How Albanian drug barons are making a mockery of Britain’s immigration system by sneaking back despite being deported
WHEN police busted Bujar Cozminca for flooding Britain with £8million worth of cocaine, they were dealing with a familiar face.
The Albanian gangster, 33 had already been booted out of the country on drugs charges nine years earlier, yet was easily able to sneak back into the UK to build up his criminal empire.
He is one of a growing number of high-profile Albanians nicknamed the Boomerang Gang.
They are making a mockery of Britain’s immigration system — sneaking in and out of the UK despite being deported.
An intelligence source told The Sun: “It’s an utter disgrace. They get jailed and kicked out only to come back into Britain and carry on where they left off. They are in and out so often they joke about being boomerangs.”
A Sun probe reveals how easy it is for crooks to get into the country in the back of lorries and in small boats.
In the past four years, at least 12 major Albanian criminals have come back to the UK after being kicked out.
Kingpin Cozminca was first deported in 2012 after serving 21 months for conspiracy to supply drugs.
He was sent back to Albania but returned to build up his drugs empire.
When he was arrested for a second time in 2021, police found he was involved in buying and supplying 100kg of coke, with a street value of £8million and had laundered £2.5million of criminal cash.
Using the codename “insatiable beta”, Cozminca negotiated multi-kilo cocaine deals and laundered thousands of pounds of cash weekly.
When officers from the National Crime Agency swooped on his two flats in Islington and Wembley in North London, they found £300,000 in cash and ledgers which revealed drug deals worth £2million.
He was jailed for 12 years at Snaresbrook Crown Court in June after admitting supply.
Others smuggled back into the UK include a thug who boasted to police he had returned “several times” since being kicked out in 2015 and one who admitted paying £3,000 to small boat smugglers in France.
Albanian mobsters have seized control of Britain’s drug market over the past two decades after forming an alliance with Latin American drug cartels.
Many splash their cash on luxury lifestyles wearing designer clothes and driving top-end cars.
The Hellbanianz, one of the most infamous gangs, is known for making music videos on social media, mostly filmed on the Gascoigne Estate in Barking, East London.
One in 50 Albanians living in the UK are in jail — more than 1,200 of a population of nearly 53,000.
Britain has more illegal migrants than any other European nation.
In October, a study revealed as many as 745,000 live in Britain.
But it’s not just those smuggled into the UK that are a crime concern.
Figures show almost 400,000 legal migrants have been allowed in without criminal record checks since 2021.
Rob Bates, research director at the Centre for Migration Control, said: “With the huge numbers entering each year, systems inside the Home Office are unable to perform adequate checks on every individual.
“The Home Office needs to recognise certain nationalities are more likely to fall foul of the law or be involved in certain types of crime. Albania is a clear example. Until we get serious about tackling this, our streets will continue playing host to dangerous gangs and organised crime from overseas.
“Thousands of undocumented young men arriving each year are able to join networks.”
Tony Smith, former head of UK Border Force, suspects gang members are getting back into the country using new routes — most likely hitching lifts on small fishing vessels and dropped at coves.
Criminology professor Ervin Karamuco, at the University of Tirana in Albania, said UK-based gangs are idolised back home.
He added: “Those convicted in Britain build connections in prison and maintain close relationships with other active Albanian or foreign criminal groups. They stay connected to that network even when they’re deported and re-engage with them to find the fastest way back.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “The new Border Security Command is bringing together our intelligence and enforcement agencies to smash criminal smuggling gangs, and we are working closely with the international partners, including the government of Albania, to further this effort.”
ARMANDO BETI
2022: DEPORTED
2023: JAILED FOR CANNABIS
FIRST caught working on a cannabis farm in Roath, Cardiff, and given a 14-month sentence in May 2022
Beti, 37, was released early after agreeing to be sent back home in August 2022 but was found in the back of a lorry a year later.
In October 2023 he was jailed for 16 months for breaching his deportation order before being released on licence.
He vanished, only to turn up at another cannabis farm in Pembroke.
Jailing him for two years and eight months, Judge Geraint Walters said Beti had returned to Britain “as soon as he could” and said his story of being exploited should be “treated with a pinch of salt”.
FATJON CANI
2015: DEPORTED
2024: JAILED FOR DRUGS
VIOLENT Fatjon Cani was deported in 2015 but returned and was convicted of grievous bodily harm in October 2021.
In January this year he was found in a car suspected to be linked to drugs on the M62 and admitted he had re-entered the UK “several times” in the past nine years.
Cani, 29, from Manchester, told officers he paid smugglers £3,000 to cross the Channel.
He was jailed for 20 months for breaching his deportation order.
SAJMO BLOGU
2021: DEPORTED
2024: JAILED FOR CANNABIS
DEPORTED part-way through a 23-month jail sentence for producing cannabis in Rotherham in 2021.
Returned to the UK in January 2023 and picked up ten days later in a car with a “large amount of cash”.
Police found 75 cannabis plants in a property Blogu, 36, claimed was his home address.
He was jailed for 40 months in March.
FATOS IMERAJ
2019: DEPORTED
2023: JAILED FOR RETURNING
CONVICTED of possession with intent to supply cannabis and having fake ID in 2019, and deported.
Police found him in Wales last August, and Imeraj, 31, told them he came to UK in 2008 and had since travelled back and forth to Albania.
Caught twice by border cops.
Jailed for six months in September 2023 for breaching deportation rules.
FLOGERT FARRUKU
2015: DEPORTED
2020: JAILED FOR CANNABIS
SENT back to Albania in 2015 for running a cannabis factory in Cardiff.
Police found him at another £60,000 dope farm in November 2020.
He claimed he was being exploited by an Albanian gang but was jailed for 21 months.
In 2013 Farruku, 37, was caught at the Channel tunnel trying to get into UK.
MAURICIO MYFTARAJ
2015: DEPORTED
2020: JAILED FOR GUNS
DEPORTED in 2015 after being given three years’ jail for firearms offences.
When police raided his home in North London in 2019 they found two loaded guns and £70,000 worth of cannabis.
Myftaraj, 31, was jailed for 15 years in 2020.
XHENSON DUKA
DEPORTED
2020: JAILED FOR COCAINE
CAUGHT with £10,000 of cocaine in Maidstone, Kent, in 2020 after being deported.
The 28-year-old admitted he had been thrown out of Britain on a “number of occasions” only to return.
Duka was jailed for 40 months.
EDISON DAUTAJ
2023: DEPORTED
2024: RECALLED TO JAIL
DEPORTED in May 2023 after serving two years for supplying cocaine and holding a fake document.
The 28-year-old was stopped by cops in Ipswich in June this year and recalled to serve his original sentence.
DORIAN PUKA
2017 & 2020: DEPORTED
2020: JAILED
BURGLAR was jailed for nine months and deported in 2017.
Returned to Britain within the year and carried out a spree of break-ins.
Puka, 28, was jailed for three-and-a-half years and deported in March 2020.
It is thought he is back in UK and is seeking asylum.
BRIKEN COTI
DEPORTED
2024: JAILED FOR COCAINE
CAUGHT transporting coke with a street value of £22,500 this October after illegally re-entering the UK.
Jailed for three years at Exeter Crown Court for intent to supply.
His lawyer claimed Coti, 23, owed £12,000 to people smugglers.
ARJAN KIKIJA
DEPORTED
2020: JAILED FOR TASER
JAILED for 28 months in 2020 after police in Basildon, Essex, found a Taser in his pocket.
Fake documents claimed he was an Italian entitled to work in Britain.
Kikija, 35, had previously been convicted for dealing drugs and kicked out of UK.