AMERICAN REACTS TO THE TRUTH ABOUT THE ALBANIAN MAFIA RUNNING LONDON!

TL, what's popping? We are on Twitch, not live, but you can leave a like, comment, subscribe, turn on your post notification bells. Let's continue to grow the family from Chicago to the UK. Right behind me, you see a little warning screen. It could get a little diabolical, but that's all right, man. Twitch.com is where you can catch a live stream. Usernames at the bottom of the screen. We also got Patreon Monday through Sunday. Premier League highlights, UK TV shows, and movies. You hear me? Check out the link down in the description. This is the truth about the Albanian mafia running England. A running London. Shout out to my elbows, man. Talk to me. Talk to me. Nice. >> Copyright disclaimer. Under section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976. Allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Nonprofit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use. No copyright infringement intended. All rights belong to their respective owners. This we got to lock in. You see the disclaimer, man. >> On a dimly lit estate in East London, a group of young men in designer jackets eye every passing stranger with quiet menace. You don't want to be hanging around here, one finally mutters to an outsider. A cold warning cutting through the silence. This >> in London >> is the Gascoin estate embarking Hellbanians territory. Outsiders are unwelcome and after dark the normal rules of London life don't seem to apply. Here the street belongs to a new breed of gangland power. Albanian gangsters who have seized control of these blocks and beyond. >> Boy, they be living a different life them Albanians, man. They like this in Chicago, too. It's a lot of them in Chicago, too. with a mo player. Like they be keeping it real pee in Chicago. Like you don't really be hearing nothing but you be knowing like like it's a restaurant in Skoi, Illinois. Like how is this restaurant still open? Albanians, you feel me? Enforcing their rule with a mix of seductive wealth and brute violence. Halbanians is an Albanian street crew infamous in this part of London. By day, the estate looks like any other lowincome housing project. By night, it's a fortress of the gang's making. Years ago, local residents began noticing flashy sports cars, Ferraris, and Lamborghinis, rolling through the narrow streets. The gang's members, many just in their 20s, proudly flaunted wads of 50 notes and gold Rolexes. And that's my whole thing, man. That's how you know that Albanians are on a like different level. Like I've always like I used to listen to their drill and their music all the time back in the day and like you just knew like out of every crew and every enterprise I'mma use that word out there like they was always together real structure. >> They didn't hide in the shadows. Instead they pined on social media posting slick music videos on YouTube and Instagram. In these clips, masked young men draped in gold chains wrap in Albanian about loyalty and violence, showing off wheel spinning Bentleys and scattering stacks of cash. In one video, a drone camera soarses over the very tower blocks they govern before cutting to scenes of gang members surrounding a Metropolitan Police patrol car, a brazen display of contempt for authority. Before the police and tech companies shut it down, the Helbanian's Instagram account had over a 100,000 followers tuning in. >> They had an in they had an IG account in to see this outlaw lifestyle. The message was unmistakable >> with Google Play G. >> Going to edit that out. >> Banians are ready for war. Armed with AK-47s, the gang likes to brag about their kalash slang for Kalashnikov rifles and backed by an army of soldiers on the streets. Locals have learned to keep their heads down. The Gascoin estate wasn't always under Albanian. >> Oh, Gascoin estate. Okay. >> Control. Back in the mid 1990s, it was a different world. The estate was ruled by old school British crime families. Outsiders, especially people of color, risked a beating if they wandered in. >> Not no more. Albanians accept everybody. That Well, they accept is what I be seeing. Later, a Jamaican gang led by a fearsome boss nicknamed the king, Delroy Lewis, ran a 24/7 open drug market on these blocks, slinging crack cocaine and heroin at all hours. That operation was ruthless and efficient until Lewis's luck ran out. He was taken down and jailed in 2004, leaving a power vacuum on the estate. By that time, the neighborhood's demographics were changing. An influx of refugees from Albania and Kosovo had arrived, fleeing war and chaos in the Balkans. Albanian soon became the second most spoken language around here. And with their community growing and the previous gang boss gone, a new generation of immigrant gangsters saw their opportunity. It wasn't long after Delroyy's downfall that the Albanian flag was metaphorically planted on the Gascoinne. A crew of young Albanians gradually took over the local drug trade and underworld activities. They called themselves Halbanians, a name that blended their heritage with a street hardened identity. And they >> Oh, so it is like the enterprise is called Halbanians. I thought that was just like an umbrella for everybody. You Albanian out there, call yourself Halbanian. But okay, that makes sense. I don't know why I fought what I thought. >> Established a strangle hold on the estate. Rookwood House, a graffiti covered high-rise block nearby, became their headquarters. Its design was perfect for the gang's purposes. Interlocking walkways and a limited number of entry points made it easy to secure against police raids or rival incursions. Lookouts could spot trouble coming from a distance. Inside those concrete corridors, Helbanian's members could organize their business. moving like New York, >> stash drugs and weapons and retreat to safety after making a quick sale on the corner. For years, Rookwood House stood as a symbol of their dominance, even appearing as the backdrop in one