Britain’s middle-class cocaine habit being run by Albanian gangsters
ALBANIAN gangsters have ruthlessly seized control of the supply of cocaine in South America to flood Britain’s streets with record amounts of the drug, a Daily Mail investigation today reveals.
The global tentacles of blood-thirsty mafia kingpins from the Balkans now extend from ‘narco state’ Ecuador to cities and towns across the UK.
Details of the chilling development are revealed in our new two-part investigation into the trail of destruction left by Britain’s insatiable demand for cocaine – which is fuelling bloodshed abroad. Our probe, and an accompanying documentary for The Mail+ and MailOnline, ‘ ALBANIAN NARCOS: Bullets, Bloodshed & Britain’, lays bare the true cost of the UK’s cocaine epidemic both here and in Ecuador – a small, impoverished country 6,000 miles away.
The UK’s cocaine market is said to be worth £2billion with an estimated 976,000 users, while the annual number of cocaine-related deaths has increased seven-fold in a decade, to 840. Research by the National Crime Agency has shown that Albanian- organised crime groups control the cocaine market across the main city and suburban areas of the UK (with the exception of Merseyside, where local gangsters remain in charge).
Now those same drug barons have got an iron grip on the distribution of cocaine from Ecuador, where they have been involved in a bloody battle with local cartels. In the first part of our probe, we expose how Albanian drug lords now control the supply of cocaine in Brighton and Hove where, according to a survey, one in five people are said to have taken the substance.
According to sources, a mysterious underworld figure from Albania known only by a single initial is said to be one of the masterminds in charge of dealers supplying cocaine to middle- class professionals, commuters and students.
This week it emerged that global cocaine production has reached record levels as demand rebounds after lockdowns. A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said coca cultivation rose 35 per cent between 2020 and 2021, with the biggest markets in Europe and North America. Last month Fernando Villavicencio, president of the congressional oversight committee in Ecuador, said the Albanian Mafia had infected his country ‘through violence, bribery and front companies’, to build an illegal business ‘that consists of buying cocaine at a lower price in Latin America and marketing it in Europe’.
Cocaine smuggled from Ecuador to the UK is hidden on container ships and enters via the ports of Rotterdam or Antwerp, which has also seen a huge rise in drugrelated gangland crime.
As revealed in our documentary on The Mail+ and MailOnline, parts of Ecuador have been turned into the ‘ Wild West’ as Albanian drug barons and South American cartels fight each other.
During nearly a month in Ecuador, Mail journalists were invited on anti-narcotics operations and witnessed two fishermen being arrested trying to smuggle $20million (£16.4million) worth of cocaine off the coast of Ecuador.
In part two of our investigation, an Ecuadorian gangster breaks the Mafia code of silence to reveal how his mob is working with Albanian narcos to smuggle tonnes of cocaine to the UK and Europe. In an extraordinary encounter, he reveals how he carried out his first murderous attack aged 14. We also reveal the untold story of one of Albania’s most notorious narcos, who has been released early from a prison in Ecuador.
Dritan Rexhepi is nicknamed the ‘king of escapes’ for escaping jails in Belgium and Albania, and the ‘king of cocaine’ for his ‘success’ in getting cocaine into Europe.
He now seems set to exploit a loophole to avoid extradition to Europe, where he is wanted for gangland crimes including murder. Rexhepi, who has featured on a Scotland Yard ‘ Most Wanted’ list, is typical of many Albanian narcos in Ecuador who negotiate directly with producers of cocaine in South America and command the entire supply chain from South America to Europe – particularly in the United Kingdom.