Public awareness campaign highlights the issue of illegal paramilitary money lenders

A public awareness campaign is to highlight how people are being exploited by paramilitary and criminal gangs through illegal money lending and facing drug-related intimidation.

The next phase of the Ending The Harm campaign will include a TV advertisement, a social media campaign and posters showing a single mother facing coercion from a paramilitary group who intimidate her to store drugs and money against her will.

The campaign has been launched amid a warning that increasing numbers of people are coming forward to debt advisers after turning to illegal money lenders to make ends meet.

Adele Brown, director of the NI Executive programme, said: "The first part of the Ending The Harm campaign demonstrated how lenders are to blame, not the people taking the loan.

"Criminal lenders are only interested in controlling vulnerable people for their own gain.

"This next stage of the advertising campaign expands on this and is a realistic example of how quickly these lenders move to extreme intimidation, threats and violence.

"Criminal and paramilitary groups often portray themselves as defenders of communities.

"In reality they target vulnerable people and families.

"They prey on people struggling with the cost of living; people with addictions; people with mental health issues; and people who are just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

She added: "We hear regularly about the impact of drug-related intimidation.

"We hear of criminals using the fear of, and connections to, paramilitary groups to intimidate, control and coerce.

"Very often, people are being forced to store, move or deal drugs.

"It is important we expose these hidden harms and stop the shame and secrecy that keeps people under the control of these criminals.

"People have lived with paramilitary and criminal control, violence, threats and intimidation for far too long."

Detective Superintendent Emma Neill from the PSNI Organised Crime Branch, which is responsible for the Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF), said: "This welcome campaign highlights the cruel reality of illegal money lending.

"Those who supposedly help vulnerable people by offering loans leave nothing but a trail of destruction.

"It's not just the victims who subsequently suffer - families and loved ones are inevitably left to pick up the pieces.

"We, along with our partners, are committed to tackling such criminality, whether it is drug dealing or illegal money lending.

"We will continue to investigate, and bring before the courts, those groups or individuals who make their living from exploiting and intimidating others."

Advice NI chief executive Bob Stronge said people were turning to debt advisers in increasing numbers.

"In the last quarter we have seen a spike in the number of people contacting advice centres and our regional helpline, some of whom are turning to illegal and high-cost money lenders to make ends meet."

Advice NI offers help and support to those in any type of debt. Contact the confidential advice helpline on 0800 915 4604.