An Albanian small boat migrant began dealing crack cocaine after fleeing his luxury asylum hotel.
Elvis Zoto, 22, gloated on social media about entering the UK illegally and even posted a photo of his Home Office registration form showing his arrival in Dover in 2022.
Approached shortly afterwards by a Mail on Sunday reporter posing as migrant still in France, he said the journey to the UK had been easy, and revealed he had already fled his asylum hotel by climbing out of a window.
Shocking new details about his case have now emerged in a High Court judgment that finally gave the green light to his deportation – a whole three years after he first arrived in Britain.
Campaigners said his case is the latest evidence of the ‘desperate’ need to reform the immigration system.
Zoto flew from Albania to Belgium before travelling by train to France. He then paid a people smuggler to get him on a small boat to Britain, where he was detained by Border Force at Dover on June 29, 2022.
More than 12,600 Albanians came to Britain on small boats in 2022 before a returns agreement slashed this number. At the time, the National Crime Agency (NCA) warned that Albanian drug gangs were using the route to bring workers into the UK.
In common with most Albanian small boat arrivals at the time, Zoto claimed asylum and was put up in a hotel, the four-star Crowne Plaza in Basingstoke.
Elvis Zoto, 22, shared clips on TikTok showing him posing with huge bundles of £20 notes
Zoto even posted a photo of his Home Office registration form showing his arrival in Dover in 2022
At his initial interview, Zoto claimed he had left Albania after being forced to deal drugs. He later claimed to be a victim of human trafficking.
However, the Albanian only stayed at the Crowne Plaza for two days before fleeing on July 2 as part of a pre-planned escape.
Asylum seekers are required to maintain contact with the Home Office as part of their release and to inform the authorities of any new address.
The Home Office drafted a letter to Zoto stating that his decision to leave the hotel meant his asylum claim was considered ‘implicitly withdrawn’, but this was not sent because they did not know where he lived.
Court documents state there is ‘no evidence’ officials tried to contact him by any other method – despite having his Albanian phone number.
It appears Zoto quickly linked up with a drug gang, and on November 1, 2023, he was arrested by Essex Police after a stop and search.
The following April, he was convicted of dealing crack cocaine and sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.
Criminals who receive a custodial sentence of over a year automatically face deportation, but Zoto won the right to challenge the decision on the basis he still had a pending asylum claim and a hearing took place in July 2025.
The Crowne Plaza Basingstoke, where Zoto was staying. Migrants are no longer staying there
Inside one of the bedrooms at the Crowne Plaza, which boasted a state-of-the-art gym that is open to guests 24 hours per day, seven days a week
But his appeal was dismissed in a judgment issued on Wednesday by High Court judge Claire Padley, who backed the Home Office’s claim that Zoto had forfeited his right to claim asylum by escaping his hotel.
Zoto had a conditional release date of December 2024.
The Mail has asked the Home Office where he is now and when he will be deported but has not received a response.
Alp Mehmet, Chairman of Migration Watch UK, told the Daily Mail: ‘Three years on from making his way here illegally in a small boat, Zoto is finally to be deported.
‘He should have been refused entry and removed within hours of reaching the UK. A system that allows such a chancer to string it out for three years, at huge cost to the taxpayer, is clearly in desperate need of reform.’
A video posted on Zoto’s TikTok social media account shortly after he fled his asylum hotel showed him sitting outside a cafe on a busy London street.
The video was accompanied by laughing emojis. Separate images showed him posing with huge wads of £20 and £50 banknotes.
Asked by the undercover Mail on Sunday reporter posing as a migrant about the dangers of the cross-Channel crossing, Zoto said: ‘Do not be scared of it. I arrived on a boat. A journey that doesn’t need a lot of money and the best for you.’
More than 12,600 Albanians came to Britain on small boats in 2022 before a returns agreement slashed this number
An Albanian man sharing a selfie showing him with other migrants on a packed boat in 2022
A group of Albanian migrants unveiling their country’s flag on a small boat heading to England
In a later message, he added: ‘They keep you in detention a maximum of two days, then send you to a hotel. In the detention centre it’s good conditions.
‘You tell them you are married and that’s the end of the story. You have to get away from the hotel and just wait for your relatives to get you in a car.
‘I left from the window of that hotel… I disappeared… Keep a low profile and after a month get a solicitor.’
Small boat migrants have regularly documented their crossings on social media.
One, Parwiz Hanifyar, gained nearly one million views for this a ‘step by step’ guide on entering Britain illegally.
The Afghan, who left Calais at around 4am last Saturday, shared videos of himself on the small boat before live streaming from an asylum hotel.
It later emerged he had been reported to police for allegedly sharing another clip telling men how to kill their estranged wives.
Afghan small boat migrant Parwiz Hanifyar gained nearly one million views for this a ‘step by step’ guide on entering Britain illegally
Mr Hanifyar broadcasting from his free accommodation near Heathrow Airport
In a video filmed in Germany last month, Hanifyar is claimed to have said: ‘A brave man does not allow his wife to marry another man, even have children and live with someone else.’
He is now staying in a taxpayer-funded hotel near Heathrow.
More than 27,000 small boat migrants have arrived so far in 2025 – a record for this point in the year since data began in 2018.
On Wednesday, a record 107 small boat migrants have reached Britain in just one dinghy, confounding Labour’s pledge to ‘smash the gangs’.
The use of bigger migrant boats will be of deep concern to British officials, who have ploughed significant resources into attempts to disrupt traffickers’ supplies.
