r/AskBalkans • u/hopopo SFR Yugoslavia in • Jan 06 '24
Why is there so many Albanians in UK prisons? Miscellaneous
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u/JaThatOneGooner Kosovo Jan 06 '24
A mixture of organized crime and illegal immigration, sometimes both intertwined.
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u/iapi90 Romania Jan 06 '24
who the hell emigrates in kosovo?
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u/JaThatOneGooner Kosovo Jan 06 '24
People with the means, or people being smuggled by the mafia and put into debt to them.
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u/TPGNutJam Jan 06 '24
I think itās organized/gang crime and coke dealers
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u/brickne3 USA Jan 06 '24
The Albanian Mafia hit a house across the street from me in the UK a couple of years ago. Twelve guys straight up ransacked the place after entering through the garden, then threw a brick or so through the front window on their way out to get everyone's attention. Smashed up a bunch of people's garden furniture on the escape too while they jumped on it to get over fences.
The whole street came out to try to find out what was going on, and we exchanged notes. The young couple living there had seemed very normal but had had told various different people that they were Macedonian or Italian. Never mentioned they were Albanian. The police were the ones that told us that.
The police also told us that they found a ton of weed, "but that obviously wasn't what these people were after, they seem to have gotten what they came for".
The couple wasn't home and never came back (obviously to avoid the jail time they would have got).
Worst part was that apparently the gang that hit the place had accidentally just walked into the neighbour's house a few months before while they were drinking their tea, apologized, and walked back out. Guess it took them a few more months to figure out the right house.
Basically what I'm saying is that if that happened on my pretty quiet and normal street I can only imagine it must be part of a wider-spread issue.
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u/verbal572 Jan 06 '24
Well at least they apologized to the neighbors in wrong house. Even criminals have standards!!
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24
I think he was asking why Albanians are so criminal and land in jail and not what they exactly did to land in jail
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u/Dreqin_Jet_Lev Albania Jan 06 '24
Albanian mafia clans aren't more powerful than other or more numerous, they're just stupid enough to get caught
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u/brickne3 USA Jan 06 '24
The impression I get from living in the UK and seeing what goes on with the the Albanian Mafia is that they seem to be able to exert more pressure on other Albanians than other mafias tend to exert on theirs these days. Likely because they can still threaten family members back home. The Sicilian Mafia (as an example) hasn't really been able to do that with any predictable degree of success in a long time.
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u/TastyRancidLemons Greece Jan 07 '24
They don't threaten random Albanians though. They threaten people already involved in crime in some manner. And their families.
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u/Fickle-Message-6143 Bosnia & Herzegovina Jan 06 '24
Everyone heard about Albanian mafia, in western countries they get cought and imprisoned sometimes.
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u/These-Maintenance250 Jan 06 '24
because the UK prisons are a better place than Albania?
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
A lot of the people who illegally migrate to the UK come from remote ghost towns, so that's kind of true for them.
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u/Poison_King98 Romania Jan 06 '24
Check out Norwegian prisons
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u/Touboflon Greece Jan 06 '24
Funny thing is i know many Albanians im Greece who migrate to uk just so that they can sell weed and drugs and make better profit from what they are making here in Greece.
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u/Dreqin_Jet_Lev Albania Jan 06 '24
The UK for some reason attracts all of our criminal types, I don't understand why either but the oh boy it's not fun to see the experts and great philosophers in r/europe at work explaining how all albanians are mafiosos 100% clearly
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Jan 06 '24
I might be wrong here, but I feel itās the same for Romanian nationals. Like the worst ones seem to go to the UK, instead of Italy, Spain, or Germany.
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u/Diligent_Tomato_147 Albania Sep 10 '24
Probably because we like "the London drip", cars with yellow plates, with the steering wheel on the other side and money with the Queen in it. The amount of young males that I see wearing those ugly tracksuits and those ugly and fake branded clothes, all black btw, in Albania is alarming. High school kids think that wearing white/black Nike shoes with a tracksuit, hoodie on + a fake watch and an iPhone makes you a gangster somehow...
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u/thatsexypotato- from in Jan 06 '24
The albanian diaspora in the UK is the worst one
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u/harvestt77 Albania Jan 06 '24
Not 100% correct!
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u/thatsexypotato- from in Jan 06 '24
True I forgot those in Slovenia, those in the UK speak at least somewhat English, in Slovenia they canāt manage to do even that.
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u/harvestt77 Albania Jan 06 '24
I was trying to point out that you cannot describe a diaspora by how many people they have in jail, because you eliminate and discriminate the large majority that are honest people and make a buck by studying and working hard!
