Albanian authorities have confirmed that most of its citizens forcibly returned from the UK this year were convicted of crimes there. The BBC spoke to several men on deportation flights and learned that some prisoners were offered £1,500 to leave - and some plan to come back illegally, paying up to £20,000 to smugglers.
Deportation flights to Albania have increased since the country signed a joint agreement with the UK last December. The Home Office says more than 1,000 people have been returned since then, around half voluntary, the rest failed asylum seekers and foreign offenders.
One 30-year-old man, who served two years of a six-year sentence for drug offences, was released early under the Early Release Scheme (ERS). He also received £1,500 under the Facilitated Return Scheme (FRS), a financial incentive for foreign prisoners to co-operate with deportation and waive appeal rights.
Several deportees said they planned to return to the UK within weeks or days, despite a new hard-line approach by UK police. One man already deported twice said he paid smugglers £20,000 for his return. The UK Nationality and Borders Act abolished the expiry date for unserved sentences, meaning those returning illegally must serve the remainder of their sentence.
