Kosovo Albanian gangsters, hitmen active in London

Source: Tanjug
LONDON -- Former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have become prominent figures in London’s underworld of organized crime, the London Daily News writes.

Experience with knives and fire arms have put them at the top of the list of professional assassins in the British capital, the daily states.

It adds that Albanian hitmen working in London "touting for business and offer their sordid services at GBP 5,000".

One leading Albanian gangster who spoke to the London Daily News said:

"We can use guns, we control the prostitutes in Soho and we are investing in London heavily. We fear no one and the law cannot do anything to stop us."

The war in Kosovo fuelled the spread of the Albanian Mafia after numerous gangsters disguised as Kosovo "refugees" found their way into European countries, especially the UK now over ten years since the troubles in the Balkans, the daily writes.

“The Albanian Mafia is not a pyramid with one leader, rather an organization with several bosses,” the article explains.

“The ownership of the European heroin market, according to police sources from a dozen European countries is in the hands of 30 Albanian mafia families. Each of these families control a specific area of Kosovo which is the main transit point for all drugs,” London Daily News writes.

“The Drenica area, which goes through Prizren, Klina and Istok connects Montenegro and FYROM [Macedonia] is controlled by the Drenica Group whose main profit is drugs, weapons, stolen automobiles, white slavery, cigarettes and alcohol. This mafia is connected with the Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Czech mafia,” the daily reported.

“Recent FBI report shows that Albanian mafia overtook the Russian and Italian mafia in New York. Same went for several European cities, including London, Berlin and Prague,” the article adds.