May Edwards, a resident of Peterlee for more than 60 years, marked the milestone on Friday, September 4.

Born May Savage in Horden, she played a vital role during and after the Second World War, working at the miners’ hostel in Horden and supporting Bevin Boys – young men conscripted to work in Britain’s coal mines.

Mrs Edwards said: “I was proud of that job; it was my bit for the war effort.

“It was a paid job and I had a little room to sleep in.

“I was a canteen girl, helping in the kitchen and making tea and coffee for the lads, who were lovely and worked so hard.

“I had wanted to work in the munitions factory in Sheffield, but I wasn’t old enough.

May Edwards. (Image: Believe Housing)

“Looking back, it was for the best.”

She later worked in a drapery shop in Horden, where she met her future husband, Stanley Edwards, who worked at the nearby butcher’s.

The couple married in 1948 and later moved to Peterlee as the new town was being developed.

They raised two children, Alan and Glynis, in the home where Mrs Edwards still lives today.

Now widowed and a grandmother, she remains active with the support of her family.

May Edwards with Kim Corfield and Beverly Goodwin from Believe Housing. (Image: Believe Housing)

Mrs Edwards said: “I have a lovely big family and they come to help me with the jobs I cannot do myself, but I like to keep busy and try to keep active.

“I have a little four-wheeler to whizz around.”

She added: “My garden has always been one of my great pleasures; I still like the borders to look good.

“My family take me for a look out, we go all over.

“I enjoy a garden centre trip and going out for food.

“I’m lucky that way.”

To mark her centenary, neighbourhood officers Kim Corfield and Beverly Goodwin from Believe Housing, of which May is a customer, visited with a birthday card and a hamper.

As the search and rescue operation continues following the blaze the Coast Guard have confirmed that 42 people have been rescued. Initial reports indicate there have been five deaths but this number is likely to change.

The Coast Guard and other emergency services continue to conduct search operations in the waters of Coron, Palawan.

The most shameful thing about Stella Creasy’s tweet was her glee.

The video post was to mark a day of celebration in the Muslim calendar, and pictured behind her were young women in hijabs and niqabs beaming at the camera.

With unashamed delight, the Labour MP for Walthamstow declared to the world: ‘These women are the future optometrists, lawyers, accountants, surgeons and leaders of our community and country. They also celebrate the Prophets Birthday at the Milad il Nabi March. Everyone is welcome so come next year and meet them to find out what this event is as they are fantastic!’

But Creasy had left out something important. The Muslim celebration she had lauded as being welcoming to all was not, it transpired, quite so inclusive after all.

Britain’s future surgeons and lawyers had not actually been part of the main body of the march, which was a male-only event. Instead, they had been required to stage their own separate parade, away from the men.

When challenged over this by journalist Jenni Russell: ‘Are these women segregated away from the march you posted?’ Creasy replied: ‘Jenni, they were.’

Segregation along gender lines is a topic of great interest to the former shadow minister for Crime Prevention. In 2022, when a controversy broke out over attempts by the exclusive Garrick Club to retain its male-only status, Creasy led the charge.

‘If this rule is not changed, membership of the Garrick club should be considered incompatible with membership of the 21st Century,’ she raged. ‘Whether it’s politicians, lawyers, journalists or businessmen hiding behind its panelled walls, they cannot hide how out of touch with the modern world it is to have a club which excludes women as a way of shoring up the importance of men as it does neither sex any favours.’

She also took up the fight for biological men who self-identify as trans to be granted access to safe spaces previously reserved for biological women. ‘Do I want to live in a world where we’re policing everyone who goes into a toilet? No’, she proudly stated, before claiming: ‘Do I think some women were born with penises? Yes.’

So it is somewhat surprising that an MP, who was once described as ‘a latter day Harriet Harman’, feels women and trans-women should have equal rights to be just about everywhere, except on the streets of her own constituency. Actually, maybe it’s not that surprising.