of their music videos until a city redevelopment plan finally saw the tower demolished. Only only group I ever seen with a tank in their video. Y'all remember what music video was that? They had that tank. Is this it? Yeah, this it gunner up there. Look at this. How is this legal? But even that didn't weaken Hellbanians. The gang simply shifted operations to a new base a short walk away near a pub that locals quietly avoid once night falls. Every night around 900 p.m., witnesses say the same crew of faces gathers there ready to conduct business. Helbinians has become embedded in the fabric of this community. At times seeming like a part of the local culture, albeit a dark and dangerous part. The hall I got a homie named Amir. I've knew him since I was in like third grade. Albanian. Shout out Amir, man. >> Mark of Helbinians and their peers is a mix of ostentation and intimidation. They recruit heavily from the Albanian youths in London, especially those who see few other opportunities or who are drawn by the promise of fast cars and easy money. The gang's flashy presence, the social media posts, the music boasting of their exploits isn't just for ego. All gangs or enterprises are just a Ponzi scheme. Really, if you really think about it, it's like a pyramid scheme. My bad. Pyramid scheme. You recruit. You recruit. The higher ups reap all the benefits. The lower ups, some of them climb if they got ambition, but most of them just there. It's deliberate propaganda aimed at luring youngers, fresh recruits who are impressed by the gangster glamour. In their videos and posts, Helbanian's members refer to new recruits as falcons, a romanticized term for the foot soldiers eager to fly high on the proceeds of crime. It's a seductive trap. Teenagers are enticed with designer clothes, stacks of cash to fan their faces with, maybe a chance to hold a high-powered motorbike or pose with a pretty girl from the videos. They don't >> You could do all that by yourself. Low key, but you know, there has to be an attraction. >> See the brutal reality that lies beneath. At least not until they're in too deep. The truth is that life in this gang is as disposable as the next kid in line. Anyone who betrays the group or fails to follow orders risks severe punishment. If not a beating or stabbing, then possibly a worse fate. And if rivals encroach on their turf, Helbinians have made it clear they will respond with violence. Their lyrics and online posts openly threaten other gangs. >> They've even taunted a rival. >> Where Albanians be at now? Same area. Albanian outfit known as otr, short for on top of the rest, daring them to clash. It's all carefully curated to project an aura of invincibility on the streets of London. What many casual onlookers don't realize >> I remember reacting to this video right here. >> However, is that Helbanians is only the street level face of a much larger beast. These young men embarking are effectively the foot soldiers and enforcers of what is sometimes called the mafia. The Albanian >> the mafia >> mafia an organized crime network that extends far beyond this one estate. Over the past two decades, Albanian organized crime groups have systematically taken over key parts of Britain's underworld economy. They are not the only foreign criminals in London, of course, but their rise has been particularly spectacular. Once dismissed as newcomers, they are now considered one of the most >> They different though. It's They're like, you know what I compare them to? No offense or don't knock it, but y'all going and y'all going to see they they remind me of the Latin Kings in Chicago. There's so much organization. There's so much hierarchy. There's so much let's have a meeting here. Let's talk about the goals. Let's do this. Let's do that. It's, hey, this is the f like I feel like they sit down and be like that low key. Like it's just a whole lot of structure. They not running around here just all man for himself. No, it's a it's a everybody is together. Most powerful criminal fraternities operating in the UK. The National Crime Agency, Britain's equivalent of the FBI, has warned that Albanian gangs have consolidated power rapidly to the point of nearing a monopoly over the UK's 5 billion a year cocaine trade. From the shipping ports of Europe to the housing projects of London, one criminal network with roots in the Western Balkans has muscled its way to the top of the drug supply chain. To understand how this happened, one has to look back at the history that forged these gangsters. Many of the key players came of age in the 1990s during tumultuous times in Albania and neighboring Kosovo. Those years were marked by economic collapse, lawlessness, and even civil conflict. Young men from that part of the world grew up amid chaos. Some fought in the Kosovo War or survived violent disorder at home. And they carried the hard lessons of that era with them. When Albania's communist regime fell and the country was plunged into poverty and instability, criminal enterprises flourished, a culture of survival at any cost took root in that. That's the thing though, a lot of that happens to a lot of countries and they come to a first world country like America or the UK, but a lot of like even like this is what makes the Halbanians more like more noticeable like like elite level like you know what I'm saying? Most people come, they don't understand what blending is. So they come, they oh man, this sweet here. I'm going to make as much trouble as I can. No, no, no, no. Somebody along the way here had a plan. They was a little chill. Let's get this money. Let's blend. Like, yeah, we going to stand out because we popping it, but at the same time, not overly, you know, at Environment, codes of honor and clan loyalty remained strong, but were applied to new endeavors, smuggling, black market deals, and organized crime. Yeah, >> it's more organized. It ain't just street level stupidity >> concept. Albanian's prize is baser, meaning keeping a promise or trust. >> Among