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"This city is mine or I die"/ Daily Mail: Why drug bosses in Liverpool refuse to work with Albanians

Politiko 2025-06-03 14:12:59

"This city is mine or I die"/ Daily Mail: Why drug bosses in Liverpool

In one of the few cities in Great Britain where the Albanian mafia has not yet successfully penetrated, local drug gangs in Liverpool are resisting cooperation with Albanian traffickers at all costs, unlike the rest of the country where Albanians control the cocaine market.

The British newspaper Daily Mail brings new evidence from police investigations and decrypted conversations from the EncroChat platform, which show that drug lords in this city are not willing to give ground to Albanian gangs, known for their low prices and use of deadly violence.

In one of the intercepted conversations between brothers Vincent and Francis Coggins – who run the notorious Huyton Firm – they talk about an Albanian trafficker from Marbella, but refuse his offer of cooperation. “Yes, the Albanians are very tired,” Vincent writes, clearly showing his dislike for Albanians in this market.

A source involved in the Liverpool underworld told the Daily Mail: “If the Albanians tried to force their way into the retail market, there would be war. They don’t want them and they don’t allow them on their territory.”

This sentiment is also illustrated in the BBC series “This City Is Ours,” where a criminal character rejects a deal with Albanian traffickers with the words: “If you include the Albanians, they will never leave.”

Unlike cities like London or Birmingham, where Albanians have built powerful networks through ties to Colombian cartels and the Italian 'Ndrangheta, in Liverpool they face an insurmountable wall: local gangs and control over the city's port.

Experts say control of the Port of Liverpool is a key factor in the dominance of local gangs. The trial of the Coggins brothers revealed that they had bribed dock workers to smuggle drugs into containers, avoiding police checks.

Meanwhile, Albanians have attempted to enter the market through cannabis cultivation networks. In March, police discovered a farm in the West Derby area – one of the few cases of Albanian presence in the city – which turned out to be part of a major operation involving over 100 farms across the country, where the group of 10 people had stolen electricity to grow cannabis worth around £21m.

However, despite their efforts, Albanian gangs seem to have yet to find a way to break local control in Liverpool. As one former drug dealer says: “If you have the port, you have the city. And the Albanians don’t have the port.”

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