Creasy’s hypocrisy and self-righteousness are attended by a transparent cynicism. According to the last census, 25 per cent of the Walthamstow seat is Muslim. That equates to over 20,000 eligible voters, easily enough to erase her otherwise comfortable 17,000 majority.

So she has made a simple, if entirely self-serving, calculation. Her fight against the patriarchy will be waged without fear or favour. Until it risks bringing her into conflict with those of the Muslim faith. At which point the patriarchy can marginalise and subjugate women to its heart’s content.

Though to be fair to the MP nicknamed ‘Saint Ella’ by some of her colleagues because of her perceived haughtiness, Creasy is not alone in parading her grating political opportunism.

Last year, Jess Phillips, specifically appointed to the role of Safeguarding Minister because of her pioneering work in tackling violence against women, faced calls for her resignation from several victims of the predominantly Muslim rape gangs after she blocked a national inquiry into the scandal.

Again, Phillips’s decision to offload her previously inviolate principles was directly linked to the demographics of her constituency. At the 2024 election she had survived an especially toxic campaign at the hands of the fanatically pro-Islamist Workers Party. And again, the difference between her previous rhetoric, and her political timidity when faced with the potential ire of Muslim voters, was stark.

Labour’s statement about Israel’s ‘illegal settlements’ is surely an attempt to relieve pressure on their MPs facing a pincer movement from Zack Polanski’s pro-Palestinian Green Party

But then that is basically Labour’s MO now. Yesterday the Government announced it was introducing sanctions on what it termed ‘illegal settlements’ in the disputed Israel/Palestine West Bank. 

According to Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband this was to attempt to kick-start a renewed search for a two-state solution to the Middle East’s most intractable conflict. But as everyone watching his statement was aware, it was primarily an attempt to relieve pressure on Labour MPs facing a pincer movement from radical Islamist splinter parties, and Zack Polanski’s pro-Palestinian Greens.

Yet by doing so Andy Burnham and his colleagues are in danger of finding themselves riding around on the back of an especially dangerous tiger. One that will become ever more voracious as the next election approaches.

When our new Prime Minister was elected, he pledged that every new policy he announced would have to pass the ‘Makerfield test’. Basically, if it wasn’t a priority for his predominantly working class constituents in the North West, it wouldn’t be a priority for him.

Well, I spent a lot of time in Makerfield during that by-election. And I didn’t come across a single person who placed the Israel- Palestine conflict at the top of their list of pressing issues. Or who expressed their desire to attend religious marches segregated along lines of gender.

The kind of tortured moral relativity currently being paraded by Stella Creasy and her colleagues also runs into direct conflict with the brand of politics we were supposed to be getting from our new Prime Minister.

A couple of weeks ago one of Andy Burnham’s allies was at pains to stress to me how, on issues like immigration, he was attuned to the hopes and fears of working, not Metropolitan, Britain. ‘He’s from Wigan, not central Manchester,’ I was told. Creasy’s posturing demonstrates that message has yet to filter down the M6.

The PM pledged every new policy must pass the ‘Makerfield test’. But, says Dan Hodges, I did not see a single person in Makerfield who put the Israel- Palestine conflict at the top of their list

The sinister scenes in Dover, where masked men clashed with police, brought condemnation across the political spectrum. Why does this not apply to issues like gender segregation too?

But perhaps the most staggering thing about her intervention was the timing. At precisely the moment she was joyously tweeting about the women shunted aside by the men in their community parading through London’s streets, a firestorm had erupted over a different display of toxic masculinity.

The sinister scenes in Dover and Portsmouth, where masked men clashed with police, vandalised property and caused widespread disruption, had brought condemnation from across the political spectrum.

‘We have a responsibility in the times that we’re living in,’ the Prime Minister told his assembled MPs. ‘It’s a solemn responsibility to prevent the politics of poison seeping into our streets.’

Fine. But that has to be extended to all strains of that poison. This is Britain in 2026, not the deep US South of the 1930s. Segregation on our streets based on gender or race should be intolerable in all its forms. It should be especially intolerable to Members of Parliament elected on a pledge to serve all their constituents, regardless of colour or creed.

