A Sky News investigation has exposed Albanian drug gangs recruiting street dealers through TikTok, selling phones loaded with customer contacts for up to £300,000, and smuggling individuals across the English Channel to sell cocaine on UK streets.
The gangs have allegedly seized control of Britain's cocaine trade, with people smuggled into the country working as dealers. The criminal groups also offer escape routes back to the continent for those wanted by British police.
Recruitment on social media and undercover findings
Undercover reporters found hundreds of TikTok adverts for drug-dealing jobs across the country. Those who applied were offered work selling cocaine, including £280 a day in Wigan and a job with accommodation in Exeter. People smugglers advertising on the app also offered to ship Albanians in trouble with the law back to Europe for as little as £2,500.
The documentary, The Drug Lords Next Door, airs tonight. In it, an Albanian migrant known as Granit admits crossing the Channel illegally to work in Britain's drugs trade after a relative paid for his journey on condition he worked for the dealers. He told Sky News: "We used a motorboat to head to Britain." Asked whether others on board were heading for the drugs trade too, he said: "Yes. The majority of them had set off with this idea in mind."
Asylum accommodation and scale of arrivals
Granit was housed at taxpayers' expense in an asylum hotel upon arrival, before leaving to work in a cannabis farm near Manchester. He has since returned to Albania but spoke to Sky anonymously for fear of reprisals.
In 2022, Albanians made up almost a third of small boat arrivals, the largest single nationality crossing the Channel that year.
Official warnings and the business model
Frank Stewart of the National Crime Agency said: "There's an unknown number here illegally." He warned that the gangs could no longer be separated from people smuggling, adding: "You cannot untwine them from those involved in organised immigration crime, and there are Albanian organised crime groups who do their own trafficking of bringing people in illegally into the UK."
Sky's investigation found smuggling now runs both ways, with one social media account bragging: "We transport boys with problems from the UK to Europe. Safe trip every week." Those wanted by British police could be smuggled back to Albania in lorries for £2,500 a head.
Former police officer David McKelvey said: "It's as if it's a major corporation advertising and recruiting for staff." He described the so-called "deal phones" as the heart of the trade: "The phone is the business. All of your clients are on your phone. You're effectively buying a business."
The NCA's Mr Stewart said: "We estimate the Albanian organised crime groups have primary control over the importation of cocaine into the country."
Broader impact and documentary release
The documentary also examines Franc Copja, a former Tottenham resident accused by Albanian prosecutors of running one of Europe's biggest cocaine networks. Kathryn Westmore of UK Finance warned buyers: "This is not a victimless crime, somebody buying cocaine for their night out. There's a whole history in that one transaction which takes you back to exploited people, vulnerable people, violence. This is all part of the same ecosystem, and it touches all of our lives."
The Drug Lords Next Door will be available on Sky News and Sky Documentaries from November 13 at 9pm. It was commissioned by Sky's in-house documentary unit Full Story Films and made with Quicksilver Media.
