‘Cuckooing’ is when people take over someone’s home and use it to support some kind of criminal activity.  It takes the name from the cuckoo, which lays its eggs in other birds’ nests. (You might need the Recite button to help you with some complicated formal language in this section.)

These are a few different types of cuckooing:

• Using the property to deal, store or take drugs
• Using the property to store money or weapons
• Using the property for sexual exploitation
• Taking over the property as a place for them to live
• Taking over the property to financially abuse the tenant.

The most common form of cuckooing is when drug dealers take over a person’s home and use it to store or distribute drugs.

The vulnerable person – whose home has been taken over – is often coerced into allowing their property to be used in this way with the offer of free drugs or other benefit. Frequently, the benefits of the arrangement diminish. The ‘cuckooed’ person may then be forced to deal drugs to pay off the ‘free’ drugs or other benefit, in a practice known as ‘debt bondage’.

The person being cuckooed is often reluctant to raise concerns for fear of repercussions, violence from the offender, or being arrested.

If you are being cuckooed, or know someone that is, ask the police for help. The police have designated Operation Trespass to recognise, disrupt and protect people who have been cuckooed. 

The following individuals are sometimes targeted for cuckooing: 

• Those who suffer from drug and/or alcohol addiction
• Those who are struggling financially
• The elderly
• Those who have prior experience of neglect, physical and/or sexual abuse
• Those who suffer with mental ill health
• Individuals with learning or physical disabilities
• People who have a history of being in care
• Young females, often with a child, might be struggling to cope emotionally or financially
• People who suffer from social isolation or social difficulties
• Those who lack a safe/stable home environment, now or in the past (domestic abuse or parental substance misuse, mental health issues or criminality, for example)
• People who have insecure accommodation status
• Anyone with connections with other people involved in gangs or county lines
• Anyone who is vulnerable to grooming and has access to a property.

To follow are signs that a property may have been cuckooed: 

• An increase in the number of visitors to the property through the day and night, often visiting for only short periods of time
• An increased number of vehicles outside the property including taxis or hire cars
• The usual occupier of the property having new associates staying, and bags of clothing and/or extra bedding in the property
• The person/people whose home has been taken over moving out or staying away from the property while an unknown person remains
• Evidence of drug use such as discarded syringes, foil and cling film in and around the property, as well as evidence of drug dealing such as scales and deal bag
• Evidence of others staying at the address, e.g. a build-up of takeaway food boxes outside of the premise
• An increase in local crime and anti-social behaviour, including the accumulation and storage of stolen property
• Victims of cuckooing may disengage with support services and be unwilling to discuss what is happening at their property when the subject is raised with them
• Individuals with large amounts of cash or multiple mobile phones.

Modern day slavery and human trafficking

This is when someone is tricked, coerced or threatened into taking work or getting involved in criminal activity.

Victims of modern slavery and human trafficking can be any age, sex, nationality or ethnicity. Often, victims are vulnerable people. 

They’re not able to leave the work or criminal activity, or report it to the police, because they’re afraid of what might happen to them if they do.

It is possible that someone may not realise that it's happening to them. Modern slavery and human trafficking includes s a wide range of abuses, such as slavery, being in service to someone, forced or compulsory labour and trafficking someone for the purpose of exploiting them.

Usually someone is benefiting financially from the situation, but not always.

To follow are some formal definitions to help you to work out if you or anyone you know is the victim of slavery or trafficking. You might need help with the Recite translation button to understand these in your first language as the language is very complicated.

• Slavery is the status or condition of a victim over whom rights of ownership are exercised by their exploiter.
• Servitude is linked to slavery, but includes an obligation for a person to work for the exploiter, to live on the exploiter’s property and for it to be impossible for them to change their circumstances.
• Forced or compulsory labour is all work or service (lawful or unlawful) that a victim is forced or compelled to do, and that they haven’t volunteered to do.
• Human trafficking is the arrangement or facilitation of a victim’s travel, with the intention of exploiting them.

Below is a list of the types of modern slavery and trafficking you might come across.

• Labour exploitation: this is when someone is forced to work for someone, including someone who is involved in crime.
• Domestic servitude: this is when someone is exploited by a partner, relatives or someone not related to them, and with whom they live.
• Sexual exploitation: this includes child sexual exploitation by a group or an individual, sex work in a fixed or changing location, and trafficking for personal or third-party gratification.
• Criminal exploitation: this is forced gang-related activity, forced labour in illegal activities, forced acquisitive crime/begging, financial exploitation and sham marriages. If a child is involved, it is not necessary for the use of force to be evident for it to be criminal exploitation.

Modern slavery: a crime hidden in plain sight

An estimated 136,000 people are living as modern day slaves in the UK right now, so it’s highly likely you’ve seen or met someone being exploited. Men make up more than 100,000 of them.