Deported Albanians paying up to £20k to sneak back into UK

– Long read –

Deported Albanian criminals are paying up to £20,000 to sneak back into the UK and continue their illegal operations.

Albania is the only country where there are regular, often weekly deportation flights of criminals who have either completed their sentences or have volunteered to finish their jail terms in their home country.

But analysis of court records shows multiple cases of Albanian criminals being sentenced for further offences after returning to the UK.

Many are smuggled back into the UK in the back of lorries or in yachts in breach of deportation orders, with some paying as much as £20,000 to do so. This is despite facing jail sentences of up to five years for doing so.

The Telegraph previously revealed how an Albanian burglar fighting deportation has used social media to show off his six Rolex watches and Lamborghini.

Dorian Puka, 29, has twice been jailed and deported for burglaries before sneaking back into Britain, where he has spent the past year taunting the Home Office with videos of his lavish lifestyle on TikTok.

The Home Office has admitted it is powerless to remove Puka again until his asylum claim has been fully heard, but has warned that foreign criminals should be “in no doubt” of the law being enforced.

Another Albanian who returned to the UK after twice being deported is Dilaver Domi, 31. He first arrived illegally hidden in a HGV in Jan 2019 before being jailed and deported for producing cannabis in 2020. He was back in the UK in 2022 before being jailed for cannabis production again and deported.

He returned again and on May 1 this year was caught by police while travelling in a car in Penrith. Jailing him for 20 months for breaching his deportation order, Judge Nicholas Barker told him: “You have no right to be in this country and you should have got the message by now having been locked up twice and deported twice.”

Two Albanian criminals who had already been deported after spending time in UK prisons illegally returned to Yorkshire before being caught running a £1m cannabis farm. Fatos Demucaj, 34, and Daniel Kabali, 22, were caught when police raided a Woolston Warehouse building in Grattan Road, Bradford, in April.

Both pleaded guilty to breaching their deportation orders and producing cannabis. Kabali was jailed for four years, while Demucaj was sentenced to four years and three months in prison.

Another illegal immigrant was caught dealing drugs in south Essex just nine months after being deported back to Albania. Deonald Loka, 28, had sneaked back into the UK via a flight to Northern Ireland and was living in Basildon. He was sentenced to 13 months in jail with a recommendation that he be deported again.

Albanian illegal immigrant Valentin Roci, 27, who was deported last year after being caught with drugs came straight back to south Essex and was dealing again within months.

He told Basildon Crown Court he had re-entered the UK on a dinghy and been forced to deal drugs to pay off a £4,000 debt to the smuggling gang. He will now be deported again – after serving a 30-month prison sentence.

An Albanian drug dealer who returned to the UK after being deported for drug offences was initially allowed to remain in Britain after appealing to an immigration tribunal.

Stiljano Ziu was jailed for nine months after being convicted of producing cannabis but was released early on condition that he agreed not to return after being deported. In breach of his deportation, he returned and married a Greek national resident in the UK, on the basis of which he claimed the right to remain in the UK.

He was backed by a lower and upper immigration tribunal, on the basis that he was not a threat to the public, despite an appeal by the Home Office which said he had shown “blatant disregard” for the immigration controls.

However, Ziu was subsequently convicted of drug dealing, which means he faces deportation for a second time.

Albanian national Meltjan Isufi used a false identity document to re-enter the UK having been deported for drugs offences – and then went on to sell cocaine ‘on a daily basis’ in Chester. Now the 34-year-old has been jailed for six years after his crimes were uncovered following a lengthy police investigation.

Ervin Karamuco, professor of criminology at Tirana state university in Albania, said: “These convicted criminals have close ties with people trafficking criminal groups based in Europe and UK, so it is very easy for them to return again in the UK.

“They know the contact points, the places where crossings happen, and people they need to pay. Sometimes the trafficking for them is done for free in exchange for various tasks carried out in the UK, in the interest of the criminal groups, or it is paid for by the criminal group they belonged to previously so they can return again as crime foot soldiers”.