the gangsters, this translates into a reputation for reliability. If an Albanian crime boss strikes a deal, he will deliver on it. That earned them credit and partnerships in the underworld. At the same time, an older tradition called the canon, an eye for an eye honor code that sanctions deadly revenge for betrayals, means these gangsters are also feared. >> You know, typically there's no honor amongst these, but you know, the way they moving, man. When's the last time you heard of an a Albanian snitching? An Albanian snitching? I wouldn't know. I'm asking y'all. I'm posing a question. Leave it in the comments. cross them and retribution can be fatal not just for the offender but potentially for their family back home. This mix of dependable loyalty to allies and merciless vengeance against enemies proved to be a potent formula in the criminal underworld. It allowed Albanian networks to form strong alliances and discouraged others from double crossing them. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as Albania's economy struggled, many ambitious young men looked westward for opportunity. Some immigrated legally or claimed asylum. Others were smuggled illegally into countries like Italy, Belgium, and the UK. London, with its booming economy and established crime networks, was an attractive destination. The Albanians arrived to find certain illicit markets already dominated by others. For instance, the sex trade in London had players from various nationalities. But the newcomers were cunning and highly organized. They started making their mark by focusing on the underbelly of the night economy, prostitution and vice. With frightening speed, Albanian gangs seized control of brothel across various UK cities, ousting or absorbing the competition through a combination of charm and brutality. They became the new pimps and madams behind closed door. But who who is having these conversations to move the needle like that so swiftly? And how how long of a period of time did it take for this all to happen? Like >> countless Eastern European women, some from Albania itself, others from countries like Romania, Lithuania or Slovakia, found themselves trafficked by these networks. >> The Albanians came through like Luca Dantage. You know what I'm saying? Came through with a lot of finesse, but a load of skills. Oh, we balling. We definitely going to hoop, but we going to hoop like you've never seen. And we going to get scoring titles. We going to get MVPs. We going to dog the league. They dogging the league. And I do not glorify this or justify it, YouTube. I'm just saying, man. They going crazy. And why I'm saying that is like it was just like finesse. It was just a lot of skill. It wasn't just brute force. Yeah, there was some force, but it wasn't like it was just I don't know. Y'all get what I'm saying? The metaphor. >> Many were lured with false promises of legitimate work as waitresses or cleaners in England, only to have their passports seized and their bodies sold in backstreet flats and massage parlors. >> The Albanian crime proved especially ruthless in this arena. If a woman disobeyed, she could be beaten or raped into submission. Victims were passed like commodities from one gang member to another, sometimes sold for a price between pimps. Police operations in the 2000s uncovered terrifying cases. Women held captive, abused, and forced to have sex with dozens of men a day under threats of violence. In one >> Is this how they made their money? >> Hold on now. >> Notorious case, a 16-year-old girl was tricked into coming to London and endured over a year in sexual slavery. shuttled between brothel run by an Albanian le gang. When that ring was finally busted, the judge described it as slavery alive and well. The pattern was clear. Albanian gangs were willing to exploit the most vulnerable, impoverished young women in this instance to build their criminal enterprises. It was a sign of things to come, but it was the >> Oh, so they brought their they brutality was in a different arena. drug trade that truly elevated the power of Albanian gangs in London. By the early 2010s, they had shifted much of their focus from prostitution to narcotics and in particular to cocaine. The timing was strategic. Demand for cocaine in the UK has always been high. From city bankers snorting lines in club bathrooms to >> oh on God to the dentist, even the police, >> street dealers pushing crack rocks on corner blocks. Traditionally, the cocaine business in Britain involved a chain of different groups. South American cartels would get the product to Europe. Dutch or Belgian wholesalers would distribute it and various British gangs from Liverpoolian crime families to West Indian. >> So what did the Albanians do? They they deleted all middlemen. Probably >> yardis or local London did it all themselves would handle retail on the streets. It was an old system with many middlemen and a lot of markups along the way. The Albanians saw an opportunity to upend that entire model and they took it. Sometime around the late 2000s, enterprising Albanian kingpins did something unprecedented. They negotiated directly with the Colombian and Latin American cartels producing the cocaine. Cutting out the longtime Dutch wholesalers, the Albanians arranged massive shipments of cocaine to be delivered straight from South America to they took like the Frank Lucas approach. Cut out every middleman and did it every like I already knew that man. That's why they that's where all that money came from. >> Europe often through ports they had connections in. Suddenly they weren't just street dealers. They were importers. In doing so, they achieved two major advantages over every other dealer in Britain. First, they got the cocaine at rock bottom prices. While other gangs might have been paying over 20,000 for a kilo of coke via the quality was the albian could get that same kilo for perhaps 4 to 5,000 by going straight to the >> damn 14th. Oh yeah, my bad. I'm too into this. I'm really