According to UK government sources, twice as many Albanians have been caught as stowaways at UK ports than any other nationality.
Approximately 981 Albanian illegal immigrants were arrested at UK ports from 2008 until mid-2016.
This information was released to the newspaper The Guardian by the Home Office statistics under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act.
Although Albania is not an EU member state, it borders Greece, and its mafia are known to UK police as ruthless people traffickers and drug smugglers.
Afghans come second and then Algerians, Iranians, Indians, Palestinians and Vietnamese.
The number of attempted entries to the UK have increased from 1,000 a month in 2008-12 to 2,000 in late 2013, before rising to 4,000 in 2014 and almost 13,000 in July 2015. In most of the cases the illegal immigrants were discovered trying to board boats and trains going to the UK, rather than on UK soil.