Hundreds of Albanians crossing the Channel in small boats helped drug gangs take over Britain’s cannabis market.
They are recruited as workers on illegal cannabis “farms” set up in rented homes or disused industrial buildings to produce crops worth up to £2 million at a time and which can be grown and harvested in as little as 12 weeks.
The industrial scale of cannabis production was revealed by an undercover investigation into a secret channel on the encrypted messaging service Telegram. It is used by more than 700 Albanians for intelligence sharing on marijuana operations.
Conversations among group members center on the best chemicals for plant growth, the most efficient way to harvest marijuana plants, the economics of securing property for drug production, and why crossbows are better than guns for protecting their crops from rival gangs.
Members of the group describe robberies in which marijuana “farm” workers have their fingers cut off and homeowners demand a five-figure cut of the profits.
The National Crime Agency (NCA) said the ruthless professionalism Albanians brought to cannabis cultivation enabled them to replace the Vietnamese as the main domestic suppliers of the drug in Britain.
Albanian gangs, previously specialized in cocaine, turned to the cannabis sector because it was “very, very low risk”.
According to the NCA, it makes a good profit due to high demand – Britons consume 240 tonnes of the drug worth £2.4bn a year – and because it is grown within the country, it does not require risky cross-border transport.
A surge in the number of Albanians crossing the Channel, with 12,685 people arriving in the UK on small boats in 2022, has driven a supply of illegal workers skilled in the hydroponic technology required to grow plants in dark rooms of homes where all windows have been boarded up. sealed.
This has led police to focus more on domestic marijuana production. In July alone, approximately 29 Albanians were sentenced to prison for illegally producing the drug. This was followed by the appearance of 24 more Albanians in court in August. That’s almost one a day.
At the end of last year, approximately 101 illegal Albanian immigrants were sentenced to more than 300 years in prison within three months. Three quarters of them were convicted of offenses linked to the production of cannabis on indoor farms in England and Wales.
Many illegal immigrants were recruited by gangs after a government crackdown on underground economy work made it difficult for them to find work.
Fines for bosses who employ illegal immigrants have tripled to up to £60,000 per worker, making the practice so economically damaging that it could “put them out of business”.
Police are worried that Telegram will become a platform used by criminals. It has 900 million users but only 100 employees. Telegram’s Russian-born founder, Pavel Durov, was detained in France this summer for allegedly failing to combat criminal use of the service, including the dissemination of child sexual abuse material.
The Albanians’ channel is named Kusho, which means “cousin” and is the nickname Albanians use to address each other.
It currently has 703 members who share information on how to produce the maximum amount of marijuana from seed to adult plant.
The posts on the channel were collected by an Albanian reporter who infiltrated the group. “Guys, you need to know how to grow ‘roses’,” said one of the channel’s organizers.
Another member listed six essential chemicals that have proven to be most effective for rapid and healthy growth.
One video showed the best way to cut dead leaves off a cannabis plant, while a member using the pseudonym Bushi06 offered cannabis seedlings for £5 and boasted that he had sold 700 so far.
In discussions about how to protect “farms”, an Albanian said it was better to spend £337 on a high-powered crossbow than a gun because getting caught in possession of it would attract less punishment.
Some appeared less worried about being attacked and robbed by rival gangs than about police discovering their illegal operations.
“Most of the robberies of cannabis houses take place in Leicester. They cut off the fingers of an Albanian worker,” said one member of the group.
“The police are not the big problem,” said a London-based Albanian, using the pseudonym Deni. “The real problem is robbers who are now using drones to locate houses. “They sense the heat coming from the plants on the roofs of the houses.”
Others complained that landlords overcharged them for the use of their properties or demanded a cut of the profits.
“London landlords charge £4,000 a month for a house. “It’s not worth it at all,” said one.
Another said: “I’ve invested £31,000 in a house so far, 12k for insulation and 12k for lights. I don’t know if I’ll get my money back. The agent who let me the house wants £9,000 when the crop is ready to harvest.”
Last summer police launched Operation Mille to target cannabis farms in the UK. Among those jailed was Nard Nidri, 34, who entered the UK illegally in 2022 and lived in Birmingham, then moved to Swansea, where he worked in a car wash before being hired on a cannabis farm.
He was one of four “gardeners” jailed for a total of six years after police arrested them at a property in Neath, South Wales, in August. Two rooms and the attic had been adapted and insulated to grow plants with a street value of £85,000.
Sentencing them, Judge Geraint Walters said cannabis farms run by Albanian criminal gangs had reached “epidemic levels” and in his judgment had “become something of an industry”.
Authorities should look into the rental housing industry, he suggested, noting that so-called marijuana “farmers” often end up in court, while landlords and others who receive money from rent on properties used for grow operations rarely do so.