Okay. >> Second, they ensured the purity of their product remained high. No more heavily cut, weak cocaine. They were bringing in high purity bricks, then distributing them with only minimal dilution. This meant that on the street, Albanian supplied cocaine was both cheaper and stronger than what competitors were selling. That's a fact. By the time it come down that pot pipeline, boy, it's probably hit a million times. They they taking all that away. >> For drug users and lower level dealers, that combination was irresistibly profitable. It was a revolution in the UK underworld. Virtually overnight, Albanian networks undercut their rivals and won a huge share of the market. If you were a smalltime dealer in London by the 2010s, chances are your supplier's supplier was Albanian. >> So, how many wars did that incite, though? The mafia skippiper had in effect become the new wholesale club for cocaine and they did it while maintaining tight control. Albanian gangs don't just import the drugs and hand them off. They often control the whole supply chain from port to point of sale. It's a vertically integrated business model. One crew oversees the smuggling from say Latin America to a port in Belgium or Spain. Another branch handles trucking it clandestinely into the UK. perhaps hidden in shipments of produce or building materials. Yet another faction deals with breaking it down and distributing to regional managers and street level teams like Helbanians push it to customers and enforce territory. By owning each step, they maximize profit and minimize dependence. Oh god. I think the internet the internet and all of this these music videos and that ruined it for them. I like they still opberating though on outsiders. The extent of their operation occasionally flashes into public view when a big police bust goes down. In early 2021, for example, an astonishing discovery was made at Portsmouth Port. Border Force officers inspected what looked like a regular shipment of bananas from Colombia. But hidden among the pallets of fruit were dense packages of cocaine, 2.7 tons of it in total, with a potential street value north of 200 million. >> The largest cocaine seizures in UK history. >> God, let me get about two of them. >> Investigators soon learned that an Albanianled crime group was behind this [ __ ] >> Damn. The gang had even acquired a legitimate fruit import company in London, using it as a front to bring in drug laden cargos. They >> see how deep they went, how intricate they got. This is like a This is the Colombians did this too though. And to distribute the Coke all across London and beyond, dividing it up by batches marked with unique stamps corresponding to different customer gangs. When armed NCA officers raided a warehouse in Tottenham to intercept the delivery, they found members of the smuggling crew frantically tearing through banana boxes, desperately searching for the missing cocaine they thought had slipped past customs. The gang had prepared dozens of empty cardboard boxes to conceal the drugs for further transport and even had a stash of suitcases ready, likely to be filled with cash profits. Hidden in the rafters of the warehouse, the police found a firearm and ammunition, evidence that this was a highly organized and dangerous outfit. Among those arrested were multiple Albanian nationals alongside a couple of associates from other countries. A reminder that while the Albanian mafia often works within its own ethnicity, it's not averse to partnering with anyone who can facilitate the business. Stories like that banana shipment bust highlight both the ambition and the >> I have a theory. Doesn't sound like that theory works with this case, but all huge Pablo Escobars, they throw they throw a fish a bone sometimes. Yeah. Go ahead, intercept that shipment. Go celebrate with your friends and your bureaus while we take this through this the real shipment through the back door. I have my theory. >> International reach of these gangs. The tentacles of the Albanian mafia extend from the cocoa fields of South America to the docks of Antwerp and Dover and from the council estates of London to high-end European casinos where profits might be laundered. They move with a blend of old school gangsterism and modern high-tech savvy. On one hand, they rely on trusted familial bonds and face-to-face meetings, cementing deals with a handshake and their word baser. On the other, they embrace. >> How many of these bricks y'all think came up missing or were unaccounted for? I know they was n you got to be somebody in here was taking one or two. >> Encryption technology to coordinate crime. A recent law enforcement operation revealed just how deeply embedded Albanian traffickers were in the clandestine communications networks used by organized crime. In 2020, European police hacked into an encrypted phone system called Encroat, which was a secret text messaging network favored by drug lords and gun runners across the continent. The results were explosive. Millions of hidden messages were suddenly visible to authorities. raids followed in the UK. Operation Venetic targeted dozens of major criminals identified through Encroat and many of them were Albanians. One was a 33-year-old man named Bjar Cosminka living inconspicuously on a busy high street in Wembley, northwest London. Cosmina was no street dealer. He was a logistics man for an Albanian organized crime group, coordinating multi-million pound drug deals from behind an innocuous front door. When armed officers finally arrested Cosmina in May 2021, they found nearly £300,000 in cash hidden across two of his properties. Ledgers discovered on-site detailed an illicit business moving at least 100 kg of cocaine worth around8 million on the street and laundering roughly 2.5 million in dirty money. >> Jeez. Cosmina had been operating under a pseudonmous handle, insatiable beta, as he brokered deals via encrypted texts. Confident that the police could never read his messages, he arranged narcotic shipments around the