Albanian criminal networks are leveraging popular social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram to market and distribute discounted cigarettes directly to households across the UK.
The illicit trade of counterfeit and smuggled tobacco remains a highly profitable underground enterprise, depriving the UK Treasury of over £3 billion annually in tax revenue.
Authorities indicate that these operations are largely controlled by international crime syndicates, with earnings funneled into other illegal activities like narcotics, arms trafficking, and human smuggling.
Already holding sway over the country’s cocaine distribution, Albanian groups seem to be expanding their influence into the black-market tobacco sector as well.
An investigation by the Daily Mail uncovered multiple Albanian-language profiles on TikTok and Facebook advertising cigarettes from well-known brands like Marlboro to British consumers.
These cigarettes, reportedly sourced from Albania or Greece, are sold for just £6 to £7 per carton, a stark contrast to the UK’s typical price of £16. This price gap suggests the products are smuggled to evade tobacco duties and might also be counterfeit.
One account on TikTok and Facebook has been operating under a name that roughly translates as ‘packs of Albanian cigarettes’, and offering Marlboro cigarettes from Greece and Albania for doorstep delivery.
An Albanian-language TikTok page advertising cheap cigarettes for home delivery in the UK. This particular page has been taken down after it was flagged to TikTok by the Mail
A Mail reporter was offered packets of Marlboro Gold for £6.50 – compared to £17.75 in British supermarkets
An undercover reporter working for the Mail contacted the account and was offered ten packets of Marlboro Gold – each containing 20 cigarettes – for £65. This came to £6.50 a packet, compared to £17.75 in British supermarkets.
Tobacco duty costs around 33p per cigarette, in addition to a 16.5 per cent levy on the retail price.
This means a packet of 20 would incur a duty fee of £6.60 even before the additional retail price charge – meaning anyone selling them legitimately would be making a loss.
By contrast, a 20-pack of Marlboro Gold can cost as little as £2.50 in Albania.
A second TikTok page, called Albanian cigarettes, also offered our reporter packets of Marlboro Gold for £6.50 – explaining that their delivery driver had travelled ‘up north’ to drop off orders but would be able to reach homes in the rest of the country by the following week.
After being contacted by the Mail, TikTok took down both pages for breaching its rules against selling regulated goods.
As well as TikTok and Facebook, similar Albanian language pages selling cigarettes could also be found on Instagram.
The Mail flagged these pages to Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, which said it was ‘investigating’.
Ervin Karamuco, professor of criminology at Tirana State University in Albania, believes gangs from the country are turning to tobacco to boost their revenues.
‘It is not surprising that, alongside arms and drugs trafficking, Albanian criminal organisations are also involved in cigarette smuggling in the UK,’ he told the Mail.
‘Although this activity isn’t as profitable as drugs, it nevertheless remains an important source of criminal revenues.’
Professor Karamuco suggested corrupt customs officials were turning a blind eye to illegal tobacco shipments, or actively organising them.
Albanian criminals have been involved in smuggling cigarettes into the EU for at least 20 years.
While Kurdish and Chinese gangs are said to control most of the British market, Albanian groups appear to be gaining a foothold too.
In one notable case from 2015, a gang was caught with over one million illegal cigarettes hidden in a refrigerated lorry among a cargo of frozen chicken.
The group included Alban Beqiri, an Albanian national, who was fined £150 after entering a guilty plea, while his three co-conspirators received jail terms ranging from two years to four years and nine months.
Albania is known as a production hub for counterfeit cigarettes, with investigators recently raiding a factory in the town of Librazhd, in the east of the country.
In 2015, a gang was caught with over one million illegal cigarettes hidden in a refrigerated lorry among a cargo of frozen chicken
Albania is known as a production hub for counterfeit cigarettes, with investigators recently raiding a factory in the town of Librazhd, in the east of the country
Officials say the factory operated around the clock producing millions of cigarettes that were officially destined for Cyprus, but were actually smuggled to other European countries, including the UK.
‘The manufactured cigarettes are loaded onto transport trucks and transported by land and sea via Greece, Italy, France and Switzerland with final destinations in the European Union countries and the United Kingdom,’ a statement said.
The facility, ‘Albania Tabak – The New Cigarette Factory’, is also alleged to have been producing counterfeit Rothmans.
British officials played a key role in the factory bust by passing information to Albania’s Special Structure against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) about the factory’s suspicious activities.