And it should be least tolerable of all to those Labour MPs who have made it their life’s work to lecture everyone in earshot about the need to challenge the abuses of the patriarchy.

‘Everyone is welcome so come next year and meet them to find out what this event is as they are fantastic!’ Stella Creasy tweeted excitedly. When the women of your constituency aren’t treated like second class citizens, with your gushing approval Stella, we will.

The UK needs new regulations for AI products used in the NHS and other healthcare settings, says Britain’s industry watchdog.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which regulates all medical devices and licenses treatment drugs in the UK, has published 44 recommendations to update its policies as the use of AI in the sector rises.

The technology will soon be routinely used within the NHS, MHRA chief Lawrence Tallon told the BBC.

“What I would expect is that patients will… increasingly see AI as part of the way that normal NHS healthcare is delivered,” he said.

“That should happen in a way that they can maintain their trust and their confidence in what’s happening.”

The report was compiled by an independent commission and involved input from more than 12,000 people including patients and clinicians.

The recommendations include:

“The medical devices regulatory framework predominantly dates from a period where we were thinking about things like hip replacements and knee replacements, or smaller things like stethoscopes and plasters,” Tallon said.

He added while current guidelines may work for simple AI products trained to spot known symptoms on scans, for example, the rules do not apply to more complex models.

“Unlike most of the medical products we’re used to regulating, these products continue to change after the point of authorization,” he said.

“As new data gets fed in, they learn, they adapt, they drift.”

And he acknowledged trying to regulate AI is a global challenge.

“I don’t think at this moment in time we can point to a single country, a single regulatory framework, and say that they have absolutely cracked it,” he said.

Labour was branded the ‘Welfare Party’ on Wednesday after Andy Burnham said he would never prioritise defence spending over benefits.

In an extraordinary intervention, the Prime Minister said he was serious about national security, but it ‘cannot come at the expense of social security’.

Writing in the Daily Mail, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said Mr Burnham had ‘said the quiet part out loud’, adding: ‘For our new PM, social security – welfare – comes above national security.

‘The Labour Party has become the Welfare Party. The first duty of government is defence of the country, not paying more benefits.’

Last week, Mrs Badenoch laid out detailed plans to find £10billion to raise defence spending to 3 per cent of GDP by 2030. The package included £8billion of cuts to the welfare budget, half of it through reforms to the runaway housing benefit bill.

During angry clashes in the Commons during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Burnham refused to commit to the 3 per cent target, which his new Chancellor John Healey has warned is the minimum needed to keep Britain safe.

And the PM rounded on the Conservatives for proposing ‘crude’ benefit cuts to fund the Armed Forces. ‘We do everything to support our national security, but it cannot come at the expense of social security,’ he said.

Defending his support for higher welfare spending, he said strong national security ‘also depends on resilience in our communities’. He said Labour would never be ‘forced to choose between the two’.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch – pictured on Friday in Sussex 

The PM’s comments create a clear dividing line in British politics over how quickly defence spending should increase in the face of rising threats – and how it should be paid for.

They also appear to be at odds with remarks from new Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who said in June that ‘there is no social justice without national security’. And they will raise fresh doubts about whether Labour will ever act to rein in the runaway welfare bill.

Earlier this year, messages released in the Mandelson files revealed that work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden told the disgraced peer that Labour MPs were demanding more welfare spending, saying: ‘Every meeting I have is: ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’

Tory welfare spokesman Helen Whately said: ‘Does Burnham know what happens when a vulnerable country gets attacked? Without national security, there will be no social security.’ Fellow Tory Claire Coutinho said the PM’s comments were ‘barking mad’.

Reform UK’s deputy leader Richard Tice accused Mr Burnham of ‘surrender’, adding: ‘He’s basically saying mild anxiety is more important than the safety of the realm.’

Spending on sickness and disability benefits is on course to hit £109billion by the end of the decade – an increase of more than £30billion on last year. Sir Keir was forced to abandon plans to trim £5billion from the welfare bill last year following a mutiny by Labour MPs.

