Albanian drug gang are jailed for 17 years

Albanian gangsters who conspired to flood the streets of London with Class A drugs have been jailed for a total of 17 years.

Algert Lami, 23, Roland Vasija, 20, and 22-year-old Orjon Uku were held when police raided their den in Stratford, east London, and found blocks of cocaine and wads of cash.

Earlier this year police chiefs warned gangs of Albanian drug dealers are now ‘a significant threat’ on Britain’s streets.

The trio were caught with £178,000 in cash when they searched their BMW

The cash was discovered in this plastic bag, next to a football, in the boot of the the BMW

The trio were caught when detectives from the National Crime Agency and officers from the Met Police watched Uku get out of a taxi in Stratford and approach a parked BMW. He spent 20 minutes talking to the driver before leaving on foot.

Five minutes later they watched Vasija walk towards the same car, put a bag in the boot and get into the passenger seat before it drove away.

When police stopped the BMW and searched it they found £178,000 in a shopping bag, next to a football.

Vasija and the driver, Lami, were arrested.

Uku was arrested after returning to the same spot and attempting to flee when officers followed him.

Lami was sentenced to nine years in prison (left), while Uku was given a six year jail term

Officers searched a property linked to Uku where they discovered three blocks of white compressed powder wrapped in cling film, along with items associated with drug dealing such as scales and latex gloves.

Around half a kilo of cocaine was found hidden in the BMW glove box along with suspected false and fraudulently obtained ID documents which officers believe were being used by Lami.

A number of mobile phones, drug paraphernalia and more fake identity documents were found at Lami’s home address.

Vasija was given a two year jail term at Kingston Crown Court today

Albanian drug dealers are now a major threat

Earlier this year police chiefs warned gangs of Albanian drug dealers are now ‘a significant threat’ on Britain’s streets.

They said organised crime groups from the tiny Balkan country now have ‘high-level influence’ on supplying cocaine around the country.

The National Crime Agency report reveals that criminals from the Balkans are increasingly forging direct links with cocaine traffickers from South America.

There were 512 Albanian inmates in jails in England and Wales last year, making them the fifth largest foreign group.

NCA Deputy Director General Matthew Horne warned that while the numbers of armed and violent Albanian gangsters were ‘relatively small’, their impact was ‘significant’.

London is their ‘primary hub’, the report says, but they are established across the UK.

The report also said that Serbian and Turkish crime groups ‘dominate high volume maritime cocaine logistics’, while Turkish and Pakistani groups ‘continue to dominate heroin trafficking to the UK’.

Steve Miles, from the Organised Crime Partnership, said: ‘Every organised crime group which trafficks drugs is a business which relies on cash flow.

‘If any business loses an expensive commodity in the middle of a transaction, that cash flow stalls on both sides.

‘That means a loss of investment in other criminal activity, the inability to pay their own people, damage to trust and credibility between criminal groups and loss of face and status with their peers, making it harder for them to do business together in future.

He added: ‘Taking a substantial amount of money out of the chain as we have done here makes life far more difficult for criminals to do business and I believe our actions have caused significant disruption to this group.’

Lami pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply class A drugs, possession of false identity documents and fraud by deception.

He and Vasija also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder £178,000.

Lami was sentenced to nine years in prison, while Vasija was given a two year jail term.

Uku pleaded guilty to possession with intent to supply class A and class B drugs. He was handed a six year sentence at Kingston Crown Court.

Gang set up phone line for city’s cocaine users

Armed Albanian gangsters dressed in designer clothes to target Manchester revellers looking to buy cocaine.

They also operated a sophisticated ‘dial-a-drug’ phone line. Unknown to police because they were recruited directly from Albania and operated on fake Greek and Italian passports, they were only snared after offering drugs to undercover officers.

They are believed to have worked with Manchester’s more established gangs – but were arming themselves with guns in case of conflict.

One of the main players, Mevlan Gjeta, 33, was last year jailed for eight years after a kilo of cocaine plus £55,000 were found at his flat.

Officers in London exposed an unrelated gang mainly consisting of illegal immigrants from Albania who controlled ‘street level’ cocaine dealers.

At the time, Detective Constable Sally Prinsloo said the case highlighted ‘a very worrying trend we have observed in the City and across the capital, with people, in this case Albanian males, who have entered the UK illegally, being employed to courier drugs to customers’.

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