country and moved hundreds of thousands of pounds weekly. >> That's the mistake. Anything on that internet they can get. They can get it. Anything. The only thing that I heard allegedly, and I heard this in GTA 6, all you could do is FaceTime and wear a mask. Can't get that. All while London was under the quiet of COVID lockdowns. Unbeknownst to him, investigators were watching his every text in real time once Enchat was cracked. When the case finally came to court, the evidence was overwhelming. Faced with transcripts of his own boasts and orders Minka pleaded guilty. The judge sentenced him to 12 years in prison in 2024. >> Oh, that's a hefty sentence, but perhaps a small price in the context of the empire he was helping to run. >> Did he have to return the money? >> Yeah, of course he did. >> Astonishingly, this wasn't Cosmina's first run-in with British law. He had been caught nearly a decade earlier for similar crimes. convicted in 2012 for conspiracy to supply class A drugs. After that conviction, he was deported to Albania only to quietly slip back into the UK under a false identity or hidden amongst the waves of illegal entrance to resume business. That determination to defy law enforcement and the ease with which he returned underscore the challenge authorities face. For every cosmina taken off the streets that >> apparently it ain't that difficult to get over the in over there. >> There may be another to fill his role. Sometimes even the same individual returning for a second round. The higher echelons of the Albanian mafia remain notoriously hard to reach. While foot soldiers like Helbanians flash their bling and occasionally get busted in spectacular police operations, the true kingpins often maintain a much lower profile. Some are believed to operate from abroad, coordinating shipments and finances from safe havens in continental Europe or even back in Albania where they can live in fortified luxury with their illgotten wealth. They use layers of intermediaries and counter surveillance techniques to stay a step ahead of the cops. And due to that code of silence and loyalty, flipping an Albanian gang member to become an informant is exceedingly rare. >> Told you. Told you. I've never And then I've never I've heard about some snitches over in the Yukon. None of them have ever been Albanian. Not a single one. Never heard of it. These guys know that betrayal could bring lethal consequences not just for themselves but for their relatives back home. It's been noted that the old generation of Albanian crime lords actually frowned upon the flashy antics of Helbians precisely because it threatened to draw attention to their far larger, more profitable operations. >> Told you. I told you the internet and all this music and all of this flashiness was their downfall. What >> these older bosses would rather the business of drug trafficking and money laundering carry on quietly embedded in the city's fabric without Instagram or YouTube alerting the world to their presence. Still, even the most discreet criminal enterprise has real repercussions. And in the case of Albanian gangs in London, the impact on communities has been profound. They have effectively controlled the streets in certain districts, not in an overt political sense, but through fear and influence. Neighborhoods like the one around Gascoin Estate have residents who feel that an invisible hand determines what happens after dark. Which corners are safe? Who can sell drugs where? And who gets punished for stepping out of line? I think 2026, this past summer in the UK, has really showed you what's still alive. that underbelly is still alive and thriving and they're going to war over territory and all of this stuff, man. The gangs also siphon wealth out of these communities. Money from local addicts or from young people drawn into dealing flows upward into the criminal coffers and often overseas. And there's another dark side. These networks exploit vulnerable communities at every step of their operation, both in the UK and back in their homeland. Consider the pipeline that brings an Albanian gang member from a village in the Balkans to a street corner in London. It often starts with a lie. In remote towns of Albania, where jobs are scarce and hope even scarcer, whispers spread of opportunities in England. Sometimes it's a local fixer, maybe someone who himself spent time in Britain who tells impressionable young men that they can make a fortune across the channel. And then even at that, you put them in jail. You think it stopped there? It's even more lucrative in jail. No, they don't want to be in jail. Of course. But you know what I'm saying? They making it happen in there no matter where we put them. Recent years, this recruitment has gone digital. On Tik Tok and other social media, flashy videos targeted at Albanian youth have glorified the journey to the UK. One clip that circulated showed a small boat speeding across a choppy sea toward the white cliffs of Dover emlazened with the caption, "Fuck school. Let's take the boat to England." It's a brazen marketing ploy by the smugglers. Ditch your humble life. Come get rich in the land of opportunity. Well, god damn. >> What they don't advertise is the price of the trip, often thousands of pounds and the strings attached. By 2022, an unprecedented number of Albanians were appearing on England's southern shores in flimsy inflatable boats, part of the wider migrant crisis. Many were immediately claiming asylum, citing persecution or danger back home. While some of those claims were genuine, Albania has issues like blood feud violence, domestic abuse, and anti-LGBT persecution that can make life dangerous for certain individuals. A portion of these arrivals were effectively foot soldiers in waiting for the gangs. British officials noticed a pattern. Organized criminal groups had embedded themselves in the migrant routes. Albanian gangs were operating around the migrant camp, >> not a woman in sight, >> camps in northern France, offering passage