Deported Albanian thief is jailed after returning to UK

An Albanian criminal deported for carrying out a series of burglaries has been jailed after sneaking back into Britain and being arrested wearing a watch he had just stolen.

Dorian Puka, 23, was originally jailed for nine months in 2016 and then deported after being caught attempting to break into a property when the owner spotted him on a webcam while on holiday in France.

David Pearce rang a neighbour after seeing the illegal immigrant on his webcam trying to get into his home in Twickenham, South-West London. The neighbour called police who found Puka hiding in a bush.

Following his arrest in August 2015, police linked his DNA to another burglary in Ealing, West London, a month earlier where he had dropped a glove.

He was jailed for nine months in January 2016 at Isleworth Crown Court. Judge Robin Johnson told him: ‘You have not been in this country for a long amount of time and are, according to the probation officer, an illegal immigrant.’

The judge ordered his deportation, which took place in November 2016. But within 12 months Puka had sneaked back into the country illegally and was living in Greenford, only a few miles from his victims.

On November 16 last year plain clothes officers were patrolling Surbiton, South-West London, after an increase in burglaries when they stopped Puka in the street wearing an expensive designer watch he had stolen that morning. He had a large stash of watches with him and a purse he couldn’t explain away.

The loot had been taken in a burglary that day in Surbiton and the watch he was wearing came from a different house in nearby Tolworth.

Puka admitted two counts of burglary at Kingston Crown Court on December 15 and was jailed for three-and-a-half years at a later hearing at the same court. A police spokesman said: ‘He will be deported after his sentence.’

Experts said the case made a mockery of Britain’s border controls. David Green, of think-tank Civitas, said: ‘This shows there is something going wrong with the immigration system if someone who has been deported can just come straight back into the country.

‘The curious thing is, how did he get back in? There is supposed to be a database on deported offenders but they clearly don’t use it properly. He probably got on a plane on his passport and no one noticed.’