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THOUSANDS of Albanians are flocking to the UK in dinghies – only to end up in the clutches of drug gangs, senior officials have warned.
The Sun on Sunday travelled to the country’s capital Tirana after a leaked military report revealed four out of ten migrants crossing the Channel illegally now hail from the Balkan nation.
Senior police chiefs in the city claim most of those leaving are doing so for financial reasons — with crime lords returning home in luxury cars.
We saw top-end vehicles with UK number plates driving around.
Asked about the exodus to Britain, Saimir Boshnjaku, the director of immigration police, said: “Some people have to leave because they get caught up in blood feuds, or they have fallen out with criminal gangs and they are in fear of their lives. But most are economic migrants.
“The people that make money from drugs come back here driving Maseratis and Mercedes and they buy a big villa in the village. The young people see that and it makes them want to do the same.”
As many as one in five have quit the Eastern European nation in some areas after being lured by promises of vast riches in the UK.
Albania’s ambassador to the UK, Qirjako Qirko, estimates there are 150,000 of his countrymen in Britain.
This would mean the number has more than trebled since 2019, when the Office for National Statistics calculated there were 47,000 here.
But the cost of being smuggled to Britain can be as high as £30,000.
Young Albanians who make the journey to the UK can end up in debt to gangs who then force them to deliver cocaine or work at cannabis factories in houses in British towns.
Government sources here admit a toxic cycle has been created where poorer people are lured into vice while the crime bosses make unprecedented profits.
Some are even ending up in UK prisons, and our probe has found that deportations are set to double this year as officials attempt to crack down on the exodus.
And The Sun on Sunday can reveal that the Home Office has spent £1million on a new police station at Rinas International Airport in Tirana this year to help process the returnees.
In 2021, 497 Albanians were deported from the UK.
Yet in the first six months of this year 443 were sent back, meaning last year’s figure is likely to have doubled by December.
Immigration boss Saimir said: “I know illegal immigration is a big concern and I can assure you we are doing our best to put a stop to it.
“When an Albanian national is deported by the UK government, we question them and check if they are wanted on any charges. If they are, we send them to prison.
“The ones that migrated illegally are given a travel ban preventing them from leaving the country.
“Processing so many people is not easy for us so we are very grateful to the British government for this new police station.”
Albania’s links with Britain are obvious in Tirana, where luxury cars with UK licence plates can be seen cruising down the tree-lined avenues.
So-called “London villas” built with money made illegally overseas are also popping up in remote towns and villages previously blighted by poverty.
‘We are doing our best to put a stop to it’
Tales of the “London boys” raking in fortunes overseas encourage others to make the same dangerous journey.
Around £2billion is due to be invested in Albania through loans handed out by UK Export Finance, in an attempt to improve opportunities and convince young people they do have a future in their home country.
But opposition MP Ervin Salianji, of the Democratic Party, fears our politicians are being taken for fools.
He compares his nation to the narco states of Latin America, where corruption is endemic and cocaine-dealing gangsters rule with an iron grip.
He said: “It is not a surprise that so many people are moving to the UK as this has been going on for a long time. What is surprising is how little the government is doing about it. Human trafficking is a huge problem for Albania.
“Because so many people are leaving, it is causing an economic disaster.
“There are whole towns and villages where you won’t find anyone under the age of 40, as all the young people have left.
“A UN report has stated that the population of Albania will fall from 2.8million to one million in the next century and it’s hard to imagine the impact that will have.
“But taking on the criminals does not seem to be a priority for the government.
“Instead, the Prime Minister, Edi Rama, is proposing a ‘fiscal amnesty’ that would allow Albanians living abroad to send back up to two million euros with no questions asked.
“The government wants to tax this money at seven per cent, but it’s obvious such a system will allow criminals to clean their dirty money.
More than 1,500 Albanians are currently in jails in England and Wales, making them the highest percentage of foreign nationals in custody, according to UK government statistics.
‘Simply bolstering smugglers’
New figures showed that of the 2,863 migrants transported by nine gangs between June 1 and July 12 this year, 1,075 — or 37.5 per cent — were Albanian.
Almost three times as many migrants arriving on the UK’s shores from France come from the peaceful Balkan country — where there has not been a war for more than 25 years — compared with anywhere else.
Last year 3,000 babies were born in Britain to Albanian mothers, according to the ONS, making them the tenth most common birth nationality, up from the 41st a decade ago.
Albanian government spokesman Endri Fuga said: “For Albania it is very unfortunate to have MPs who are so ready to bash internationally their own country for petty political gains.
“But that is the reason why they are not able to win and have spent the last nine years in opposition.
“As a government we have worked closely with all relevant institutions in the UK and the results have always been best when there has been true and sincere co-operation from both sides.”
And charities in Calais last night insisted they had “little experience” of working with Albanians, suggesting the numbers could be “an anomaly”.
Clare Moseley, founder of Care4Calais, said: “From colleagues in the charity sector who have closer links to Albania, we do understand that the country may not be at war but it doesn’t mean it is a safe place.
“There are serious issues of violence, coercion and people- trafficking, including child trafficking, and recent figures show a 55 per cent acceptance rate for Albanian refugees, so any claim they are all economic migrants may be presumptive.”
She added: “If there has been a recent change, it is further evidence that the Government’s deterrence policies are having no impact whatsoever and are simply bolstering smugglers.
“The reality is that the Government has shut off all official routes for refugees to claim asylum in the UK, driving people into the hands of people-smugglers and delivering that record-high number of small-boat crossings.
“If we issue visas for safe passage, on the basis of screening for a viable asylum claim, to other refugees in a similar way to how we do with Ukrainians, this would break the model of people-smugglers and save lives.”
‘It’s not worth risks’
ALBANIANS risk a perilous journey hoping for a better life in the UK – but there is no guarantee of quick riches.
Welder Klodjan Deda now regrets paying £3,500 to people-smugglers who took him from France to the English coast in a rigid inflatable boat in April last year.
He spent a year living in London but found that the £170 he earned each day was not enough to pay the bills.
He moved back to Albania in June and is now making £20 a day for the same job.
Klodjan, 27, said: “If anyone asked me if they should move to the UK, I’d say it’s not worth it.
“Only the people going there to sell drugs or work in the cannabis houses make a lot of money. If you work hard in an ordinary job you only make enough.
“London is so expensive that even though you are making almost ten times more than you do here, it doesn’t make much difference.
“I really regret spending so much of my savings to get to Britain.
“I wanted to start a new life there and have more security and a better standard of living.
“But the journey was very dangerous and I missed my family and the nice weather we have here.
“I am much happier now, even though all my friends are still in London.”
After arriving in Calais, Klodjan made contact with a human-trafficking group and was put on a boat with 14 other people in the dead of night.
Klodjan added: “It was cold and we got very wet during the 12-hour crossing, but we were lucky that it only got choppy in the middle of the Channel.
“For the rest of the journey it was fine. The police didn’t try to stop us and we didn’t see many big ships.
“The scariest part was when we boarded the boat, as we were worried the traffickers might ditch us in the sea.
“I don’t know where we landed but we were collected by some officials on the beach.
“It’s very common to travel to England now, even though it’s dangerous, and I know people who almost lost their legs to hypothermia.” /The Sun, August 14, 2022
