Albanian criminal Irfan Azizi is fighting extradition from the UK to Albania, claiming assassins who previously tried to kill him will return to 'finish the job' if he is returned. Azizi is wanted in Albania to serve a one-year prison sentence after being convicted in his absence for possessing a mobile phone on remand for other offences. He told his extradition hearing that he had paid to have the phone theft charge thrown out, but claimed he had done nothing wrong.
In the UK, Azizi and another Albanian man were each jailed for six months at Swindon Crown Court in April 2025 for having fake German driving licenses. Previously, in February 2019, he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment for theft before receiving an additional jail term of two years and three months in June for stealing a Mercedes-Benz B-Class. The attempt on Azizi's life came on November 29, 2020.
They started shooting at me, around 30 bullets. A bullet smashed my hand which shattered in 13 places.
According to Daily Mail - News, Irfan Azizi described seeing a vehicle pull up outside a petrol station before a gunman leapt out carrying a Kalashnikov. He narrowly escaped with his life when he was shot at '30 times' during the attempted hit, which prompted him to flee to Britain. The organiser of the hit has been widely reported in Albanian media as Talo Çela, a former close friend of Azizi who is currently one of Albania's most wanted criminals.
Çela is alleged to have links to the Çopja crime gang, a major supplier of cocaine to London. Azizi stayed with friends and a cousin, before moving in September 2021 to Sheffield, where he was joined by his wife. He claimed to have been a 'rich businessman' in Albania with three petrol stations, as well as car washes and a cafe bar.
After his wife joined him in the UK, Azizi and his wife claimed asylum on the basis that they feared persecution in their home country and were put up in a taxpayer-funded asylum hotel in Wiltshire. They were then moved to their current accommodation in Taunton alongside their four children, who receive specialist support from the local council. Azizi claims the crime group that tried to kill him 'also carries out hits for judges and politicians' and would seek revenge if he returns to Albania.