Displaying items by tag: Albanian gangs

Albanian drug gangs use French migrant camps as recruitment grounds. They pay the passage for those prepared to work in the UK drugs industry on arrival. Senior police and immigration officials on both sides of the Channel are worried by the growing number of Albanian middlemen facilitating crossings. Albanians accounted for 1/3 of the people arriving in small boats this year. They have the right to enter France as EU tourists for up to three months without a visa., and are urged on by social media adverts promising help. Posing as an Albanian migrant, a journalist contacted two people-smugglers advertising for clients on TikTok. Both responded within half an hour, with options to pay in France or in England, and guidance for getting to Belgium or France, where a fixer would make contact. The message from both of them was ‘It's easy’.