Mr Burnham on Wednesday confirmed he was opposed to any ‘crude cuts’ to benefits. He claimed that long-term reforms to housing and education could eventually bring the benefits bill down.

But one Treasury insider told the Mail that the welfare budget is now the only potential source of significant revenue: ‘In the past, Chancellors could always find a few billion pounds down the back of the sofa if they really had to. 

The Prime Minister speaking at PMQs on Wednesday 

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Mr Burnham at a meeting with the Jewish community leaders at Downing Street last Thursday 

‘But all the low-hanging fruit is gone. We can’t borrow more, we can’t really tax much more – the only thing left is welfare.’

Britain has suffered an alarming slide down the Nato spending league table in recent years as other countries ramp up investment to meet growing threats. After being a top player for decades, the UK is now in 13th place in terms of defence spending as a percentage of GDP.

Under Labour’s plans, spending will nudge up from 2.6 per cent next year to 2.7 per cent by the end of the decade. By contrast, Germany expects to spend 3.5 per cent by 2030 while Poland is already spending 4.7 per cent.

Mr Burnham is under pressure from MPs on all sides to increase defence spending in the face of growing threats from Russia and other hostile states.

Tan Dhesi, Labour chairman of the Commons defence committee, last week accused him of ‘kicking the can down the road’. In his resignation as defence secretary in June, Mr Healey said Labour’s plans ‘fall well short of what is needed for defence and the country at this dangerous time’, and urged ministers to move to 3 per cent by 2030.

But neither he nor Mr Burnham are willing to commit to hitting the target by the end of the decade. Instead, Mr Burnham on Wednesday adopted the looser target of spending 3.5 per cent by 2035.

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The Tory plans involve saving at least £4billion a year through reforms to housing benefit, and restoring the two-child benefit cap, which Labour scrapped this year, raising a further £3.1billion.

Another £1billion would be saved by ending VAT exemptions for Motability vehicles. The remainder of the £10billion would be funded by scrapping the controversial Chagos Islands giveaway and by diverting money from spending on new windfarms and civil research and development.

Downing Street insisted Mr Burnham was committed to bringing down the welfare bill but refused to put a timescale on it.

– DAILY MAIL COMMENT: After seven weeks in Downing Street, the PM’s mask FINALLY slips on welfare and defence spending 

– QUENTIN LETTS: The PM flicked through his folder with rising panic. He knew he had a fact in there somewhere

The Trump administration removed materials from Arlington National Cemetery that criticized a former monument to Confederate soldiers for its romanticized depiction of slavery, the latest in its campaign to drastically change the representation of the Civil War in high-profile public spaces.

In recent weeks, crews reportedly removed text at the former site of the Confederate Monument, which had described the statue that once stood at the site as presenting a “nostalgic, mythologized vision of the Confederacy, including highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

The monument, installed in 1914 and removed in 2023 after a vote by Congress, had explicitly referred to the pro-slavery Confederacy’s mission to violently separate from the United States as the “lost cause.”

A Defense Department web page noting that the statue featured racist tropes, such as an enslaved man following his enslaver into war and a Black “Mammy” caring for white children, was also recently amended to remove this context.

A new sign at the former statue site notes that in 2025, the Army entered into an agreement with Virginia to once again display the statue in Arlington with “interpretive content to ensure visitors receive clear and accurate contextual information.”

The statue is expected back at the cemetery in 2027.

Last year, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth argued the statue, designed by artist and Confederate veteran Moses Ezekiel, was originally meant to be a “Reconciliation Monument” and was taken down after pressure from “woke lemmings.”

At the time the monument was originally installed, mythologized retellings of the Civil War were growing in popularity, and the Ku Klux Klan racist terror organization was experiencing a resurgence. Many of the nation’s Confederate monuments were not installed around the time of the Civil War, but rather during this period.

The Defense Department website continues to note that Arlington spent decades blocking Black soldiers from being buried in the main cemetery, which was not integrated until 1948.

