"The Sun" has published a shocking article claiming that Albanian gangsters are being "trained in torture" by Mexican hitmen, while, according to the British daily, the streets of Britain are being covered in blood due to increasingly brutal executions.
The Sun's full post
Criminals are hanging rivals from poles in Europe, while a shocking case in Britain showed a hostage who was tortured for four days before having his fingernails pulled out.
It was such a macabre sight that passersby initially thought the bloody body hanging from a roadside sign was a Halloween 'decoration'.
They were horrified when they realized that the body hanging on the billboard was a real person.
Albanian Bekim Halilaj, 29, is believed to have been killed by his employers after a drugs shipment went missing, eight years after flooding Southampton with £4m of cocaine.
Halilaj's body was found tied to a road sign on a main ring road in Brussels last month.
Experts told The Sun that this cold-blooded murder points to increasing violence among Albanian gangs, which have adopted tactics used by Mexican cartels.
South American gangsters are known for using brutal "shock and awe" methods, such as hanging victims, beheadings, and torture.
Victims of Albanian gangsters in Britain have been tortured, burned in cars, had their nails removed or disappeared without a trace.
Professor of criminology at the State University of Tirana, Ervin Karamuço, said that Mexican hitmen have become "consultants" for major Albanian gangsters.
“The Mexican cartels' schools of torture and deadly violence have become a model for criminal networks, an extremely effective tool for imposing authority, fear, and control over the drug trade.
Instructors from notorious hit-and-run training camps now serve as consultants to affiliated groups that buy their 'expertise.' Every year, these tactics are carefully adopted by Albanian gangs that collaborate with the cartels. The result? Police investigations become much more difficult, these methods are extremely sophisticated and leave almost no trace.
It is well known that the so-called Albanian 'ambassadors' stay in Latin America, not for tourism, but to make deals directly with the cartels."
Halilaj was part of an organised crime group that smuggled more than £4m of cocaine through Southampton. He was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2017 for supplying class A drugs, along with three accomplices.
Southampton High Court said the cocaine, brought by dealers in Essex, was of high quality, in some cases 91 per cent pure.
After his conviction, Halilaj was deported to Albania, but later moved to Belgium, where authorities have opened investigations into his death.
A source told Belgian media outlet RTL:
“Halilaj was kidnapped, executed and hanged as a warning after the loss of a large drug shipment, with the clear message: 'This is what happens if you betray us.'”
Severed heads on the dance floor
It's not the first time Albanian gangs have used Mexican cartels' tactics. In South America, people are used to bodies hanging from bridges, a common phenomenon since the early 2000s.
Severed heads have been thrown across dance floors, body parts have been found in refrigerators, cars have been burned, and summary executions have become routine.
Mexico's most notorious cartel is the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, which recruits poor children as young as 15 and forces them to eat human flesh and hearts as part of a ritual.
In Britain, an Albanian gang kidnapped a compatriot and demanded £400,000 from his family, torturing him and removing his nails.
The 30-year-old was held hostage for four days in a dispute over a cannabis house in East London in 2022.
He was saved when police raided the house and arrested five men and a woman for kidnapping and threatening to kill, but the case was dropped when a key witness withdrew at Harrow Crown Court.
Only one defendant was convicted in the cannabis case, Nekid Arapi, 26, known as Kid Vlonjati, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for possession with intent to sell of the class B drug.
The Albanian police at the time said:
"The kidnapped man was severely beaten and his nails were removed from his hands."
Revenge and murder inside prison
The gangsters meted out their justice when Arben Lleshi was sentenced to 32 years in prison for the murder of Albanian drug dealer Agim Hoxha, 27, whose body was found in a burnt-out car near Southampton in April 2012.
Police believe Hoxha was murdered in a flat and then burned inside a Mercedes Benz in the village of Chilworth.
£42,000 was found hidden in the victim's cars.
Lleshi was extradited to Albania to serve the rest of his sentence in 2016, but two years ago he was shot dead inside Peqin prison, which houses some of the country's most dangerous criminals.
"There is no doubt that his murder was linked to criminal activities abroad."
In another case, security camera footage showed Aron Kato, 28, being chased and pushed to the ground in Ilford, East London.
Police say he was then forced into a dark BMW.
His disappearance in 2019 has never been solved.
Sources say he was kidnapped and possibly killed due to his involvement in the robbery of a cannabis farm controlled by an Albanian gang.
A shocking TikTok video, posted in May, suggests that Aron's friends kidnapped an Albanian and threatened him with revenge.
Titled "Aaron (sic) Kato is now missing," it shows two masked men holding a knife to the victim's head and demanding his name.
The video is followed by a rap about Aron and the fact that his girlfriend had just given birth to a baby boy. A second, similar video mentions that the kidnapped man is a “gardener,” a term for people who take care of plants in cannabis houses.
