EXCLUSIVEThe shocking rise of ruthless Albanian gangs who now control UK drug trade: Up to one in 36 men born in Balkan state but living here are in jail, according to first of its kind league table of criminals by nationality
Around one in every 36 Albanian men living in England and Wales are in jail, official data suggests.
Almost 1,100 Albanians, including murderers, kingpins of the feared Balkan mafia which controls the UK drug market and rapists, were behind bars at the end of 2024. Just three were women.
But, according to the most up-to-date Government statistics available, only 39,091 Albanian-born men reside here.
Albania topped MailOnline's league table of criminality by nationality, coming ahead of Guinea, Algeria, Vietnam, Sudan, Palestine and Eritrea.
This was judged on the number of prisoners from 65 different countries, compared against their migrant population – defined as the number of people born there, as of the 2021 Census.
Huge gaps in the available data on the contentious topic of migrant crime means the real figures may be very different, with immigration having spiralled to all-time highs over the past few years and thousands having arrived on small boats.
Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader, wants the Government to publish more data about the levels of crimes committed by foreigners.
He told MailOnline: 'The lack of information is worrying but this investigation offers a fascinating insight into the subject.
'We need fully transparent open data: who commits crimes from which countries and their citizenship status. This will inform and improve decisions about who should be allowed to visit, live and work in the UK.
'Foreign criminals must be removed as a matter of standard urgency. This will save taxpayers money and free up prison places.'
MailOnline can also today reveal the share of foreign prisoners hailing from Albania has soared seven-fold over the last 15 years.
It mirrors the timeline of how ruthless Albanian gangs came to dominate the British drug trade, negotiating directly with Colombian cartels and undercutting criminal rivals to flood our streets with cheap cocaine.
In 2010, 1.5 per cent of foreign nationals jailed in England and Wales were Albanian.
Albanians made up 10.6 per cent by the end of 2024 – more than any other nationality.
The swelling numbers of Albanians are in part due to large numbers crossing the channel, with a total of 12,685 coming to Britain on small boats in 2022.
The rate has, however, fallen since ministers signed a prisoner transfer agreement with Albania's government in 2022.
Under Rishi Sunak, 200 were deported in exchange for £8million to modernise their prison system.
Labour last week also vowed to deport foreign criminals quicker, saying it 'cannot be right' for taxpayers to foot the bill.
It is thought to cost around £40,000 a year to house each prisoner, suggesting that the UK spends £44million on locking up Albanian criminals.
As well as controlling the drug trade, Albanian gangsters terrorising the UK have also been convicted of murder, sex offences, money laundering and people smuggling.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) has for years warned about the 'significant threat' posed by Albanian gangs, infamous for their professionalism and discipline as well as savage tactics to keep competition at bay.
Albanian gang member posts a picture of two members wearing red balaclavas emblazoned with the Albanian flag, while one brandishes a machine gun
Albanian gang members are not afraid to show off their ill-gotten gains, often posing with wads of cash
Images posted on the Instagram page of gangs include a cake made from £50 notes and gang logos spelled out in drugs
In a previous case, three members of an Albanian gang were jailed for beating to death a man who had tried to steal cannabis from a drugs factory based in a house in Cardiff.
Tomasz Waga, 23, from Dagenham, east London, who had a newborn son and 'his entire life ahead of him', was murdered in 2021, with his body 'dumped like a bag of rubbish'.
He and another man had travelled to the property to steal cannabis plants but inadvertently discovered the live-in 'gardener', who called fellow gang members.
Meanwhile, a vicious Albanian gangster nicknamed Tony Montana, after Al Pacino's character in mafia movie Scarface, is only due to begin his UK jail sentence next year for murdering a man in London in 1999.
Serial killer Mane Driza, now 47, first has to complete a separate sentence in Italy for conspiracy to murder two men and attempted murder of a third in June 2002, in Sicily, where he had fled after killing fellow Albanian Stefan Blader Mone in Wembley, north London.
He had previously murdered two men in his homeland.
Albanians have also been caught smuggling people into Britain on small boats, charging up to £5,000 for a one-way ticket across the Channel after enticing them with jobs in illegal cannabis 'farms'. Some have even brazenly advertised on social media.
Ministers have been accused of an 'institutional cover-up' of migrant crime rates.
Instead of breaking down rates per population, Ministry of Justice chiefs only share the number of foreign national offenders from each country.
Senior Reform and Tory MPs have urged Labour to embark on a transparency drive to publish the data, similar to Denmark and some US states.
Supporters argue such data would enable the Home Office to toughen up visa and deportation policies for nationalities linked to higher rates of crime in the UK.
MailOnline calculated the league table by using publicly available data on the MoJ's website and the 2021 Census.
Some Albanian gangsters such as Marsel Meco, (pictured left with another inmate) even shared pictures while they were in British prison
Albanian gangs have been known to use buildings for the large cultivation of cannabis. Pictured a police raided farm in Norfolk in 2023
Although it reveals the scale of serious crimes committed by non-UK nationals, information about offences committed by migrants for which they are not jailed is not published.
MailOnline compiled the table by taking MoJ data which showed there were 10,355 foreign nationals in jails in England and Wales by December 31, 2024.
For comparison, 74,631 were British nationals.
Nations with fewer than 20 people in jail were excluded because of the low sample size.
No like-for-like figures exist in the 2021 Census, which instead asks respondents about their country of birth and nationality.
Due to the unavailability of official stats looking at migrant crime, the methodology used is one of the only ways to compare different nationalities.
Using Albania as an example, census data shows there were 68,672 people born in the Balkan state living in the UK in 2021. Of those, 39,091 were male and 29,581 female.
According to the latest MoJ figures, there were 1,096 Albanian men and three women locked up heading into 2025.
Overall, this equates to a rate of roughly 1.6 per cent, or one in 62 Albanians, being in prison.
When the figures are broken down using just Albanian men, this rate rises to 2.8 per cent or around one in 36.
For comparison, the rate for British-born men in England and Wales was thought to be 0.3 per cent, or around one in 341.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'We routinely publish detailed nationality data for prisoners.
'The Lord Chancellor, Shabana Mahmood, has also asked civil servants to review what more data can be published to increase transparency on this important issue.'
A government spokesperson said: 'We continue to do everything possible within the law to make sure foreign nationals who commit crimes are not free on Britain's streets, including removing them from the UK at the earliest opportunity.
'That is why, since the election, we have removed more than 2,925 foreign criminals, a 21 per cent increase on the same period twelve months prior.'