to the UK for those who couldn't afford it in exchange for a future debt. Young men who agreed to these terms often didn't realize exactly what awaited them. They might have thought they'd work construction or some job to pay off what they owed the smugglers. >> No, cuz you in the streets with it. You gang gang now. It's over. Read the fine print next time. And I like y'all giving them a out, Mr. Documentary Man, but some didn't know, some knew for sure. The reality was often more grim. Once in Britain, cut off from family and hiding from authorities, these men found the smugglers transformed into their handlers. They were told they had debts running into tens of thousands of pounds, far more than the original cost of the journey, padded with brutal interest. To repay it, they had two choices. Either toil in the underground economy for slave wages or directly involve themselves in the gang's criminal enterprises. The journey through Europe was harrowing, packed in lorries, hiding in safe houses, and finally a dangerous nighttime boat ride across the channel. There are many young Albanian men invisible in plain sight across the UK. What >> on my life? I want to say right now like I would never but who knows though like whatever like if I was from somewhere else and it was going crazy and I needed to get away can't say I wouldn't know can't say I would I can't swim though give me two life vesting cars working on construction sites for cash guarding cannabis grows in suburban houses effectively indentured to the criminal networks that brought them in they blend in because they're mostly white and speak a bit of English. People assume they're just another migrant worker from Eastern Europe, maybe Polish or Romanian, but in reality, they are victims of trafficking, every bit as much under the thumb of their employers as a woman in a brothel or a child in a sweat shop. The Albanian gangs, >> so the Albanians, they going to exploit you no matter how they going to do it, but they will do it. >> Exploit these men viciously, knowing they won't go to the police. They're too scared and often ineligible to stay legally. One charity worker in London remarked that the levels of violence and intimidation used by these traffickers are shocking. >> So it's like pretty much a to in their eyes like it's a finesse. So we call it finesse in Chicago. Like a finesse is like see how I want to put this like it's not really the same but it kind of is. A finesse is like where you got somebody and you taking their stuff and they definitely can't go to the police. Like you're a criminal. I'mma rob you of some stuff you not supposed to have. And under this code and because you have this stuff, you can't go tell on me. It's a finesse. >> She said it's hard to comprehend how brutally >> Oh, my bad. It's a lick. So this is kind of like a lick. Not a finesse. I'm tweaking. I'm tired. It's a lick. the young men are treated because people normally associate trafficking with women and sexual exploitation, not with adult males doing manual labor. Yet here it is. Modern slavery hidden behind the facade of normal odd jobs. Then there are the women. Decades after first musling into the sex trade, Albanian crime groups are still deeply involved. >> I can't respect that. in pimping and human trafficking for sexual exploitation. A woman named Zanna, not her real name, tells a familiar story. She was approached in Toronto with an offer to work as a nanny in London. Desperate to improve her life, she agreed and was slipped into Britain with a fake passport. >> Damn, you was already in Toronto. I would have stayed, where I was. >> The moment she arrived, the nightmare began. Her handlers took her documents and beat her. >> Damn. >> She was told she'd be working off a huge debt. Zanna ended up in a massage parlor in Soho, forced to serve up to a dozen men a day, never seeing a penny of the money. Whenever she resisted, her pimp, an Albanian man who had himself once been an exploited teen in the drug trade before earning a promotion to running girls, burned her with cigarettes. It took months before police, acting on a tip, raided the place and freed her. By then, the damage, physical and psychological, was done. Zanna was just one of many. In cities across Europe, Albanian-run prostitution rings have been busted where women from all over Eastern Europe, including Albania's own rural areas, were kept in inhumane conditions. It's another way these gangs prey on the hopes of the vulnerable. Every person who dreams of a better life can be a tool for them. Whether that's a young man who thinks he can strike it rich selling drugs or a young woman who thinks she's getting a legitimate job abroad, the common denominator is the exploitation of desperation. The facts and the ignorance and I don't say ignorant the word ignorant to be harsh. I mean literal the definition just uneducated about the situation. If anything sounds too good to be true, it's too good to be true. Period. Nothing is sweet. Everything is an exchange and you got to be aware of it, man. You have to be aware of it. >> Even within the UK, Albanian gangsters find ways to exploit local vulnerabilities. They've been known to recruit British teens as well, especially runaways or kids from troubled homes to work as street dealers or drug couriers. The rise of the Albanian cocaine importers actually made things hotter on the streets for a lot of British gangs. Suddenly, cocaine was everywhere, cheaper and purer than ever, and smaller UK gangs saw they could make quick profits selling it in their neighborhoods or through so-called county lines. The practice of urban gangs sending young dealers to rural towns to flood those areas with drugs. Gun violence and knife crime ticked up in various cities as turf wars flared over this lucrative trade. In one particularly tragic incident in 2019, a 14-year-old boy named Jaden was murdered in a gang related attack in East London, an area where officials noted the competition over the coke business had