Albanian migrants crossing channel are put up at Heathrow hotel before driven away in expensive cars

Albanian migrants placed in hotels after crossing the Channel are picked up by relatives within hours, a Mail on Sunday investigation can reveal.

The MoS monitored one migrant hotel – the Crowne Plaza near Heathrow Airport – and saw British-based Albanians collecting relatives from there in expensive cars.

The hotel, which has a gym and swimming pool, is entirely occupied by migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats.

On Friday, Sadik Mura, 42, an Albanian businessman based in Wigston, Leicester, arrived to pick up his two cousins from the 465-room hotel, which used to charge £150 per night for a standard room before it began to be used to house asylum seekers over a year ago.

The MoS monitored one migrant hotel – the Crowne Plaza near Heathrow Airport – and saw British-based Albanians collecting relatives from there in expensive cars

His relatives, a woman aged 29 and a boy aged 15, had arrived on a coach at the hotel late last Thursday night from the Manston air base in Kent having crossed the Channel three weeks ago.

Mr Mura, who was driving a Range Rover worth about £80,000, said: ‘Of course, the hotel has allowed me to do it, that’s why I am taking them away.’

Throughout the day, vehicles arrived in front of the Crowne Plaza, and Albanian migrants were taken away.

Last week, a Home Office official revealed that Albanians who are taken to hotels usually vanish to join criminal gangs and the hotels where they are kept do not have any security barriers to stop them absconding. We have also been told over half of the more than 1,000 migrants at the Crowne Plaza are Albanians, and some are making the lives of others ‘hell’.

Others staying there include Kurds, Iranians, Syrians and Afghans.

The hotel, which has a gym and swimming pool, is entirely occupied by migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats

The MoS interviewed more than a dozen outside, and many complained of violence and drug-taking. Ihsan Abdul Karim, 35, an Iraqi Kurd who has been at the hotel for almost a month, said: ‘The Albanians are selling drugs inside. There are also fights between them.’

Fadi Ahmed, 59, from Erbil in Iraq, who has been at the hotel with his wife and two children for four months, said: ‘The Albanians cause problems. There are lots of fights among them.’

But one Iraqi woman, who did not want to be named, said: ‘No, we all get on inside.

‘My children’s best friends are Albanian children. Most of them are nice people.’

Two years ago, 50 Albanians crossed the Channel on small boats. Last year, it was 800, while this year, it has been 12,000 so far.