Albanian gangs controlling cocaine trade

MORE than 650 Albanian gangsters are now operating in Britain as they seize control of the cocaine market.

They have become the third largest group of organised criminals by nationality in the last three years, official figures show.

The gangs from the small Balkan nation – described as ‘the most ruthless the UK has ever seen’ – operate with Latin American cartels to smuggle cocaine into the country and often use teenage mules to take it beyond cities to Home Counties commuter towns, seaside resorts and villages.

Experts say that high purity crack cocaine has helped the surge in stabbings, shootings and violent crime that has blighted British streets during the same period. The figures emerged in the National Crime Agency’s ‘league table’ listing the nationalities of more than 33,598 gangsters, spread across 4,629 of the UK’s most dangerous crime syndicates from 2015-17.

Andy Cook, the chief constable of Merseyside, police national spokesman on organised crime, told The Times: ‘The Balkan-region criminality is layered on top of other criminality from our homegrown criminals.’