ALBANIAN crimelords are using TikTok to advertise £100,000-a-year jobs as drug dealers.
The adverts promise workers up to £6,000 a month tax-free to deliver cocaine and cannabis in a network stretching from Glasgow to the south of England.
4
4
That adds up to £72,000 a year. A tax-paying worker would need a salary of at least £110,000 to take home the same amount of money.
In one example, where drug barons use a snowflake emoji to stand for cocaine, an advert has an image of traditional red buses on a Union Jack-decked Regent Street.
Accompanying it are the words: “Driver required (snowflake emoji) to have experience in the West area London. Seven days a week. £200 working day. The car. Fuel. Only serious people!”
Underneath, a user commented: “Albanians, three years in prison over 200 pounds a day is not worth it.”
All of the posts display a potted plant or a Christmas tree – code for the drug.
Another one of the adverts, with six Christmas trees and three potted plants as symbols, states: “Three workers are required per island. Who is interested in starting a job, write privately.”
‘Mafia-style codes’
In 2022, Surrey Police published a guide warning parents about coded language, stating: “There’s a secret world of emojis with more concerning meanings. Snowflake is cocaine.
“Dealers may also use this language and some of these emojis to exploit young people.”
The Sun on Sunday has also uncovered a string of TikTok adverts for Albanians in the UK to work as cannabis farmers inside homes.
All of the posts display a potted plant or a Christmas tree — code for the drug.
One of the adverts, with six tree symbols and three plants, states: “Three workers required for a grass house.”
Many of the posts use the word “puntor”, Albanian slang for drug dealers, and “pikave”, a street term for cocaine.
One asks for a worker with a car in the Portsmouth area and lists the salary as £1,300 a week with one day off.
It adds in Albanian: “For serious boys only.” And the post ends with “#pikave”.
Another advert asks for a worker in Glasgow and promises to pay for accommodation, alongside a salary of £1,700 per week.
Other vacancies target people in Bournemouth, London, Edinburgh, Newcastle and Liverpool.
Some even boast they will be working with taxis or their car insurance will be paid.
Ervin Karamuco, professor of criminology at Albania’s University of Tirana, said: “Albanian criminal groups in the UK using social media to advertise their criminal job offer is a new tactic.
“They clearly want to expand their enterprise, which will pose a new challenge for British law enforcement agencies.
“They are using Mafia-style codes to imply the illegal job opportunities and these are the same ones that have been identified in past wiretaps of criminals’ phone conversations.
“Pike is slang for cocaine and the term ‘puntoret e pike’ translates literally to ‘point workers’ and means cocaine distributors.
“I would say this is an advanced code, similar to the one used by the Italian Mafia in the 1950s when they started referring to drug distributors as ‘spacciatore’ or sellers.”
The names of the TikTok accounts, one of which translates to “Albanian postcode”, are inspired by lyrics from Albanian rapper, Cyni.
In his track, Photocopy, London-based Cyni brags: “The war is about postcodes.”
An insider said: “The postcode slogans they use are about taking over the UK drug trade by having their people in as many areas of the country as possible.”
Cyni’s lyrics are used over a number of posts on TikTok about the drug trade.
One, with his voice blaring out from it, says: “The battle for postcodes breaks out in London.”
Forced to work
A comment left underneath reads: “Albanians should be wise in the UK because they put them all in prison.”
Many of those targeted in the adverts are Albanians who have arrived here illegally and need to pay debts to people smugglers.
They are then forced to work in whatever capacity the criminals choose until the debt is deemed to be paid.
Dr Andi Hoxhaj, a law lecturer and Balkans expert at King’s College London, said: “Albanian organised criminal networks almost exclusively hire Albanians, especially young Albanians, to work for them in the UK.
“The recruitment process involves either targeted social media posts or word of mouth.
“Typically, criminal networks offer to pay for the young men’s journey to the UK, and they have to repay their debts.”
Last year, the Home Office said that Albanian organised crime groups are an “acute threat” to the UK and “highly prevalent across serious and organised crime”.
4
Around 1,700 gang members are thought to be at large in the UK, and there are more Albanians in British jails than any other foreign nationality, despite the Albanian population being just 2.8million.
The National Crime Agency last year signed an agreement with Albanian police to tackle criminals who control the British cannabis market and enjoy a healthy slice of the £4billion UK cocaine trade.
Law enforcement teams carried out an operation to disrupt what the NCA called “Albanian criminality in the UK”, seizing almost 200,000 cannabis plants across the country, with a street value of around £120million.
More than 450 Albanians were charged last year with offences including drug supply, money laundering and possession of weapons.
This month, an Albanian was jailed after pleading guilty to running a cannabis farm in Widnes in Lancs. Pajtim Oruci, 32, appeared at Liverpool Crown Court earlier this month, where he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
In total, officers recovered 103 plants from the address, with a potential street value of up to £104,740. Since the beginning of January, at least 11 Albanian drug dealers have been sentenced by British courts.
TikTok said last night it has now permanently removed the accounts featuring the adverts after The Sun on Sunday alerted them.
A spokesman added: “We do not allow content that promotes illegal activity on our platform.
“And we proactively remove 96 per cent of content that violates these rules before it is reported to us, while redirecting related searches to our Safety Centre.”
4
