across the capital including the feared Turkish mafia to cut the murder rate to the lowest in a decade, a senior detective revealed.
There were 97 homicides in London in the year to January compared with 109 in 2024.
That represents an 11 per cent drop and a huge improvement on 2021 when a record 30 teenagers were among those the 133 killed.
There were only eight teenagers among the victims in 2025.
The drop to the lowest murder level per capita on record has been achieved through a number of tactics, including the increased use of facial recognition technology and more education on the horrors of knife crime for school children.
But at the heart of the police’s strategy has been the disarming and dismantling of organised crime groups, including county lines drug operatives whose business model depends on violence on the capital’s streets.
Detective Chief Superintendent Rick Sewart said gangs, such as the Turkish heroin trafficking group Bombacilar (the bombers) and rivals the Tottenham Boys, were among the most significant targets for the Met in the capital.
He told Metro: ‘The Turkish gangs are the number one threat to the UK and London in terms of firearms. We have been working with Europol and the National Crime Agency on the supply of firearms into Europe and the UK.
‘We have a clear focus on organised crime groups who are bringing firearms and supplying those street gangs one operation alone which started in 2024 has helped us recover 138 firearms and 2,500 rounds of ammunition from a particular organised crime group who has been importing guns into that’s a Turkish organised crime group.’
In 2012 head of a Turkish crime family Ali Armagan, 32, was shot dead in his custom Audi limousine outside Turnpike Lane station by rivals.
Sewart said: ‘There are feuds which have taken place between significant crime groups and we have seen that particularly in relation to Turkish organised crime across north and east London between groups like the Bombacilar and Tottenham Boys who supply heroin. But we have made significant inroads into them.’
Sewart said that county lines operations, which were not necessarily connected with larger organised crime groups like the Turkish gangs, were exploiting young teenagers.
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He said they were sending them onto the streets to sell drugs and were often coming into confrontation with rivals from other gangs and sometimes being injured or even killed.
On Friday, Metro joined a dawn raid at the home of a County Lines suspect.
The raid was aimed at closing a line known as the ‘Adam line’.
More than 20 officers surrounded his north London home in the raid, which is part of Operation Yamata, and broke down his door using a tool known as an ‘enforcer’.
The man, 35, has been charged with supply of heroin and crack cocaine.
Sewart, speaking on county lines, said: ‘The tactics have included intercepting county lines operations. We have closed a significant number of drugs lines across the capital.
‘We have been able to pinpoint those who are dealing drugs across the capital and who the groups are.
‘That activity has enabled to increase the number of weapons we have recovered in the last year by 75 per cent. More stop and search has also helped that.’
On whether the murder rate fall could be a trend, he added: ‘I’m confident we are in a position we are able to say the trend is done. We cannot say there will be no murders – that’s not realistic – but what we can do is ensure we continue to be relentless and focus on organised crime groups.
‘There are other motives for murder, like domestic and familial.’
On the Met’s pledge to crackdown on Violence Against Women and Girls, he added: ‘We find often women are exploited, asked to hold weapons or firearms. They are often also the victims of domestic violence so it’s incredibly important we continue to tackle this.’
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