The murky world of organised crime continues to be a source of inspiration for the entertainment industry. And for many TV series and books – including, of course, London Large – London is the setting of choice. The city has a very long history of dodgy dealings, and in recent years organised criminal activity – from the drug economy and people trafficking to financial fraud - have seen significant growth. The city offers a million illegal opportunities to accumulate wealth.
When we first started the London Large series we didn't want to revert to the archetypal gangs of yesteryear, baddies in the mould of the Kray twins or the Richardsons. Such people have long gone from London, banished to the south of Spain or the hinterlands of Kent and Essex, now replaced by organised gangs from all corners of the globe, a reflection of London's super-diverse population.
The UK is now said to host some 7,500 illegal organised groups. Albanian, Russian, Jamaican, Nigerian, Pakistani, Iraqi, Somalian and Vietnamese crime syndicates are just some of the multitude of diverse outfits operating in the UK.
We started writing the first London Large novel, Blood on the Streets, in the winter of 2015. An aspect of the story is the battle for turf and power between the Albanian and Russian ‘mafias’. In the story the Russian’s (the usual crowd favourites for reasons we outline in another article later in the book) were on top, but it was clear from our research that the Albanians were making big moves in the UK and were a force to be reckoned with. Since we wrote the book The National Crime Agency have stated that the Albanian syndicates are well on their way to a compete takeover of the UKs £5bn a year cocaine market.
This is an incredible level of success and the most interesting question for us is this: how did they do it?
The answer to that question has many parts. They are tightly-knit, good deal makers and have proved to be strategically smart, devising and enacting a plan that covers all aspects of their business, from procurement to transportation to retail sales. It also helps enormously that they have in their locker the threat of very serious violence.
Take, for example, London’s Gascoigne Estate which slopes from Barking town centre down to the Thames. It is the home of Hellbanianz, an Albanian gang of drug dealers, known locally for its violence. They are also known more widely for their social media output featuring Ferraris, wads of £50 notes and gold Rolex watches to help enhance its reputation and recruit “youngers”. They belong to the “retail game” of the cocaine trade. They are the street dealers and enforcers of the organised criminal syndicates.
The gang’s glossily produced trap music videos remind viewers that “HB are ready for violence” and that they possess the requisite manpower and firearms to take on all comers. It’s this recipe for recruitment and the instilling of fear that’s most important at street level, and they have it off to a fine art. They are also in a decent position, logistically speaking, in close reach of the huge London container ports, where their cocaine is offloaded in multi-kilo shipments.
From there, let’s take a look across the Atlantic, to the jungles of Latin America, where the story of their rise begins. It began with a new and simple business model. In the old model international importers worked separately from the wholesalers and the gangs. Pricing structure varied, depending on the drug’s purity; the higher the purity the higher cost.
The strategic thinking the Albanians used ditched the old business model. They began negotiating directly with the south American cartels who control coca production. Huge shipments were arranged, and supply chains were kept in-house. It has been estimated they were procuring cocaine from the cartels for about £4,000 to £5,500 a kilo, at a time when rivals thought they were getting a reasonable deal using Dutch wholesalers selling at £22,500 for the same amount. At those prices they managed to increase the purity and lower the price.
In business speak they improved the size of their margins and product quality and passed the improved margins onto their customers in the form of price reductions. As any economist worth his salt will tell you, that’s the classic recipe used to increase market share – a bit like the business model the German retailer Lidl are now using to penetrate the UK grocery market. Lidl’s success, according to one economist, is due to ‘targeting average budget consumers who prefer quality products at lower prices.’ There’s no need to be greedy to dominate the drug markets – or the grocery markets for that matter, and it’s apparent that neither organisation spends too much money on customer care!
Anyway, all this has re-shaped the use, production and economy of cocaine. The drug is at its cheapest in the UK since 1990 which, sadly, has also caused record fatalities. The UK has the highest number of young users in Europe. More broadly, far bigger and more frequent shipments of the drug have been seized entering the UK as cocaine production in south America has also hit record levels. The model of good product, reliable supply, sustainable prices combined with an effective and disruptive ground operation is exactly what investors in any business would look for before parting with their hard-earned cash.
For the supply side to deliver maximum efficiency the gangs also required control of Europe’s ports. Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium are Europe’s largest seaports, with several million containers passing through each year. Collectively, the ports employ 240,000 people, including, it is believed, many working on behalf of the gangs, providing direct access and control to their own product.
There is much evidence to suggest Albanian drug gangs have formed tight alliances with the Italian gangs who control the cocaine trade in Europe. As mentioned, they know how to make a deal, and are known as reliable allies who stick to their end of a bargain. Given that Albanians are famous for participating in vendettas and cycles of revenge it is striking that they have avoided becoming embroiled in tit-for-tat feuds with rivals. They seem extremely skilled at developing long term relationships.
Despite that, they do have a reputation for violence. As Tony Saggers, formerly of the National Crime Agency says, the backdrop of the Kosovo conflict has given them a swagger comparable to that of Irish criminals during and after the Troubles:
‘They are quite charismatic and known to prioritise relationship-building rather than competitive feuds. Also, when you come from a country where there’s been conflict and you have a reputation for ruthlessness the charisma is underlined with an element of “actually, we do need to get on with these people”.’
It would seem that the Albanian code of besa, ‘to keep the promise’, aligned with the ancestral code of kanun, the right to take revenge in which ‘blood must pay with blood’, serve as a powerful glue in bonding gang members and allies alike. Maybe this helps explain their success, considering the tiny number of organised UK criminals the National Crime Agency believes are Albanian – 0.8%.
Another repercussion of the Albanian model has, say some, helped fuel knife crime and drug disputes by making cocaine affordable to smaller, younger street gangs. A recent report by the London borough of Waltham Forest said gangs were moving from postcode rivalries to commercial enterprises focused on dealing cocaine.
All this is the reason we don’t much feature British crime outfits very much in our novels. They still exist, of course, and the NCA estimate they remain responsible for something a little north of 70% of organised crime across the country, but they are no longer in charge of either London or the cocaine industry.
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