Ty Seidule, a retired U.S. Army brigadier general who served on a congressionally established commission that reviewed military assets named for the Confederacy for possible removal, called the soon-to-be-restored statue “the cruelest monument that I have ever seen” in an interview with The Washington Post, which reported on the change.

“It is a pro-slavery, anti-United States monument,” he said.

“Arlington National Cemetery’s decision to update website language and signage at Section 16 was made to ensure it was succinct, factual, current and objective,” an Arlington National Cemetery spokesperson said in a statement to The Independent. “This included incorporating updates regarding the pending return of the Moses Ezekiel sculpture, which the Army expects to display in 2027 after it has undergone comprehensive conservation and refurbishment.”

The Trump administration has worked to restore multiple public-facing assets honoring the Confederacy, including reinstating the names of military bases that had been renamed to strike their Confederate-inspired titles, as well as reinstalling a statue of a Confederate general in Washington, D.C., that had been toppled by Black Lives Matter demonstrators in 2020.

Restoring the statue of Albert Pike, the only outdoor statue of a Confederate leader in the capital, was “morally objectionable,” Eleanor Holmes Norton, the capital’s non-voting delegate to Congress, told The Associated Press at the time.

The Trump administration has also restored a portrait of Confederate general Robert E. Lee to its place in the library at the West Point military academy.

Beyond the military, the Trump administration has pursued a wide-ranging review of Smithsonian-linked museums to purge them of what it calls “improper ideology,” amid complaints from the president that the Smithsonian was too focused on “how bad slavery was.”

Materials touching on the history of slavery and other controversial parts of U.S. history have been removed from national parks and historical sites.

With its pillared frontage, helipad, lake views and huge sun terrace, it’s little wonder that Albania’s Ajman Park has become a hit with tourists.

The modern leisure complex just 20 miles to the west of the country’s capital Tirana offers the finest in family-friendly accommodation, with children’s play areas, outdoor hot tubs and a choice of restaurants – there’s an Italian, a steakhouse and one offering sushi.

On social media sites, British visitors lavish praise on the five-star resort, with one mother from Bristol who stayed there with her family describing it as ‘stunning’.

Such guests are among more than a million UK tourists expected to visit Albania this year as the Balkan state, not so long ago an international pariah under hardline communist rule, revels in its newfound status as one of Europe’s most fashionable destinations.

And yet there is one vital detail about Ajman Park its British visitors are almost certainly unaware of. According to prosecutors, the site was in part bankrolled by millions of pounds made by an international Albanian cocaine mafia operating in the UK.

And it is far from the only resort financed by drugs being sold in Britain. A Daily Mail investigation has discovered that for years, drug barons and people-smuggling kingpins have funnelled billions back from their illegal businesses to launder it in their home country’s booming construction and tourism sectors.

It turns out this dirty money has been used to build many of the sun-kissed resorts along the Aegean and Ionian coasts that have been buzzing all summer with UK holidaymakers.

The resort’s owner, Julian Balla, is now on the run, as he is wanted for his alleged connections to cocaine trafficking networks, suspected drug smuggling and money laundering

Much of the gleaming new high-rise skyline in Tirana – itself a popular city break destination – has also been constructed with the illicit gains made from drug sales in Britain.

The sheer scale of the Albanian drug lords’ operations here is terrifying. More than 450 Albanian-run cannabis factories have been found in the UK in the past four years, in what is now the cornerstone of a trade worth £2.6billion annually.

When I visited Albania this week, officials there told me proudly that in recent years they have seized 2,500 properties from suspected criminals, including several high-end tourist resorts.

But this is just a fraction of the assets being funded by crooked money. One economist calculates up to £1.3billion of criminal cash a year is now being pumped into the Albanian economy, adding that construction is the main ‘washing machine’.

The work of prosecutors targeting the drug lords is hampered, they say, by the Albanian government turning a blind eye to the phenomenon because of the huge investment the criminals deliver.