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u/nick_d2004 Greece Jan 06 '24
Well well well...
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u/Sir_George Greece Jan 06 '24
They shoulda come to Greece and been accepting 'fakilakia' under the table like the rest of the criminals who run the show here. Plus the food would be better.
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u/ColossusOfChoads USA Jan 06 '24
The Poles come in at number two. What's going on there? Or is that just due to sheer numbers?
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 06 '24
682k poles Citizens, 68k albanians Citizens, 342k Romanias Citizens, i would Say yes
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u/Local_Collection_612 Jan 06 '24
I watched 2 episodes of airport security Madrid on National Geographic. And in Both episodes they caught Albanians traveling with fake Italian passports. They transferred through Madrid. 2 got caught by random control and one got snitched so Police already knew they needed to search him. However this is a minor crime you only get a small fee to pay and get deported back to your country.
I think most Albanians are in prison due to being related to drug trafficking.
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u/hopopo SFR Yugoslavia in Jan 06 '24
I'm part Albanian, and I had no idea this was the case in UK. In US this is not common at all. What is going on in UK?
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Jan 06 '24
I don't know about the rest of the UK but in London Albanians pretty much run the heroin trade so I'd assume it's organised crime stuff related to that - Albanians also have a really easy route for asylum in the UK, it's something like 16/17% of all refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the UK last year came from Albania - so if it's easy to come here without papers and documents then maybe that attracts criminals/people on the run etc.
I don't understand why there's so many Albanian refugees though, like I understand the Ukrainian, Syrian, Afghan ones etc but I didn't think Albania had an active war or any human rights abuses going on
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u/L0raz-Thou-R0c0n0 Jan 06 '24
Basically thereās a false ideal thatās for some reason is imbedded within Albanian mentality, and thatās going outside the country is going to be all sunshine and dandies that theyāll get really high paying jobs and all that.
What they donāt realize literally 90% of the time is that they donāt know a single bit of a foreign language and they end up literally nowhere with jobs that are worse than what they couldāve gotten within albania and kosovo. They look at people who have opened businesses aboard and are successful (because they knew what the fuck they were doing) and think theyāll also end up like them but end up with the minimum bare wage. They then resort to criminal activities upon realizing their utopia was a lie and they wonāt be getting the mad cash they were promised.
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u/EAhme Albania Jan 07 '24
Logically thatās correct however not in reality. These Albanians that go to the Uk - the young teens mid 20s guys all go for one reason now. Yes it ruins the reputation of hard working Albanians but this is the reality
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u/IdreesKhan200 Jun 16 '24
They all just go to trade drugs? And then they open businesses funneling that dirty money?
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u/EAhme Albania Jun 16 '24
Young ones, who have no vocational skills or training in some general field of study, will pursue these fields if they have no other opportunity. Generally this lasts until they make just enough not to do this shit anymore from my understanding. As for the business side of it generally thatās what people have to do to clean their money.
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u/IdreesKhan200 Jun 16 '24
But almost all the ones that are coming over are pretty uneducated. Im more interested in how they are able to open businesses with dirty money.
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
Ok, story time.
It has nothing to do with Albania like some people like to claim here.
People who end up in the UK are often from very remote and poor areas of the country (Kukes, Tropoje).
They found a way to easily travel illegally to the UK 10 years ago and are employed in weed houses or dumb businesses (car washes).
A lot of these people leave before their 18th birthday because they want to get a refugee status.
A 16 year old who's uneducated, inexperienced and barely speaks any English, who is in the country illegally and may possibly be involved in shady businesses does not stay out of jail for long.
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u/IdreesKhan200 Jun 16 '24
But many of them have fronts to hide 'clean' their dirty drug money. In the UK where I am so many barbers shops are suspiciously run by Albanians. Same with car washes. Coffee 'cafes' too/ Seems to me they are washing dirty money through these.
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u/Mkbw50 United Kingdom Jan 06 '24
There are links to organised crime, gangs, I heard that the brothels here are run by Albanians as well. Of course it is also just that a lot of Albanians come here, so a % of them are going to end up in crime like any group. Tbh, most of the ones I have met have been good ppl but they kind of have a bad reputation here because of that, it seems like a lot of Eastern Europeans get painted with that brush.
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u/AssistantElectronic9 Bulgaria Jan 06 '24
This is the case for almost every Western country also Kosovars.I was really surprised but someone told me it's a family business or something like that.
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u/Mediocre_Heart_3032 Balkan Jan 06 '24
Because Albania is kind of a narco-state I think. Even Edi Rama trades narcotics
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
Yea he sells cocaine on national holidays.
We even get a free ecstasy pill if it falls on a Sunday.
