One in every 36 Albanian men living in England and Wales are behind bars, according to official data.
Almost 1,100 Albanians were in prison at the end of 2024, with just three being women.
This places Albania at the top of a criminality league table by nationality, ahead of Guinea, Algeria, Vietnam, Sudan, Palestine and Eritrea.
The share of foreign prisoners from Albania has soared seven-fold over the past 15 years, as revealed by the MailOnline.
Almost 1,100 Albanians were in prison at the end of 2024
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In 2010, just 1.5 per cent of foreign nationals jailed in England and Wales were Albanian.
By the end of 2024, this figure had jumped to 10.6 per cent – more than any other nationality.
This rise mirrors how Albanian gangs have come to dominate the British drug trade.
Albanian gangsters in the UK have been convicted of murder, sex offences, money laundering and people smuggling.
The National Crime Agency has long warned about the “significant threat” posed by Albanian gangs.
They are infamous for their professionalism, discipline and savage tactics to keep competition at bay.
Albanian criminals negotiate directly with Colombian cartels to flood British streets with cheap cocaine.
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The National Crime Agency has long warned about the ‘significant threat’ posed by Albanian gangs
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In Cardiff, three Albanian gang members were jailed for murdering Tomasz Waga, who tried to steal cannabis from their drugs factory.
His body was “dumped like a bag of rubbish” after the 2021 killing.
Meanwhile, serial killer Mane Driza, nicknamed “Tony Montana” after the Scarface character, is due to begin his UK sentence next year.
He murdered a fellow Albanian in London in 1999 before fleeing to Italy.
Housing Albanian prisoners costs UK taxpayers approximately £44 million annually, at around £40,000 per inmate.
The rate of Albanians crossing the Channel has fallen since a prisoner transfer agreement was signed in 2022.
Under Rishi Sunak, 200 were deported in exchange for £8 million to modernise Albania’s prison system.
Labour last week vowed to deport foreign criminals quicker, saying it “cannot be right” for taxpayers to foot the bill.
Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has called for more transparency on migrant crime
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Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice has called for more transparency on migrant crime.
“We need fully transparent open data: who commits crimes from which countries and their citizenship status,” he told the publication.
Ministers have been accused of an “institutional cover-up” of migrant crime rates.
Senior Reform and Tory MPs have urged Labour to publish comprehensive data, similar to Denmark and some US states.
The data was compiled using Ministry of Justice figures and the 2021 Census.
Nations with fewer than 20 people in jail were excluded due to low sample size.
For comparison, the incarceration rate for British-born men in England and Wales was approximately 0.3 per cent, or one in 341.