THEY rule Britain’s £5-billion-a-year cocaine trade with an iron fist and brazenly show off their ill-gotten gains.
Now have become so blatant they are even recruiting corrupt former cops from their home country into their criminal networks, a Sun can reveal.
Albanians have over the past two decades after forming an alliance with deadly Latin American .
And ex-officers from , which has a massive issue with corruption, have been caught dealing and guarding farms in the UK.
Experts say the former law enforcers are “gold”; to UK-based of how police work to snare big-time drug dealers.
Evrin Karamuco, professor of criminology at Tirana State University in Albania, told Flying Eze how the ex-cops act as “advisers”; to .
He said: “There are cases where former police officers have been dismissed from their due to abusive behaviour, corruption or ties to criminal groups.
“They have exploited their connections to the criminal underworld to find new opportunities, becoming key members of gangs.
“Some groups believe that their knowledge of police tactics will help them evade detection by the British police.
“We understand from certain wiretaps by Albanian law enforcement agencies that they become the most important instructors and advisers to criminals.”;
Last December ex-Albanian cop Igli Ajazi was caught with members of a major organised gang while on a visa to study criminology at ’s Roehampton university.
Ajazi, who worked as a cop in north Albania, from 2019 to 2022, told arresting officers he was on a “career break”;.
He was caught when police in swooped on a car linked to a London-based Albanian drugs clan.
The 28-year-old’s phone revealed messages relating to a large-scale cannabis growing operation in the capital as well as perverted videos of child abuse and depravity, which he claimed were connected to his previous job.
Ajazi was given a 20-month sentence, suspended for two years, placed on a rehabilitation course and given 180 hours of community service.
Shameless covers
Football-loving ex-cop Admir Hidri, 25, paid a heavy price for getting mixed up with gangsters after jumping out the window of a cannabis house and breaking his back.
Hidri, of Failsworth, Gtr , claimed to the city crown that he was dragged into crime after borrowing cash from a local underworld figure to fund treatment for his sick mother in Albania.
He said he was forced to work off his debt by travelling to Britain to guard a house in Failsworth, where cannabis plants with a street value of £70,000 were discovered.
Hidri was jailed for two years and six months despite claiming to be “in fear of his life”; and breaking two vertebrae by jumping out a window when police raided the property.
Another one-time Balkan cop tried to stay in Britain after serving three years for intent to supply cocaine.
Klisman Sykaj appealed against his deportation to Albania in 2022 after sneaking into the UK 11 years earlier, being sent home, then re-entering in 2018.
He was caught red-handed after UK police raided his flat in Nottingham in 2015 and found cocaine hidden in a cooker.
Sykaj claimed he worked for Interpol before finally admitting the truth.
After being deported following jail, the 34-year-old worked as a cop in Albania where his job ironically involved transporting prisoners.
He came back to Britain and was caught with fake Italian ID papers.
Police in Albania aren’t paid much and are ripe for manipulation
Albanian insider
He appealed to stay, claiming mobsters were chasing him, but his application was denied.
In April last year, Igli Duka, 24, was jailed for two years for growing hundreds of cannabis plants in an industrial unit in West Lothian.
He claimed a notorious gangster he had previously arrested in his home country had blackmailed him into being a “gardener”; at the site.
A fifth policeman worked undercover infiltrating the Albanian mafia but claims to have been sucked into drug dealing when his cover was blown.
Maurisio Malaj, 30, was given a two-year sentence, suspended for two years, after being caught selling coke to crime bosses.
In 2021, his lawyer claimed he left his home country for the UK after Albanian henchmen torched his dad’s car.
‘Like gold'
Now Albanian drug gangs have become synonymous with garish music videos on social media, where they pose with jewellery, cash and flash cars.
The most infamous is The Hellbanianz, based on the Gascoigne Estate in Barking, East London.
They are cashing in on the demand for coke with around 2.5million UK users — making us the worst country in for cocaine usage, and second in the world behind America.
Albania’s police force has faced massive issues with corruption, with even senior cops arrested.
Oltian Bistri, the head of an elite team of officers, was arrested two years ago for corruption and money laundering and prosecutors have seized £4million of his family’s assets.
Another officer, Dedan Gjoni has been charged with drug trafficking for Latin American gangs.
There is hope of a crackdown, with one Albanian insider telling Flying Eze: “A new unit of special prosecutors has been established to root out rotten cops using EncroChat phone encryption.”;
However, it may be a hard task, as the insider continued: “Ex-cops are like gold to crime gangs.
“Their knowledge of how to evade detection is priceless.
“Police in Albania aren’t paid much and are ripe for manipulation.
“The basic wage is about £850 a month and it’s difficult for them to rise up the ranks and get higher pay.
“There’s corruption at every level and has been for many years.”;
