Around about the millennium, the Maltese running the sex business in Soho were forced out by the Albanian mafia.

In his book This is London (Picador Books), author Ben Judah writes: “The Balkan wars brought at least thirty thousand people from Kosovo and Albania to London. It brought with them a couple of hundred gangsters, hardened KIA veterans and sworn brothers from born criminal clans of the Albanian south.

“They found work as bouncers, at first. At the millennium those running the brothels of Soho were Maltese, an old-established mafia. The Albanians disdained them as weak Soho bisexuals in pink bow ties and floral shirts selling only ugly girls from Newcastle upon Tyne. Barely warm in their leather jackets, smoking cigarettes at four in the morning outside the Maltese brothels on Greek Street, they hatched a plan. They would conquer Soho.

“The first Maltese to fall went down on his knees when the bouncers pointed a gun at his head. Quivering and pathetic in his purple jacket he agreed to sell up. But now they needed girls. Girls who were better and cheaper. One Albanian got in a truck and drove to Moldova. They trundled around the peasant villages promising glittering careers in waitressing and modelling. Then they raped and trafficked them.

“This is how the Albanians destroyed the Maltese. But this was not the biggest Albanian cash cow. That was Westminster parking meters. This borough used to have fixed coin-operated machines. The Albanians saw them and their eyes lit up. Hundreds of thousands of £1 and £2 coins could be harvested this way. At first they beheaded the meters and drilled them open to see how they worked. But an easier way became quickly obvious. They bribed a Ghanaian traffic warden for his uniform and the all-crucial key. And got to work.

“The Albanian mafia by 2005-2006 became dizzy with success. They had conquered the brothels and stolen the parking meters. But then they overreached. The ‘harvesters’ had divided up Westminster into two. But the deal did not hold. Meeting in a crusty basement bar in East Acton where they played cards and downed shots in the evening the meter bosses confronted each other. It ended in a shooting.

“Too many girls were being trafficked into Britain. Brothels were multiplying, now mostly operating out of Bayswater and Kensington flats. The police swooped and arrested the Albanian dons. They were shocked. They had never expected 50-year prison sentences.”