Crime gangs smuggling millions of pounds from UK to Albania each year – NCA

Albanian crime gangs are smuggling hundreds of millions of pounds a year out of the UK and using Channel crossings to staff cannabis farms, the National Crime Agency (NCA) has said.Britain’s version of the FBI is running more than 70 live investigations into organised immigration crime, a ‘significant proportion’ of which have links to Albanian gangs, according to bosses.A substantial number of Albanians are likely to have arrived in the UK ‘illegally’ and police are seeing examples of what could be seen as ‘blatant manipulation’ of modern slavery laws when those arrested claim to be victims of trafficking, the NCA said.There are even suggestions Albanians are being coached while in their home country on what to say and do if they are detained in the UK.Albanians are now the biggest single nationality arriving in the UK by crossing the Channel, with 12,000 making the journey so far this year, of which 10,000 are single, adult men. This is compared to 50 in 2020, Home Office officials told MPs last month. The estimates are that hundreds of millions of pounds UK sterling is leaving the UK and ending up in AlbaniaSpeaking to reporters on Tuesday, senior NCA intelligence manager Ged McCann said Albanians gangs – which he described as ‘reliable’ and ‘disciplined’ – are ‘effectively bringing in the labour force for the cannabis groves,’ adding: ‘Many individuals that are arrested in cannabis groves arrived in the country a matter of days before on small boats.’Cash is ‘king’ in the Balkan state, where many people do not have a bank account and there is little use of credit cards, fellow intelligence manager Steve Brocklesby said.’Albanian OCGs (organised crime groups) in the UK, their main objective when they make money is to get it out of the country as soon as possible. So, they will smuggle it out of the UK into Albania in whatever form it comes. The estimates are that hundreds of millions of pounds UK sterling is leaving the UK and ending up in Albania.’The amount of criminal cash leaving the UK has risen ‘exponentially’ over the last four or five years, at an increase of roughly 20%, he said.Mr Brocklesby added: ‘We do know, anecdotally, speaking to police forces around the country, that if an Albanian illegal migrant is arrested in a cannabis grove, then often the first thing they do is claim to be a victim of trafficking.’That is very different to most other users of the national referral mechanism (the process for identifying victims of modern slavery). It is, in many ways, blatant manipulation and it is something we believe from Albania is instilled in them before they actually arrive in the UK.’Deputy director Andrea Wilson, who leads the NCA’s work on threats from Channel crossings and western Balkan crime groups, said: ‘Currently we have more than 70 live operations into organised immigration crime and a significant proportion of those are into Albanian organised crime groups.’A significant proportion of Albanians in the UK are likely to have arrived here illegally.’They are one of the top nationalities coming here illegally both through clandestine methods and on small boats. That’s not new.’Albanian crime gangs are ‘resourceful, adaptable and entrepreneurial’, Ms Wilson said, with London and the south east still the dominant areas in which they operate, mainly in the cocaine and cannabis trade. But they also have an ‘established footprint’ in towns and cities across the UK as well as more rural locations.They have been forging close links with other nationalities involved in organised immigration crime (OIC), such as Iraqi Kurds facilitating Channel crossings from France, she added.Despite the rise in Albanian arrivals to the UK over the summer months, Ms Wilson stressed this was not a ‘new phenomenon’ and that there are also many nationals who have legitimate reasons to come to the country and run thriving, legal businesses.