Scale of Albanian Channel migrants crime wave in the UK revealed

Eighty Albanian migrants have been sentenced to 130 years in jail in the first four months of this year alone, as the scale of the crime wave from the surge in Channel crossings can be revealed for the first time.

They have been convicted of murder, manslaughter, rape, violent disorder, firearms offences, kidnap, causing death by dangerous driving, burglary and producing cannabis in gang-run farms in houses and disused industrial sites.

The cumulative total of 130 years in jail will cost the UK taxpayer at least £20 million pounds to house each offender for the allotted time, at an average cost of £57,000 per prisoner per year.

The disclosure was based on a detailed analysis of every court case in England and Wales in the four months since Jan 1 2023. Last year, a record 12,301 Albanians reached the UK on small boats, representing a quarter of the total of 45,755.

The figures came as Robert Jenrick, the immigration minister, began a five-day tour of north Africa and Europe to boost co-operation with other countries, in the hope of striking deals similar to Albania to stem the flow of migrants and counter people-smuggling gangs.

He will travel to Tunisia and Algeria to offer “all the assets” of the UK state to help to “disrupt, degrade and deny gangs at source”.

Officials at the National Crime Agency said that a “significant number” of these Albanian Channel migrants came to the UK to work in the “grey” market or for organised criminal drug gangs, and are sending back “hundreds of millions of pounds” of cash a year to Albania.

According to the agency, the attraction of the grey economy, where migrants can earn up to £100 a day in construction, hospitality, car washes or barbers, or £1,000 a week as a “gardener” in a cannabis farm is “pretty overwhelming” for poorer Albanians.

Some have been brought over to work in indoor cannabis groves, where Albanians have usurped the Vietnamese as kingpins in the production of the drug. Their passage across the Channel in small boats is paid for by the gangs before they are “debt bonded” to repay it by working on the farms or for the gangs.

Forty-nine of the Albanians convicted this year were jailed for producing cannabis. Although the Sentencing Council recommends up to five years in jail, all 49 received sentences of less than one year after pleading guilty to reduce their time in prison. Nine more were jailed for the possession of, or supplying, drugs.

Many of the more serious crimes were linked to the drugs trade. Of the four murderers in the list, two were members of a drugs gang – Brikel Palaj, 33, and Radian Lika, 35 – caught up in a brutal turf war over the ownership of a cannabis farm.

The pair were filmed on CCTV picking up four large kitchen knives in a Sainsbury’s store in Bristol before killing Aranit Lleshi in May 2022 as they attempted to steal a £95,000 crop of cannabis. They were convicted of murder at Bristol Crown Court this March.

Detective Chief Inspector Phil Walker of Wiltshire Police said: “It was a horrendous incident played out on a spring evening in a quiet residential street and witnessed by those who lived there, as well as those passing by.

“These two groups, who are both from the London area, engaged in extreme levels of violence, using any weapons they could lay their hands on.”

Erland Spahiu, 33, was among eight men jailed for a minimum of 229 years after they kidnapped and murdered an innocent father who they wrongly thought had raped a teenage girl.

The gang tortured and killed Christopher Hughes, 37. He suffered more than 90 sharp force injuries to his head, neck, body and limbs, with the most inflicted while he was alive, following his abduction on Feb 18 2022.

Any of the Albanians convicted of more than four years in jail face deportation under a new agreement to serve the remainder of their sentences in Albanian jails. Britain will pay £14 million to upgrade Albanian jails to take 200 of the most dangerous Albanian criminals. Those convicted of one to four years also face deportation.

Albanians are the largest nationality in prisons accounting for 1,393 foreign national offenders, as of March 31, compared to 830 Poles, 823 Romanians, 391 Jamaicans and 380 Lithuanians.

That means Albanians are 1.6 per cent of all inmates despite representing fewer than 0.05 per cent of the UK population.

A Government spokesman said: “Foreign National Offenders who commit crimes here in the UK will face the full weight of the law, including deportation at the earliest opportunity for those eligible.

“We value the Albanian community in the UK, but those arriving illegally should know we are working to speed up their removal, with over 1,000 Albanian nationals returned to their own country since December 2022”.