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Albanian fugitives are hiding in the UK in the same way British crooks once were on the Costa del Sol, experts have warned amid rising extradition cases.
A spate of suspected murderers, rapists and drug traffickers across Europe have appeared in Britain's extradition court after they were found to be living in the UK. At least 34 wanted Albanians faced extradition proceedings in 2023. While this year, at least 27 suspected Albanian criminals appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court facing extradition for crimes committed in countries such as France, Italy , Germany and Greece.
Experts say that the fugitives use people-smuggling routes to cross the Channel and are then protected by Albanian criminal syndicates. A former head of the National Crime Agency (NCA) said the UK has become a haven for wanted Albanians in the same way that the Costa del Sol is for British fugitives. Among the fugitives who were found in Britain is Denis Havalja, nicknamed "The Beast", for the rape of a 14-year-old girl in Albania in 2016.
The 37-year-old was convicted in Albania and sentenced to five years and four months in prison, but escaped and fled to Britain after serving less than two years. Whether he will return to serve the rest of his sentence will be decided by a judge on June 18.
Suspected double murderer Ilirian Zeqaj, 51, faces extradition from Britain for a second time after sneaking into the UK twice and even obtaining citizenship under a false name.
Zeqaj allegedly shot two men in the village of Cakran in 1999, but arrived in the UK after riding in the back of a truck five months later and claimed asylum under the name Klemend Zeqaj after lying to officials and posing as a Kosovar refugee. Despite being one of the most wanted fugitives in Albania, he was granted permanent leave to remain in 2005 and British citizenship the following year.
He has three children, including a daughter studying chemical engineering at Cambridge University, but Albania's Supreme Court has demanded his return. The fate of Black, who lives in Hanwell, north-west London, is in the hands of the Home Secretary after a county judge approved extradition in April. Zeqaj, who runs a bathroom assembly company, plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
In its article, the Daily Mail also quoted an expression by Ervin Karamuço, which states that "Britain has become a "Costa del Sol".
"Professor of Criminology at the State University of Tirana, Ervin Karamuco, said that Britain has become the 'Costa del Sol' for Albanian refugees, because of the criminal networks that already exist here", writes the Daily Mail.
Among those already extradited to an EU country is Algert Datja, 33, who was returned to Italy in April to face charges of murder, grievous bodily harm and armed robbery.
His compatriot, Alfred Krrashi, 21, will be returned to France for suspected drug trafficking after extradition was approved in April.
The NCA's former head of drug threat and intelligence, Tony Saggers, said many Albanians became skilled smugglers out of necessity under the hash-communist regime that lasted until the early 1990s.
The Kosovo crisis of the 1990s and Britain's willingness to accept refugees from the stricken Balkan state was then exploited by thousands of Albanians falsely claiming to be Kosovars fleeing the conflict, he added.
"And if they did not commit crimes, most have remained in Britain undetected and without apparent issue," he said.
However, people follow people, so these satellite communities of the 1990s continued to grow as more Albanians joined friends and family.
These communities are then exploitable by Albanian organized crime groups to provide perfect cover to operate in the UK to control cocaine markets, establish and maintain cannabis cultivation areas and smuggle even more people ; also investing in our infrastructure to further legitimize the appearance of being here.
Some Albanian immigrants will arrive to join existing friends and families, others as workers within illegal activities, or both. So because so many people took advantage of the Kosovar refugee crisis and were able to settle here when they normally wouldn't have been able to, we've created an environment similar to the south of Spain where our criminals are being given inadvertent cover by the British wider.
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