Albanian drug dealers now a major threat, warn police
GANGS of Albanian drug dealers are now ‘a significant threat’ on Britain’s streets, police chiefs warned yesterday.
They said organised crime groups from the tiny Balkan country now have ‘ high-level influence’ on supplying cocaine around the country.
In one case, a gang of 20 Albanian gangsters using fake Greek and Italian passports ran a round-the-clock dial-a- drug racket in Manchester, targeting the city’s nightclubs while living in lavishly decorated flats.
The warning came from the National Crime Agency, who yesterday published its annual report into the scale of serious and organised crime facing the UK.
Deaths from drug misuse are at record levels, with deaths from cocaine and crack cocaine across England and Wales rising from 247 in 2014 to 320 in 2015.
The NCA report reveals that criminals from the Balkans are increasingly forging direct links with cocaine traffickers from South America.
The threat faced from Albanian crime groups is significant,’ it warns. ‘London is their primary hub, but they are established across the UK.
‘Albanian crime groups have established a high-profile influence within UK organised crime, and have considerable control across the UK drug trafficking market, with particular impact and high-level influence on the cocaine market.’
There were 512 Albanian inmates in jails in England and Wales last year, making them the fifth largest foreign group.
The 2011 census recorded 13,295 Albanian-born residents in England and 120 in Wales. Earlier this year it emerged that a group of Albanians at a Dorset jail posted a photograph of themselves enjoying their Christmas dinner on a website in their home country.
The image, which showed the ten enjoying platefuls of food washed down with bottles of Coca-Cola, was captioned: ‘ We wish all Albanian people Merry Christmas from a prison in England. God may save all of you.’
NCA Deputy Director General Matthew Horne warned that while the numbers of armed and violent Albanian gangsters were ‘relatively small’, their impact was ‘significant’.
He told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘It doesn’t take time for somebody to be hurt.
‘Often it’s the criminals themselves, but obviously we are concerned there are innocent bystanders obviously in this.’
The Daily Mail has also highlighted the cases of three Albanian murderers living freely in Britain.
One, double killer Avni Metra, 54, was extradited to his native country earlier this year after living here for nearly two decades, but two others are still fighting deportation.
The NCA report points to other groups of foreign criminals who are battling for control of the illegal drugs trade.
Lithuanian crime gangs with ‘ready access to firearms’ are also a growing threat, according to the report, which says that heroin smuggling is dominated by Turkish and Pakistani groups.
Mr Horne added: ‘What is striking from this year’s assessment are the themes running through the crime types.
‘Organised criminal networks are using online methods to defraud and extort, but also [to] facilitate the abuse of children and advertise the victims of human trafficking and modern slavery.’
‘Violence is often used’