50 Albanians held a week in drug gang crime wave
POLICE are facing an Albanian crime wave with 50 thugs arrested each week amid a rise in drug-related gang warfare.
Thousands of people from the Balkan state are being detained in the UK for murder, sex offences, drug dealing, money laundering, people smuggling and death threats, figures have revealed.
It follows warnings from the National Crime Agency that gangs of Albanian drug dealers are now ‘a significant threat’ using increasingly ruthless brutality to protect their business.
Organised crime groups from the former Communist country now have huge influence on supplying cocaine around the country.
Last year, police arrested Albanians 2,781 times – up 8 per cent on the 2,578 held in 2015. It suggests about one in 11 of the 32,000 Albanian-born residents in England and Wales were detained, although some may have been taken into custody more than once.
But thousands of Albanians allowed into the UK are suspected of adopting bogus identities from neighbouring Kosovo, claiming persecution during the regional conflict 18 years ago. Imposters are now suspected to be fronting drugs and prostitution rings.
MEP Jane Collins, the Ukip home affairs spokesman, said: ‘ The number of Albanians arrested for other crimes who are here illegally demonstrates that our borders are currently not fit for purpose.
‘We have people in the Government and Home Office with a 16th century view of border management, whilst trafficking gangs are developing new strategies each day to get their human cargo into this country illegally. A huge amount of the blame needs to be put at the door of the politicians and civil servants who have repeatedly mismanaged and cut finances for policing and security.’
The figures were uncovered in answers from 37 of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. There were 649 Albanian inmates in jails at the end of June, making them the third largest foreign group.
The NCA report said: ‘The threat faced from Albanian crime groups is significant. London is their primary hub, but they are established across the UK.’
‘Borders are not fit for purpose’