One analyst describes it as ‘state-sponsored money laundering’. That said, the authorities have finally cracked down on the Ajman Park resort in Shijak, which advertises itself with the slogan: ‘Chill out in paradise.’

Its owner, Julian Balla, is on the run, wanted by Albanian prosecutors for his alleged connections to one of the world’s most powerful cocaine trafficking networks and for suspected drug smuggling and money laundering.

Officials seized the resort along with a string of other properties last year as part of their ongoing probe into the global smuggling operation which, they say, was masterminded by Albanian brothers Franc and Hajdar Copja from a house in Tottenham, north London. Along with a convicted murderer called Ervis Cela, they are accused of using a network of 30 henchmen to smuggle billions of pounds worth of cocaine from South America to Europe.

Much of it was trafficked into the UK, the most lucrative market for a crime empire so powerful its decisions dictate cocaine prices across Europe.

Hajdar Copja, pictured in Dubai, is believed to have masterminded a global drug smuggling operation, along with his brother Franc, from a house in north London

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In 2024, the two Copja brothers were charged by Albanian’s Special Court Against Corruption and Organised Crime (SPAK) with seven murders and two attempted murders, as well as drug trafficking and money laundering. Franc, the younger brother, is accused of offering £4.3million for a hit on the leader of a rival smuggling ring as part of a violent gang war after a 50kg cocaine shipment went missing on its way to Britain.

Prosecutors allege the drug barons were making so much money that their social media messages show them bickering over whether to hide their booty under olive trees in Albania or convert it into gold bullion. They instead chose property, with Franc funnelling at least £6.4million into a string of high-end Albanian construction projects, it is claimed.

These include four £1.5million villas in a luxury development called Mandarine Drive in a wealthy Tirana suburb, a coastal apartment in west Albania and Solis Farm, an agrotourism resort near the capital which included a hotel, guesthouse, holiday villas, bar and restaurant.

Anti-corruption campaigners also allege the gang was heavily involved in recent tourist developments in Ksamil, an Ionian Sea resort dubbed the ‘Maldives of Europe’ – although these were not included in the prosecutor’s seizure. Intercepted messages allegedly show Franc telling an accomplice he was happy to provide cash ‘at any time and for whatever sum’ after he was asked if he could invest almost £2million in a new Tirana apartment block.

Franc Copja was jailed for life in Belgium earlier this year after being convicted of a separate murder there. His brother, last heard of in Dubai, remains at large.

As for Ervis Cela, who was already on the run for murder and kidnapping in Italy, he is in custody in Albania awaiting trial.

The extraordinary tale of how UK-based Albanians sparked a property boom in their home country dates back to the late 1990s, when the first wave of migrants arrived in Britain and started sending back money to build large family houses.

As I witnessed this week, Tirana and other cities are littered with oversized villas dating from this period, often unoccupied and only half built because their owners still live abroad.

But the construction business really took off a decade ago when Albanian gangs began to dominate the cocaine and cannabis industries across western Europe – especially Britain. With so much money to launder, crime bosses began to invest on a huge scale.

Cash was seized from the the two Copja brothers, who were charged by an Albanian court with seven murders, two attempted murders, drug trafficking and money laundering

Cocaine trafficked by the Copja brothers… Albanian gangs began to dominate the cocaine and cannabis industries across western Europe – especially Britain – about a decade ago

‘Estimates are that hundreds of millions of pounds are leaving the UK and ending up in Albania, where it then gets semi-legitimised either into the banking system or to pay for construction work,’ Steve Brocklesby, an intelligence manager with the National Crime Agency (NCA), said in 2022.

While the majority of this activity is carried out by Albanian organised crime groups, there were also ‘indications’ that the Italian mafia were taking advantage of the lax checks.

‘The risks have been low, if not zero,’ says Neritan Sejamini, an Albanian political analyst. ‘It was easy to come to Albania, apply for a construction permit, construct the building, sell it off and enjoy the proceeds.

‘And, unfortunately, the Albanian economy is becoming dependent on it. A lot of tax comes from it, so there is no incentive from the government to limit or cut down on these illegal activities.’

