Albanian drug gangs bringing cocaine misery from Ecuador to the streets of ... trends now
Albanian gangsters have ruthlessly seized control of the supply of cocaine in South America to flood Britain’s streets with record amounts of the drug, a Daily Mail investigation today reveals.
The global tentacles of blood-thirsty mafia kingpins from the Balkans now extend from ‘narco state’ Ecuador to cities and towns across the UK.
Details of the chilling development are revealed in our new two-part investigation into the trail of destruction left by Britain’s insatiable demand for cocaine – which is fuelling bloodshed abroad.
Our probe, and an accompanying documentary for The Mail+ and MailOnline, ‘ALBANIAN NARCOS: Bullets, Bloodshed & Britain’, lays bare the true cost of the UK’s cocaine epidemic both here and in Ecuador - a small, impoverished country 6,000 miles away.
The UK’s cocaine market is said to be worth a staggering £2billion with an estimated 976,000 users while the annual number of cocaine-related deaths has increased seven-fold in a decade, and now stands at 840.
In Brighton, in the shadow of the elegant Regency terraces lining the seafront, middle-class Britons can easily source the drug
Stephen Wright travelled to Guayaquil in Ecuador to investigate the drug gangs
Research by the National Crime Agency has shown that Albanian-organised crime groups control the cocaine market across the main city and suburban areas of the UK (with the exception of Merseyside, where local gangsters remain in charge).
Now those same drug barons have got an iron grip on the distribution of cocaine from Ecuador, where they have been involved in a bloody battle with local cartels for supremacy in the lucrative international cocaine trade.
In the first part of our investigation today, we expose how Albanian drug lords now control the supply of cocaine in the popular seaside resort of Brighton and Hove on Britain’s south coast, where according to a survey one in five people are said to have taken the substance.
According to sources, a mysterious underworld figure from Albania known only by a single initial is said to be one of the criminal masterminds in charge of a network of drug dealers supplying cocaine to middle-class professionals, commuters and students.
Earlier this week it emerged that global cocaine production has reached record levels as demand rebounds following Covid lockdowns.
A new report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said coca cultivation rose by 35 per cent between 2020 and 2021, and the largest markets were in Europe and North America.
From top, left to right: Drug dealers Ramazam Capa, Gjenti Capa, Ndricim Xhepa, Kadri Dema, Izmir Dema, Leonard Dema, Klinton Dani, Gledis Osmani, and Mevlan Dema
