SCOTLAND YARD is targeting up to 100 Albanian mafia gang members who are flooding London�s streets with cocaine, the Standard reveals today.
Detectives have identified �50 to 100� suspects based in the capital with links to groups involved in a booming trafficking racket. Police say Albanian gangs are smuggling huge quantities of the Class A drug into London and the rest of the UK using the Channel Tunnel and cross-Channel ferries.
Detectives fear the soaring trade is fuelling violence � including stabbings and shootings � among London�s street dealers.
Senior officers say the individuals associated with Albanian organised crime are engaged in activity ranging from drugs importation to people trafficking. They are linked to gangs based back home and are thought to be engaged in fixing and enforcing the cocaine trade. The �controlling hands� remain in Albania.
The Met has joined forces with the National Crime Agency to target the gangs. In recent years, more than 130 people have been convicted in the courts and millions of pounds
worth of drugs and cash seized. Officials say the success has seen the criminals resort to increasingly complex ways of hiding cocaine in compartments built into cars and lorries.
Details of the rise in Albanian gangs are revealed in the Standard today, including how Scotland Yard smashed one of the biggest ever drugs organisa- tions to target the UK. Albanian kingpin Klodjan Copja, 30, was jailed for 17 years in August at Kingston crown court after pleading guilty to a series of drugs offences, including three counts of conspiracy to supply Class A drugs.
He ran a huge cocaine supply network for more than three years with links to British and other organised crime groups in London and across the UK. Officers from the Met�s Organised Crime.

(Source:London Evening Standard)