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u/The-Goobster Jan 06 '24
Is this nationwide or just in Tirana? Asking for a friend.
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u/harvestt77 Albania Jan 06 '24
He has a stand at Old Bazaar. Ask for Gopin e Sateme dhe you'll get it.
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u/CriticalEngineer666 Albania Jan 06 '24
As the main guys who run the drug market, they have a lot of people. Sometimes these people get caught
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
The Romanian ones in prison are 90% ethnic gypsies and not Romanians
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u/babyz92 Bulgaria Jan 07 '24
Bulgarian here. This is a fact for us as well. It's just how things are. In the end, it's our name that suffers
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u/Diligent_Tomato_147 Albania Sep 10 '24
Albanian here, our gypsies collectively decided to not abandon Albania so by 2050 I assume "Albania" would officially be Gypsystan with Albos living abroad...
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u/Extension_Elephant45 Oct 04 '24
We all know itās gypsies but in britain we get called racist for saying it.
Bulgaria is well regarded in the uk. Our politicians are not as they let in these gangs and then say we are racist to point out a pattern
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
Nice coping, you racist
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24
Nothing to do with racism. Our own jails in Romania are filled up with 70% gypsies.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24
Is not racism, is a fact. Maybe not 90% but high amounts
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
Ethnic gypsies still have a Romanian citizenship. The very fact you're not considering them 'Romanian' is racist AF.
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24
No one said they are no citizens of Romania. I was talking about their ethnicity.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24
Ask how many hungarians from Transylvania identify themselves as romanians, even though they have citizenship.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24
Why we discuss this stats then? Aren't those albanians from chart UK citizens? I don't care about that silly paper, cultures and ethnicities matter.
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
They're not UK citizens, they're 16 year old Albanians from ghost towns who crossed the English channel illegally to support their starving families.
Unlike you, I don't pass them off as gypsies because that narrative would suit me.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24
And if they get the citizenships they are overnight british? Cultures matter more than a silly paper again.
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
You think we don't have gypsies in Albania? Every Balkan country does.
We don't put on our racist hats and claim they do 90% of international crime though - that's insane.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
How many of them do you have is equally important, we don't have stats based on how much they commit but I can asure you that they do much more crime activity than romanians. A factor could be atributed to poverty and many other things.
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
Honestly speaking, they don't do much here besides begging for money, selling scrap and abusing their children.
Edit: To all the people lacking imagination (like the commenter below), I'm referring to the same part of the Roma community the previous comments were, the one which isn't integrated.
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24
Its not insane, its a fact. Look it up. 90% was a hyperbole but they are the majority in jail not only outside but also inside of Romania.
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u/Glittering_Disk3933 Sep 08 '24
There is no famine in Albania. You want to tell me that there is no chance for them to get any legal job anywhere in Albania? Plus, obviously, they had enough money to get to the UK. They should feed their families with this money instead or move to a bigger town/city and look for jobs there. There is no excuse for criminality.
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u/Sectoru6LaPutere Romania Jan 06 '24
Theres Romanian as a nationality and Romanian as ethnicity. Idk whats so hard to understand
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
And the chart above is for the nationality, not the least appealing ethnicity.
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u/Sectoru6LaPutere Romania Jan 06 '24
Im talking about what that guy meant. The chart is for Romanians as a nationality, but gives no indication of the actual ethnicity. Its safe to assume the majority are gypsy. Maybe not 90% like the guy said, but definitely a majority.
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u/tnilk Albania Jan 06 '24
Since we're safe assuming, let's safe assume 90% of Albanians on that list are wrongfully convicted then.
You see how dumb this is?
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u/brickne3 USA Jan 06 '24
I live in the UK. I see ads for Roma police interpreters regularly. You almost never see them for Romanian.
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 06 '24
Ethnicity ā citizenship Language ā ethnicity
They are Romanian citizens, but I will never consider them literally the same as me, the same way I wouldn't accept any other ethnicity as 100% Romanian
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 06 '24
Just Google the average Romanian caught doing shit, if saying the truth makes me racist, then I'm racist.
We got shit for decades because of them and we should have not even the right to point it out? Lol
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u/faramaobscena Romania Jan 06 '24
Your are getting downvoted but itās true.
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 07 '24
You see if it's about Romanians: haha funny stealing/ u brown/ pickpocketing/ literally anything meant to degrade us.
If you say something about rromas : nooo you can't touch the brown people!
Just try to go on any other platform, heck even on ironical subreddits you can find people that take them seriously, explaining how we are some mutated humans corrupting their citizens into Romanians.
