'I was a prisoner in my home': Drug gangs 'cuckooing' hundreds of homes a week, police warn

'I was a prisoner in my home': Drug gangs 'cuckooing' hundreds of homes a week, police warnJust nowShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleSima Kotecha,Senior UK correspondent,Jade ThompsonandKatie InmanBBCA drug dealer took over Jackie's home. Now she helps other victims of so-called cuckooingHundreds, if not thousands, of people's homes are being taken over by criminals every week in the UK, usually to store and deal drugs, police chiefs have told the BBC.Perpetrators of so-called cuckooing often target vulnerable people, including the elderly or disabled, by forcing themselves into homes to carry out illegal acts.In some cases drug users are exploited by gangs who move in and refuse to leave.Cuckooing is not yet a specific criminal offence so there is limited data on how widespread it is.However, figures shared exclusively with the BBC show 1,539 incidents of cuckooing were reported to police in London between May 2025 and April 2026. Of those, 1,275 of the victims were male.The National Police Chiefs' Council (NPCC) said "horrific things" have happened to victims, who were often trapped in their own homes."We've had cases where they've been forced to eat dog excrement or perform sexual acts, and those will be recorded and then used as a form of blackmail for the perpetrator to say 'if you don't do as I say, then ultimately we'll share this with friends and we'll put this on social media'," the NPCC's Kirsten Dent, told the BBC."It's hidden and in people's homes, it's not always easy to detect." Cuckooing - named after cuckoos, who frequently take over other birds' nests to lay their own eggs - is expected to become a specific criminal offence by the end of the year, carrying a maximum five-year prison sentence.It forms part of the Crime and Policing Act 2026, but the government is yet to issue statutory guidance to police forces before the law...