Mr Sejamini said it was telling that none of the government agencies whose job it was to check for potential laundering had ‘raised the red flag’ when approving construction projects.

Indeed, as other Albanian anti- corruption campaigners stressed to the Daily Mail, the alleged Copja crime gang’s assets were discovered only after French investigators cracked their secret messaging system.

Likewise, many other suspected money laundering cases pursued in Albania get under way only after criminals are arrested in other countries and their details passed to the authorities in Tirana.

The racket has skewed the country’s entire economy. In recent years, the Albanian lek has risen sharply against the euro and pound, despite the country’s low productivity and persistent trade deficit – factors which should lead to the currency’s value plunging.

The construction boom also contradicts the usual rules of supply and demand as the surge in the building of luxury apartments continued even as the country’s population growth stalled.

Despite some successes tackling organised crime and state corruption, the Anglo-Albanian cash flow shows no sign of stopping.

TikTok videos seen by the Daily Mail reveal suspected Albanian crooks operating in Britain flaunting wads of £20 notes as they prepare to send it back to their home country. One included an Albanian folk song with the lyrics: ‘Money doesn’t talk but controls the system. When you have a big problem, money solves it’.

So how do they get UK-based criminals to channel their ill-gotten gains back home?

Risena Xhaja, the head of Albanian Seized and Confiscated Assets Management agency, is optimistic that British and Albanian authorities will keep working together to fight corruption

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Some employ couriers to smuggle physical cash. In 2018, Albanian brothers Jak and Gjelosh Kolicaj were convicted of smuggling £7million out of the UK using a network of couriers who carried wads of banknotes wrapped in brown packaging concealed in a suitcase that was then placed in a second outer suitcase.

From their Peterborough base they organised 80 trips over two years to countries including Belgium and Greece for onward transportation to Albania.

As the illicit takings grew too large to physically transport, many began using Hawala, an informal money transfer system involving an international network of brokers who operate on trust to circumvent the traditional traceable banking system.

More recently, the NCA suspect gangs are using cryptocurrency to send money seamlessly between borders undetected.

The Copja brothers used a mix of these methods, with prosecutors seizing cryptocurrency worth £7.3million as well as more than £1million in cash which was allegedly spirited out of the UK and back to Albania with their own network of couriers.

It’s a bleak picture. But some are fighting back. Risena Xhaja, the head of Albanian Seized and Confiscated Assets Management agency, this week showed the Daily Mail a specially produced glossy catalogue outlining those 2,500 properties and assets worth £24million that prosecutors have seized in the past decade because they were paid for with suspected crime money.

The haul includes a string of expensive hotels, villas, seaside developments and coastal apartments across the country. Some 300 of the seized or confiscated properties have been rented out, while others have been sold at auction, said Ms Xhaja.

One hotel was given to Albania’s ministry of defence for officers to use for their holidays and training conferences. And a property in Tirana has now been turned into a public gallery.

There have been other successes, too. Emiljan Shega was jailed for ten years for cocaine trafficking in north London in 2013 as part of a gang which made tens of millions from the crime.

Almost a decade later, an Albanian court seized assets worth around £2.5million that he owned in his home country, which included a villa, three apartments and large swathes of land.

So significant is the issue that last month the UK and Albanian governments hailed a ‘historic’ agreement to share the proceeds of criminal cash seized from gangs operating between the countries.

The UK government said the agreement sent a ‘clear message to criminals that British and Albanian authorities will pursue the proceeds of organised crime and work across borders’.

Ms Xhaja was similarly upbeat, describing the development as a ‘game-changer’.

Yet while there is no doubting her determination or the hard work of her team, other experts were more downbeat.

Mr Sejamini says: ‘This might make the criminals hesitate, which is a good thing, but will this really solve the problem? No.’

He added that for that to ever happen, ‘you need the entire government to act and to do what the government is supposed to do – to fight crime, including money laundering’.

