RAPPERS caught dealing drugs in Swindon have clocked up thousands of hits on YouTube videos featuring lyrics referring directly to peddling the product.

The videos have been criticised by the Wiltshire police commissioner as “a blatant promotion for knife and drug crime." And South Swindon MP Robert Buckland has said social media platforms needed to be encouraged to take down unacceptable violent posts more quickly.

At least two online rappers were convicted last year at Swindon Crown Court for dealing drugs. A third man, wanted by Wiltshire Police, fled to Dubai last summer.

Londoner Connor McGovern, a 26-year-old who raps under the moniker Wishwoodz, was sentenced in July to almost five years in jail after he admitted supplying heroin and crack cocaine in Swindon.

In an unprecedented move for Wiltshire Police, detectives presented as evidence lyrics from one of the rapper’s songs. A YouTube video for song Trap Life Freestyle saw McGovern rap: “I got a Swindon line [drugs operation], I got a Bournemouth line, chillin’ up in my crib.” The Rowley Woodz gang member also boasted of having a “Rambo”- a slang term for a large knife - in the video that has clocked up more than 8,600 views.

In another song, Line Rings, McGovern flashes what appear to be trap phones, the cheap mobile phones used by dealers to communicate with their customers. Boasting of being able to send drug runners out 24/7, he raps to the camera: “I built a line up in country. I served them prostitutes, to shoplifters, to them junkies. I served them smackheads, to them beggars.”

In November, another London dealer Reuben Rose, 25, was sentenced to eight years for supplying drugs in Swindon and Essex. The dealer, who was said to have kept drugs worth £20,000 at an address he was using in London, has scored thousands of hits on his YouTube raps. He sings under the nickname King Krus.

One of the more popular, On My Mind, which has had 15,725 views on the social media network, sees him rap about selling drugs outside of London: “No whip [car], no driver? I’ll hop the train, nothing stops this pay.” In the video to Studio or Road, Rose is seen answering a cheap trap-line type burner phone as he drives a convertible BMW: “It’s either the studio or the trap house, but both of them feel like home”.

Last year, Wiltshire Police issued an arrest warrant for Alex Williams, a 26-year-old rapper better known by his moniker Young Tribez. He was suspected of conspiring to supply heroin and crack cocaine in Swindon.

But the young man remains on the run, fleeing to Dubai. In one of his most recent songs, No Complaints, Williams offers what appears to be a direct message to UK police: “No face, no case.”

Det Insp Paul Franklin, who leads Wiltshire’s drug squads, said rap videos glamorised the world of drug dealing for children. Youngsters from Swindon have been found peddling class As for so-called London county lines gangs. “Rather than just banning the videos, we should be a bit smarter,” he said. “Only education will get through to some of these kids that this isn’t the way to go.”

Angus Macpherson, Wiltshire’s police and crime commissioner, said: “Videos like these are classed as music entertainment for young people but they are also obviously a blatant promotion for knife and drug crime and some youngsters are influenced by the glamour portrayed in these songs.

“However, the videos are a symptom not the cause of the likes of county lines and serious violent crime. The reasons why young people in particular choose to follow this are complex and varied and trying to stop it also requires a whole host of work with a number of agencies - not just the police - to tackle this problem.”