POLICE have arrested four people in their ongoing battle against county lines drug dealing.

'County lines' is the term given to a form of organised crime in which drug dealers from urban areas exploit vulnerable people - including children - and force them to deal drugs in smaller towns and cities.

Officers in North Yorkshire responded to reports of drug-related activity at two Scarborough properties on Sunday and subsequently arrested three men believed to be linked to a key county lines drug operation.

An 18-year-old man from Sandwell in the West Midlands was arrested at a residential address in Alma Square.

Officers then attended a house on Victoria Road where they arrested a 19-year-old man from the Erdington area of Birmingham on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of class A drugs.

Two Scarborough men aged 48 and 36-years-old were also arrested.