Mother of God! Priti wins war against boss of OCG *

* Organised Crime Group – as every Line Of Duty fan knows

STEP aside, Ted Hastings: Priti Patel has won her own war against the boss of an OCG.

In a highly unusual move, the Home Secretary has successfully stripped an Albanian gangster of his right to live in Britain after persuading a court that he is a serious threat to ‘the UK’s public security and safety’.

Like ‘H’, the crime boss pursued by Hastings in the BBC drama Line Of Duty, detectives at the National Crime Agency (NCA) will only publicly refer to the criminal as ‘B9’.

A ruling by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has shone a light on B9’s role in a network distributing Class A drugs across the UK. The 36-year-old is also involved in people trafficking, money laundering and cannabis production.

Notorious for violence, B9 is said to have stabbed a Bulgarian nightclub bouncer in 2012. Later, the NCA stopped B9 in Dover and found images of him posing with an AK-47 rifle. Detectives tracking B9 as he drove between meetings with crime associates reported him using ‘ anti- surveillance driving techniques’, including increasing and then decreasing his speed.

B9, whose wife is Latvian, was given a permanent residence card in 2017 and is currently believed to be in the Albanian capital Tirana.

He denies involvement in crime. Despite ‘highly successful’ operations against B9’s OCG, the NCA had limited ‘admissible evidence’ of B9’s activities. Instead, the Agency opted to bar him from the UK by getting the Home Office to revoke his residency card in 2019. He appealed in March but lost.

The case has exposed the extraordinary influence of Albanian organised crime. Chris Farrimond, NCA deputy director of investigations, said: ‘We believe this individual was a high-ranking member of a significant organised crime group involved in a range of serious criminality impacting upon the UK.’