become fierce after prices dropped. >> Whole lot of Glocks. >> While Jaden's death wasn't directly tied to Albanians, the police suspected that the volatility in the local drug scene. >> See, you see what I be saying? Like my thought process, my thought process be right on though. I told you that that that drop in price and cutting out all these middlemans and taking everybody's undercutting everybody. Who? So who y'all warning with then? Everybody is the answer. >> Spurred by the influx of high-grade cocaine from the Albanian pipelines created an environment where younger and younger kids were getting sucked into deadly feuds. It's a ripple effect of the Albanian strangle hold on the drug supply. By making coke widely available and relatively cheap, they inadvertently empowered countless smaller criminal outfits to get into the trade, many of whom employed youths as runners. Those youths became both perpetrators and victims of new rounds of violence. Essentially, the criminal monopoly has trickled down mayhem into some of Britain's most deprived communities. Law enforcement in London and throughout the UK is painfully aware of the problem. The National Crime Agency has a dedicated unit working on Albanian organized crime and police forces have upped collaboration with European partners. There have been successes like the banana shipment interception, like the Encroat takedowns, like numerous raids on cannabis farms and brothel that saved trafficked victims from hellish conditions. The NCA and Metropolitan Police have even run joint operations, storming cafes and social clubs in London, suspected of being hubs for people smuggling gangs. In one recent series of Dawn raids, officers targeted an Albanian run network that was advertising illegal channel crossings on social media. They arrested several suspects in London. >> Boy, this is the hottest thing I ever like, why would y'all do this? How did y'all When did y'all thought y'all wasn't going to get caught? three Albanian men and a woman from Eastern Europe who were allegedly offering to smuggle migrants in trucks and small boats, then facilitating their exploitation once in the UK. A senior official described these groups as vile gangs who exploit vulnerable people to make money, vowing to dismantle them piece by piece. The British government has a DM >> also tried to respond on a policy level, signing agreements with France to bolster beach patrols and with Albania to streamline deportations of criminals. New laws promise tougher sentences for traffickers and gang leaders. But for all these efforts, the Albanian mafia's grip is not easily broken. >> No, the money is too lucrative. They don't care. When something becomes too lucrative, it's over with. They don't give a damn, boy. They coming back. They coming back and y'all ain't doing nothing about this. It's super relaxed. They coming back. Part of the difficulty is sheer economics. As long as there is a fortune to be made from drugs and illegal >> just migration. These gangs will keep finding recruits and new strategies to evade law enforcement. And the pipeline is self-relenishing. Many Albanians who come to the UK are not criminals. They are ordinary people seeking a better life. Yet, the blanket stigma that has formed, fueled by sensationalist media coverage and even inflammatory political rhetoric, calling the arrivals an invasion, often pushes these newcomers into the margins, where they can become easy prey for the criminal networks. Distrusted by society and desperate for income, some fall right into the waiting arms of the gangs who speak their language and offer under the table opportunities. inside prisons. The influence is notable, too. >> There it is. Remember I just spoke on inside prison. This is just like clockwork, man. >> Albanians have become one of the largest foreign nationality groups in UK jails, disproportionately represented considering the relatively small size of the Albanian community in Britain. Drug convictions and trafficking cases have filled cell blocks with Albanian speaking inmates. Some continue to run aspects of their operations from behind bars using smuggled phones. After all, their connections outside remain intact, and many have loyal subordinates ready to follow orders, even if the boss is locked up. Meanwhile, on the outside, there's always someone eager to climb the ranks. Every time a crime boss is extradited or a local gang leader gets put away, a competitor or a left tenant steps up to keep the business going. The profits are simply too large and the ties of blood and clan too strong for the enterprise to wither easily. For Londoners living under this shadow economy, daily life goes on, but with a keen awareness of what lurks in the background. A pub owner in an area with a lot of Albanian immigrants might notice a table of quiet, muscle-bound young men who come in at odd hours, paying in cash, speaking only among themselves in Albanian, and wonder if they're part of them. A mother on the Gascoin estate might know which blocks to steer her teenage son away from, fearing he'll be seduced or bullied by the gang hanging out there. A user looking to score cocaine in the city these days might simply call a number and have an efficient delivery made Uber style, never realizing how many layers of gang hierarchy and exploitation were involved in getting that powder into his pocket. Late at night, >> never cared probably either. In certain parts of London, you might catch a glimpse of a slick BMW with blacked out windows idling at a street corner. Maybe you'll see a quick handoff, cash for a small packet, and the car speeds away. Did I tell y'all one day in Chicago I was out in River North with my boy Jamar? Shout out Jamar, man. Call him Tattoos. We was coming out of Sun Club and he I went to 7-Eleven on the corner and I guess he stayed out. He got he met some girls and I came out and he was like, "Man, I got these girls. Come over here. Say what's up." And then I walked up to the girls and then they