Albanian migrants, including those arriving by small boats, are being detained at a rate of one person every two days. The Telegraph writes that during the first three months of the year, some 63 Albanians were sent to prison for a total of 207 years. Albanians make up 9 percent of all prisoners in British prisons, and many of them are believed to have crossed the Channel illegally to enter Britain.
The Balkan nation has the highest proportion of the 10,376 foreign nationals held in prisons in England and Wales, followed by Ireland and Poland, both with 7 percent. Drug-related offences and burglary accounted for many of the sentences handed down from January to March, but one individual was found guilty of murdering his three-month-old baby.
Each prisoner will cost taxpayers £60,018 a year to keep in prison, almost £800 million if they all serve their full sentences. The rise in Albanian nationals being imprisoned has been blamed on a surge in small boat arrivals in 2022, when a record number of 12,551 arrived in the UK.
National Crime Agency (NCA) bosses said at the time that a significant number of Albanians in the UK had entered illegally to work on the “grey” market or for criminal drug gangs, and were sending “hundreds of millions of pounds” to Albania every year.
The NCA said the lure of the grey economy, which lures migrants to work in construction, as waiters, car wash workers or as barbers for £100 a day, was “quite significant” for poor Albanians. Among those jailed in March were two Albanian brothers, Kreshnik and Vitlum Hasanaj, who were each jailed for five years for the large-scale supply of cocaine in Maidstone, Kent, via a dedicated phone number known as the Vito line.
Drug dealer Henri Nicolli, 19, was jailed for six years and three months after several converted guns and the remains of a cannabis farm were found at his home in Potters Bar, Hertfordshire. The prisoners included a gang of five Albanian men linked to more than 40 burglaries across the Midlands and the north of England, in which they stole more than £1m in property, including jewellery, designer handbags, watches and cash.
Last month, Klevi Pirjani was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his three-month-old son, Miguel. Scans showed that the baby suffered a fractured skull and other fractures in the weeks before his death. Foreign offenders who receive sentences of 12 months or more are automatically subject to deportation orders after they are imprisoned.
New laws introduced by the Labour Party will deport some prisoners as soon as they are sentenced. Under current rules, they can leave after serving just 30 percent of their sentences. Under a fast-track deal with Albania, the government has deportation flights to the Balkan country almost every week. Last week, 50 criminals and rejected asylum seekers were deported with total sentences of almost 70 years in prison.
Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, wrote on X: I pledged to increase the removal of illegal immigrants, and we have done so. Nearly 60,000 illegal immigrants and criminal aliens have been removed or deported, but we must go further. I will do whatever it takes to restore order and control.
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