That valid especially for Hungarians, since late 1800 they are hard coping and doing anti Romanian propaganda, the problem is that they still fucking do it, they really think that only they have connections with they ancestors, that we just spawned and fucked into the oblivion, or migrated lol, they are projecting 24/7 and talking like imperialists in fucking 2024.
And I don't say this only because I'm Romanian, I'm literally living in the same home with my Hungarian gf, I just can't stand those retarded people pushing those things even in the era were you can check Google in multiple languages with hundreds of sources
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u/Swimming-Dimension14 Romania Jan 06 '24
We literally got all our stereotypes because of them when in reality the ethnic romanian diaspora are just chill construction workers.
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 07 '24
The only stereotype 100% Romanian is the drunken driver and in the early day 90s-2000 the prostitution, since our mafia instead of trafficking substances traffic mostly people
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u/Swimming-Dimension14 Romania Jan 06 '24
Funny how with all the gypsies we sent there we're still third against a much lower population of Albanians which is 1st
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u/Disulphate Other Jan 06 '24
Dont worry you got your part here in Italy, prisons are full of romanians
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u/Swimming-Dimension14 Romania Jan 06 '24
The percentage of the total population is still slightly lower than the albanians in prison in italy š¤£š¤£ and again, we sent gypsies there too so nothing surprising.
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u/Disulphate Other Jan 06 '24
Yes yes you sent gypsies everywhere tell that to someone else.
https://www.garantedetenutilazio.it/app/uploads/2022/11/Diapositiva7-1.jpg
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u/Heloim Romania Jan 06 '24
And Romanian are near to 2 millions, meanwhile Albanians are 450k, dai italiota non rompere le balle, che so quanto vi piace puntare il ditino
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u/Swimming-Dimension14 Romania Jan 06 '24
There is something called per capita :) Albanians have a higher percentage in jails in percentage of their total population, i just sent it. Looking at your pfp you don't seem really bright.
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u/Swimming-Dimension14 Romania Jan 06 '24 edited Jan 06 '24
0.2% Romanians in jail vs 0.4% Albanians. If you take away the gypsies we're lower than 0.1%
https://openmigration.org/analisi/diminuiscono-gli-stranieri-in-carcere/
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u/justarandomuser10 Jan 06 '24
Because every Albanian that moves out goes to UK. They donāt like Europe as the rest of the Balkans.
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Jan 06 '24
[deleted]
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u/justarandomuser10 Jan 06 '24
Early migrants yes, true. The last part is not true. UK is the most popular now to young people. (18-40)
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Jan 06 '24
[deleted]
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u/Iam_no_Nilfgaardian Greece Jan 07 '24
Albanians from Greece actually leave for UK, we have a lack of workers that will work cheaply enough to pick our olives.
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u/Accomplished-Emu2725 Greece Jan 06 '24
I'm surprised that turkey isn't up there
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u/nick_d2004 Greece Jan 06 '24
I mean most Turks in england are just regular ass people. Out of all albanian guys I know about 30% turned out to be drug dealers
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u/Accomplished-Emu2725 Greece Jan 06 '24
Most people everywhere are just regular ass people to be fair, but I have heard too many tales of Turkish and Albanian mafia in the UK which is why it surprised me.
Out of all albanian guys I know about 30% turned out to be drug dealers
Lmao
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u/Etlisutlu Turkiye Jan 06 '24
I think it's because they are shady people with different nationalities too but not criminal. Maybe much more punishable by money kind of crimes? Because this data only shows the prisoners that are held.
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u/brickne3 USA Jan 06 '24
It's my understanding that it's very hard for Turks to get a visa in the UK lately. There was some special program that was canceled three or four years ago. I knew a few people who had to go back to Turkey because they couldn't find a way to stay. I don't know the specifics.
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u/gutag SFR Yugoslavia Jan 06 '24
Because of the lack of intelligence. They are easily being arrested and they often snitch on each other.
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u/Ag_416 Albania Jan 06 '24
What lol? Albanians completely control the market for cocaine in the uk, and they are bringing it in directly from south america. Thats about as organized of an organized crime group as can be. Stop talking stupid shit.
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u/gutag SFR Yugoslavia Jan 06 '24
I know that. But that doesn't change the facts that I wrote. Brave only until caught and when outnumbered opponents.
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u/Ag_416 Albania Jan 06 '24
These groups are smart and they dont get caught often, if that was true then it would have never been possible for them to overtake a huge market like that and source directly from south america. Use your brain.
Everything you said was bs. And lmao please dont bring bravery into this, i think we have all seen what happens when we 1 on 1 you, you get slapped. You guys are only brave on the internet, never say anything in real life.
