NARCOS UK
How ultra-violent Albanian gangs seized control of Britain’s cocaine epidemic with super-slick ‘sustainable’ business model
Perhaps their greatest asset is their notorious reputation for violence
ULTRA-VIOLENT Albanian gangs have increasingly seized control of Britain's cocaine trade with a super-slick “sustainable” business model.
The gangs, backed by the immensely powerful Albanian crime syndicate Mafia Shqiptare, are on their way to a near total takeover of the UK’s £5bn cocaine market, according to the National Crime Agency.
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Perhaps their greatest asset, according to a special investigation by , is their notorious reputation for violence.
One resident from east London’s troubled Gascoigne estate said one of the gangs, called Hellbanianz, were known as the “stabbers”.
He said: “You’d be walking home and feel a little prick on your leg and later you realised you’d been stabbed by one of the Albanian kids.”
Police sources have said Hellbanianz are also behind increasing gang violence as they vie to leapfrog their rivals in a bloodthirsty turf war.
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It’s not just raw firepower and a willingness to use it however.
The Albanian’s trade off two codes: besa – meaning “to keep the promise” – and kanun - the right to take revenge.
The Albanian Mafia Shqiptare run a “retail game” cocaine trade.
In the past wholesalers and the gangs were separate entities.
Inmates, suspected of being part of Albanian Hellbanianz gang, post videos of themselves taking drugs in a British prison
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Prices varied, and there was always questions over purity and cost.
But the Albanians cut out the middle man – they went straight to the Colombian cartels that produce the white gold.
They were able to ship the stuff in for roughly $5,00o a kilo – according to British intelligence experts.
That was a quarter of the price of dealers working through European middlemen.
Albanian gangsters post pics of huge wads of cash they are making from cocaine dealing in east London
This is why the price of the drug in the UK is the cheapest it has been since the 1990s, and the purity is much higher.
Their model is so good, the Guardian reported, that a research fellow at Leeds Beckett University who studies drug dealers, said: “If they were on Dragon’s Den with this model, all the dragons would be giving them money.”
Honour among thieves: gangs' sacred oath of loyalty
The concept of Besa is extremely important in Albanian culture, especially in the rural North where many of the gangs come from.
Just as the Italian mafia has the law of Omerta - silence - Albanian mobsters are goverened by a code of honour they call "Besa".
It is a code of honour which for many is still the highest ethical code in the country.
Besa means "keeping a promise".
It is considered a verbal contract of trust.
Muslim Albanians were honouring Besa when they helped protect Jews from the Nazis in the 1940s.
Today, gangsters use the term Besa as a name for their "code of honour".
New recruits are required to take an oath that means each man gives his life to the rest.
The close-knit nature of the gangs insulates them from outsiders and thwarts police efforts to infiltrate their networks.
Albanian gangsters have a much looser structure to their crime networks than their more famous Italian counterparts.
Much like the Russian Mafia, Albanians are thought to work with a Leadership Council at the top of their criminal network.
Each crime family will have a leader, known as the "krye" who chooses "kryetar" to work below them as underbosses.
The krye runs an executive committee known as a barjack from which decisions are made on what businesses needs doing.
Once decided, the orders are filtered down to the gangsters on the ground.
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The gangs reportedly use social media to put out glamorous images of Ferraris, wads of £50 notes and gold watches to entice and recruit youth.
Before its account was closed in November, one of these Albanian gang’s accounts had 115,000 Instagram followers.
Just one of their videos glamorising the cocaine trade had been watched more than 7.5m times.
Albanian gangster crashes car stuffed with 21kg of cocaine into a shop after police chase
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