An Albanian drug lord has revealed the reason he believes British police will never defeat the gangs smuggling cocaine into the UK.
The gangster, who spoke to MailOnline on the condition of anonymity, said a key practice carried out by Albanian mobsters was stopping the police from completely halting their criminal activities in the UK.
Since 1995, Albanians have been important players in the cocaine trade in Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain having well-established networks of supply.
To enter the UK market in late 2000, they used as a motto ‘sell cheap and sell more’.
One Albanian in London, who served 17 years in prison as a part of a large organised crime group in the cocaine trade, explained that an arrest didn’t necessarily mean the end of the road for that cocaine smuggling cell.
Since 2005, the National Crime Agency, which superseded the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and the Specialized Crime Directorate at Scotland Yard have arrested and successfully convicted hundreds of Albanians in the cocaine trade.
At the end of last year there were almost 1,100 Albanians in jail including feared Balkan mafia kingpins pumping cocaine onto Britain’s streets.
As well as controlling the drug trade, Albanian gangsters terrorising the UK have also been convicted of murder, sex offences, money laundering and people smuggling.
Albanian gang member posts a picture of two members wearing red balaclavas emblazoned with the Albanian flag, while one brandishes a machine gun
This golden duck was used in an attempt to smuggle cocaine into the UK from Cali in Colombia
However, it was seized at Stansted Airport, where security staff found it had a sticky pink substance within it that tested positive for cocaine
But as soon as an Albanian organised crime group is smashed, a new one seemingly replaces them.
The gangster told MailOnline this was owing to a practice called ‘selling the work’.
He said when a gang member was arrested, if the police fail to obtain his phone, his associates would sell his phone – and the contacts on it – for up to £100,000.
The NCA has for years warned about the ‘significant threat’ posed by Albanian gangs, infamous for their professionalism and discipline as well as savage tactics to keep competition at bay.
Ruthless Albanian gangs have come to dominate the British drug trade, negotiating directly with Colombian cartels and undercutting criminal rivals to flood Britain’s streets with cheap cocaine.
The flow of money back to Albania is a growing concern to the NCA. Its fears have increased so much that last year the agency signed a deal with Albania anti-organised crime bureau SPAK that will see the unit hunt for the assets of Albanians convicted in the UK.
In 2010, just 1.5 per cent of foreign nationals jailed in England and Wales were Albanian.
But by the end of 2024 Albanians made up 10.6 per cent – more than any other nationality.
Images posted on the Instagram page of gangs include a cake made from £50 notes
Albanian gang members are not afraid to show off their ill-gotten gains, often posing with wads of cash
Pictured: Guns found in a courier van driven stopped in Albania that were UK bound
The swelling numbers of Albanians are in part due to large numbers crossing the channel, with a total of 12,685 coming to Britain on small boats in 2022.
The rate has, however, fallen since ministers signed a prisoner transfer agreement with Albania’s government in 2022.
Under Rishi Sunak, 200 were deported in exchange for £8million to modernise their prison system.
Labour has vowed to deport foreign criminals faster, saying it ‘cannot be right’ for taxpayers to foot the bill.
It is thought to cost around £40,000 a year to house each prisoner, suggesting that the UK spends £44million on locking up Albanian criminals.
Even so, the Albanian drug lord boasted about how he and his fellow gangsters came to dominate the cocaine market.
He said: ‘We had the highest purity of cocaine per one gram sold on the street. That made existing users to get the drug from us and abandon the existing sellers’, he said.
‘That made my organization where I was to become the main suppliers of cocaine for Portsmouth and Bournemouth before being peddled on the streets.
‘In 2009/10 we dropped the price for a kilo of cocaine from £35,000 to £30,000.
‘That was a game changer for the market at that time’.
NCA last year said the Albanian-linked drugs trade was active across the country in cities, towns and even rural areas.
The agency said Albanian gangs are smuggling ‘hundreds of millions’ in sterling out of the UK each year.
‘Their main objective when they make money is to get it out of the country as soon as possible,’ Steve Brocklesby, Intelligence Manager from NCA said.
‘They will smuggle it out of the UK into Albania in whatever form it comes’.
‘The estimates are that hundreds of millions of pounds UK sterling are leaving the UK and ending up in Albania where it then gets semi-legitimised either into the banking system or to pay for construction work.
‘We also know that Albanians will move UK cash into bureau de change the UK and Europe, change for euros and drive that down to Albania.
‘We can expect to see an increase in use of crypto and other less regulated investments in the UK, as well as direct investments into the UK in the coming years.’
The NCA has been contacted for comment.
