POLICE on Teesside have seized drugs worth £2.5m since January last year, new figures reveal.

Cleveland Police merged four drug squads into one in 2013 and now the Community Drugs Enforcement Team (CDET) is urging the public to inform on drug-taking neighbours.

As part of a drive to bring a new confidential drugs telephone line to public attention, CDET has issued statistics to highlight successes in taking drugs off the streets.

A Cleveland Police spokeswoman said that £65,000 in cash has been seized from drug dealers since January, 2015; 130 people have been arrested in the last 12 months and 25kg of cannabis, 500g of cocaine and 16kg of amphetamine has been seized since January this year. CDET officers have also taken 1,844 cannabis plants amounting to 12kg of cannabis with a street value of £85,000.

Last month, £1.5m-worth of cannabis plants, crack cocaine, heroin and amphetamine went up in smoke in a furnace after being seized from criminals across Cleveland. Earlier this year, officers discovered a cannabis farm worth £150,000 at a property in Clarendon Road, Middlesbrough, and another worth around the same amount at a property on Falmouth Street.

Now the team is urging members of the public to call the new drugs line if they spot suspicious activity which may include: a steady flow of visitors to a house, brief encounters at the park, bus stops, telephone boxes or in the street, a strong smell from a house and windows left open constantly, or the sound of fans or hydroponics coming from the property, or windows being blacked out with bin bags.

Acting Inspector Jim Devine from the Community Drugs Enforcement Team said: “The effect of drugs in a community can be devastating.

“Areas affected by drugs may suffer from antisocial behaviour, criminal damage and drugs paraphernalia being left lying around. It can have a negative effect on house prices in the area and leave those who have lived in that area all of their lives, living in fear. All information given to us will be handled with complete discretion.

“Drugs operations are intelligence-led, so we need information from the public. The dealers may think that the community around them are too scared to call the police and offer this information, but together we can stamp out drugs in your area and make it a safer and more pleasant place to live.”

Anyone with information regarding drugs activity in their area should call the non-emergency number 101 or the new confidential hotline on 0800 0929 702.