shook my hand. I said, "How y'all doing?" Had a little small conversation and the dicks pulled up on us. We called pause. We called undercover cops that they pulled up on us. They put their lights on and I'm just thinking they going past me like you know what I'm saying like oh I'm in y'all way let me get out your way and they say get on the ground I'm who me you mean we seen a hand to hand handshake we seen a hand to hand gesture I'm like damn you can't even say you can't even introduce yourself to nobody and I all I say is that's the case then why you not getting at them getting at them for for soliciting or or trying to purchase. You know what I'm saying? Like he ain't had no answer. I was like, "Man, you you just seen a black dude. That's all. That's what that meant." I was like, "Okay, well, it is what >> the streets fall quiet again." But you know that transaction is just one of hundreds happening that night. Part of a vast invisible web spun by Albanian gangs. In a different neighborhood, the back room of a cafe hums with low conversation in Albanian. An older man, a community elder perhaps, pleads with some younger men to stay out of trouble, but they have already been running minor errands for the local gang, and the lure of easy money is strong. Across town, a police team executes a raid on a nondescript house. Inside, they find row upon row of cannabis plants and two half-st starved Vietnamese teenagers who were locked in to tend this illegal farm, victims of another branch of this sprawling criminal enterprise. And somewhere in an Albania, >> we've literally done documentaries on everything. >> Ian village. Another family says goodbye to a son or daughter heading for London, praying they'll be safe, not knowing if they're destined for honest work or to fall into the clutches of those who would exploit them. This is the underworld ecosystem that has developed, one that feeds on poverty, fear, and greed. Stretching from the Balkans to Britain. The Albanian gangs in London have mastered the art of controlling the streets, not by openly claiming turf like in an old mafia movie, but through subtler means. They control through the >> more finesse. I told you subtler means more finesse. >> Supply of drugs, through the debts that tie people to them, through the fear they instill by the occasional act of outrageous violence as an example to all. Their power is equal parts bullet and myth. the gun that will be used if necessary and the legend of ruthless efficiency that often means they don't even need to pull the trigger. For the vulnerable, this is a nightmare hidden in plain sight. For the gangs, it's a lucrative business model. And for the authorities and communities fighting back, it's like battling the many headed hydra of Greek law. Cut off one head and two more emerge. >> Yet, there are glimmers of hope. Each rescued trafficking victim, each major drug seizure, each conviction of a gang leader hits at their empire bit by bit. There's no hope. You just said it. One head, two come up. Don't matter. >> Community organizations are working to give young Albanians alternatives to the gang path and to support those who have been victimized so they aren't driven back into the hands of their abusers. Still, the struggle is far from over. As midnight approaches in London, business is just beginning for some. In the shadows of a council estate, an Albanian dealer counts a roll of cash from tonight's sales. While a few floors above, a user lies in a stuper from the product he's just bought. In a cramped bedsit across the city, a trafficked man rests aching limbs after another day of labor, wondering if he'll ever truly be free. And in the corner of a noisy pub, two gang associates whisper about the next big shipment coming in. This is the legacy that Albanian gangs have wrought on London's streets. A mix of predation and opportunism, of promises and pain. It's a world ordinarily unseen by law-abiding citizens, but its effects ripple through society in crime statistics, in hospitals treating stab wounds and overdoses, and in the silent suffering of those exploited behind closed doors. The story of how Albanian gangs came to control these streets and exploit the vulnerable. >> Very interesting. A lot of stuff I didn't know. >> Vulnerable is ultimately a story of power taken and abused. It's about a rise from immigrant underdogs to underworld kingpins. It's the tale of young men hardened by war and poverty, banding together in foreign lands and carving out an empire in the only way they knew through crime. It's about communities failed by social systems both in Albania and in Britain becoming breeding grounds for exploitation. And it's about the symbiosis of predator and prey. Gangsters who thrive on desperation and desperate people who fall under the gangster's thr. As dawn approaches, the city begins to stir and the gangsters of the night retreat to their bolt holes. London carries on largely oblivious to the parallel world that exists in its midst. They're not oblivious. >> But the shadows remain. In those shadows, Albanian crime lords and their foot soldiers. >> If still nobody can be oblivious. If somebody rules the day, somebody has to rule the night. >> Continue to run their ruthless enterprises shaping the lives of countless people. From the addicts on the corner to the teens on the estate to the families an entire continent away. It's an immersive, unsettling reality. one where the streets of London for all their bustle and brightness are also hunting grounds for a criminal network that rose from distant mountains to rule by fear and fraud. This is how they control the streets and this is how they exploit the vulnerable in a cycle that authorities and communities are desperately working to break. >> Won't be broken. >> Harsh reality won't be broken. Even as the Albanian mafia's story in London continues to unfold in a deadly ongoing saga. >> Yeah. TL. Leave a like, comment, subscribe, turn on your post notifications. Let me know what you think.