When the Daily Mail visited the Ajman Park last week, the place was bustling with a mix of hotel guests and locals enjoying cocktails in its bars and al fresco dining on its terrace.

One of the cheerful staff said they often welcomed British holidaymakers who enjoyed the hotel’s ‘incredible’ rooms.

But, just like those guests from the UK, this worker had no idea who owned the resort or how it had been financed.

After all, the Ajman Park resort’s landscaped gardens and gushing fountains are a world away from the grimy, crime-ridden streets of north London.

Renting clothing used to be restricted to a wedding suit or prom dress, but the options are growing and becoming more popular.

Today, you can rent clothes directly from other people through apps like By Rotation and Hurr, or go straight to high street brands such as John Lewis and Selfridges. Most clothing rental platforms are online only, so shoppers can’t test the fit, sizing or style before committing.

But in a recently published study, I examined, with colleagues, what people thought about renting everyday clothing, and how an AI chatbot with an integrated avatar could change how people choose rental clothing items.

The study used three focus groups and 28 interviews. People said they had a strong desire to use AI tools to see what clothing looked like on them, before paying for the rental.

The chatbot could be used by an online shop to engage with the consumer by asking about size, fit and what the customer wanted the outfit for. The AI chatbot could then save these conversations (if given consumer permission) for use in future sales.

Consumers could upload an image of themselves to the avatar to “try on” a selection of pieces.

One renter from our study called the idea “a welcome need in fashion”. Another said a chatbot could clear up queries about the hidden details of renting clothes, such as unexpected costs or existing stains.

The chatbot could also tap into consumers’ environmental values by sharing sustainability information about the rental item and renting more generally. Many gen Z consumers say they cared about climate change and sustainability, and this could be reflected in their clothing choices.

Moving away from fast fashion to rental requires a significant mindset shift. But as shoppers grow more comfortable with AI, chatbots could guide people toward smarter, more sustainable wardrobes, where they rent more and buy less.

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One of the reasons why more shoppers might want to think about rental is linked to consumers’ growing awareness of fast fashion’s negative impact on the environment, such as the colossal amount of waste ending up in landfill or polluting developing countries. Over-consumption of clothes means that the sector is responsible for 10% of global CO₂ emissions and about 85% of textiles end up in landfill.

Rental should keep clothing in circulation for longer. There’s some evidence that by extending a garment’s life, fashion rental could reduce an item of clothing’s carbon, water and waste footprint by 20% to 30%.

Studies also show that chatbots can effectively encourage people to make greener choices. Our paper demonstrates how a chatbot with “green nudges” would share sustainability information. For example, it might say: “Save 2,700 litres of water and 3kg of CO₂ by renting instead of buying.” This data could be certified by an organisation such as the waste charity Wrap to demonstrate the accuracy of the information.

By remembering past interactions, a chatbot could also offer style advice and subtle prompts that encourage shoppers to step out of their comfort zone.

For instance, if you’re going on holiday a chatbot could create a good combination of clothing for you and save a lot of time, one gen Z shopper told us.

But some barriers still keep current consumers from renting outfits. These include hygiene concerns as well as fear of damage and cleaning fees and the feeling that renting isn’t mainstream enough yet.

Our study found shoppers also worried about whether rental clothing catered to different skin tones and colours.

Using AI to promote sustainability raises an obvious paradox. Studies show that the use of AI can have a large environmental impact such as the significant use of energy and water consumption.

But there are already some positive moves that show clothing rental is becoming a more widespread option. In August 2026, global charity Oxfam launched a pilot clothes rental scheme. The charity said it would give people access to special pieces, without adding to the wear-once cycle.

If virtually trying on clothes can make people feel more confident about renting, rather than buying, there is definitely potential to cut the huge amount of environmental damage that the fast fashion world is currently creating. It just depends on whether consumers are ready for that change.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of KCL’s Policy Institute, said: “London has become a lightning rod in our national debate – deeply connected to arguments about crime, immigration and the direction of the country – with the sense that ‘London has fallen’ now a recurring theme in political, media and social media narratives.