TikTok is being used as a tool by Albanian gangsters running criminal empires in Britain, an Express investigation has revealed.

The Express found the social media site hosting multiple digital "wanted posters" where gangs demanded informants get in touch with personal information about cannabis farm workers who had allegedly robbed their employers. One wanted poster had been viewed over a million times.

Another video shows a different UK cannabis farm thief who has been captured. The man reveals the name of the person who told him the whereabouts of the drug house and then the video then cuts to the individual in question who has been beaten up so badly he has barely any teeth remaining. “I f**ked it up. I admitted it. I let my mouth talk but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. They betrayed me.”

This is far from the only video where the fearsome reputation of an organised crime group is promoted through demonstrations of brutal violence. We uncovered posts showing guns being thrust in the faces of attempted thieves, beatings and CCTV shots of groups being chased away from cannabis farms.

Material promoting the benefits of a criminal lifestyle in Britain, mocking UK police and tips for surviving police raids have also generated millions of views.

One video advising cannabis farm workers to cite the Modern Slavery Act if they were caught had been watched 364,000 times. While a clip where a drug house worker films a police officer from the window of a farm was watched 176,000 times.

We showed these shocking videos to ex-Metropolitan Police officer turned consultant Graham Wettone who said the responsibility lay with the social media companies.

“We can't prevent this,” he said. “That's beyond the scope of policing. If something is appearing on an online platform we haven't got a button to delete or restrict it. That comes down to the people providing the platform itself and the source material.

“The issue is it's enticing or encouraging people to come into this area of criminality, which then causes you problems for enforcement. So I think the message to social media platforms and the government is there need to be a lot more working together.”

TikTok did not comment directly on any of the videos we flagged on its platform or why they had gained so many views. They also refused our requests to interview someone from the Chinese-owned social network.

The social media company did provide a statement which said:"TikTok works closely with UK law enforcement, the National Crime Agency and organisations such as STOP THE TRAFFIK to fight this industry-wide issue, and our steadfast efforts helped reduce the number of small boat crossings last year, according to Border Officials.

“We continue to strictly maintain a zero tolerance approach to human exploitation and proactively find over 95% of content we remove for breaking these rules."

A Home Office spokesperson added: “We expect tech companies to have robust processes in place to swiftly remove illegal content. The Online Safety Act will introduce measures requiring platforms to identify and take down content relating to the sale of drugs online.”

(Source: Express UK)