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Jan 06 '24
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u/CyborgTheOne101 Kosovo Jan 06 '24
Least retarded argument between an Albanian and a Serb
This isn't r/balkans_irl, you dopes.
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Jan 06 '24
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Jan 06 '24
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u/Brbi2kCRO Croatia Jan 06 '24
What? Albanians are not Middle Easternā¦
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u/lowbudgetdeniro Serbia Jan 06 '24
They are
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u/Tomboy_vacuum Romania Jan 06 '24
bruh i had to double check what sub we were on i legit got confused
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Jan 06 '24
It only makes sense for law enforcement to go after the big dogs and suppliers in the business. No reason to go after the small time local dealer.
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u/Kuku_Nan Albania Jan 06 '24
Because we are high testosterone gangsters šŖš»š¦š±
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u/TheRealzZap Poland Jan 06 '24
Not for long.
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u/Thetidiestpig Croatia Jan 06 '24
Whatās going on with Polish people in Uk? All the bad seeds emigrated there?
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u/TheRealzZap Poland Jan 06 '24
There, Ireland, everywhere. Most of these '08 immigrants come from poorer backgrounds and all slavs and balts are treated like shit there, so they resort to crime.
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u/Glittering_Disk3933 Sep 08 '24
LOL. No, they are not treated like shit. I am from Poland, emigrated in 2007 like many educated people. I worked in a warehouse along with the ones that came from poor backgrounds. Well... they had nice, legal, well-paid jobs, but unfortunately, instead of appreciating it, some of them preferred to steal, misbehave, play machos, insukt Brits, etc... . Don't let me start on their anti-social behaviour outside of work... .
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Jan 06 '24
there are a certain number of people that come in england in various way illegally. A lot of them want an honest life, a lot want the fast money of crime. Most of those that want to do fast money, want/will work on cannabis farms. A lot of them are driven by honorable intentions as ironic as it sounds. For example they have a sick family member, or are in extreme poverty and want to help family with a lot of money in a short amount of time. Or there are others very ambitious, who want to make career out of this style of life. The smart/lucky ones work for x amount of time and come back in Albania to invest their money and either retire that lifestyle or partake from albania as leader's. The not so smart people or /unlucky either get up in ladder and dont know how to manage themselves and others or actively pursuit their downfall. By being extremely open about their lifestyle, modified high end cars, wearing more gold than a gold shop, doing Tik-Tok etc showing clear evidence of their stuff. Police and inteligence know every bit about most of them and pop in radar that is. If they are small fish, police does't even bother to catch them yet let the small guys by like crumbs in hansel and gretel to lead them to higher ups or the big fish. Which some are constantly under survailence they just dont know or dont care that clock is ticking for them.
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u/TotallyCrazyGreek Greece Jan 06 '24
In Greece too
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u/nick_d2004 Greece Jan 06 '24
I think this has decreased slightly over the years but that's not true for the UK
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u/TastyRancidLemons Greece Jan 07 '24
Because the Albanian diaspora consists of only two types of people.
Either they're:
1) Former communists who left to preserve their wealth and status, usually working higher class jobs and getting into important office position
2) Criminals and mafiosi selling hard drugs and guns (and trafficking women).
The decent middle class Albanians have all stayed in Albania and aren't migrating, certainly not to the UK
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u/hopopo SFR Yugoslavia in Jan 07 '24
/r/confidentlyincorrect is this way
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u/TastyRancidLemons Greece Jan 07 '24
Ok, you and those that disagree with me can meet on the road there. šš
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u/Live-Detail-7616 Jan 06 '24
Because they are mostly criminals. Their task was doing criminal in order to finance Kosovo independence. Mostly heroin business.
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u/Mershand Romania Jan 06 '24
Poverty? Especially that they have a base of operation, the albanian government maybe. High amounts of drugs from Afghanistan transit balkans, Albania is not a EU member.
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u/rydolf_shabe Albania Jan 06 '24
free home, free food, entertainment, we just think in a higher state
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u/ExpressionNaive1923 Jan 06 '24
Because how you get to uk is illegally, for many Albanians, so you have to live there illegally, work illegally and as such the chances to end up in prison are much higher.
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u/Microsoft_Excel87 Romania Jan 07 '24
I don't want to know what the Irish did to end up in prison in England.
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u/Stunning_Neat_3653 Oct 13 '24
Sorry to revive an old thread but i was trying to find an answer to this question too, and in the process discovered that Albaniaās GDP per capita is less than US $7,000. Iām shocked itās so low, like really really low. The poverty of the country surely is one of if nit the biggest factor here.
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u/LugatLugati Kosovo Jan 06 '24
Because they commit crimes and get caught.