He’s the bling-obsessed Albanian criminal who has spent the past year taunting police and the Home Office by posting social media videos bragging of his extravagant lifestyle in the UK.

Yet not everyone is impressed by the high-profile boastings of serial burglar Dorian Puka.

As the Daily Mail can reveal, back in his homeland, the twisted ‘influencer’ has heaped shame and humiliation on his parents – both respectable teachers who have now disowned him.

Decent, hard-working and middle class Leke Puka, 63, and his wife Gentjana, 51, have been left devastated and embarrassed by their wayward son.

Puka, 31, gained notoriety after he was jailed and deported twice for a string of burglaries before once again breezing into Britain in the back of a lorry – highlighting his ‘adventures’ on the way.

Since his return, he appears to have spent much of his time behind the wheel of his £185,000 Lamborghini – showing off his collection of Rolex watches as he heads off to enjoy fine dining experiences and getaway-from-it-all breaks in some of Britain’s top hotels.

Astonishingly, officials have now admitted that despite being banned from the UK they are powerless to deport him as he lodged an application for asylum on his most recent return.

No doubt Puka’s high-profile antics will have made him something of a hero among the Albanian criminal fraternity in the UK whose growing dominance has been characterised as an ‘acute threat’ by law enforcement agencies.

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Dorian Puka is the bling-obsessed Albanian criminal who has spent the past year taunting police and the Home Office by posting social media videos bragging of his extravagant lifestyle in the UK

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Decent, hard-working and middle class Leke Puka, 63, and his wife Gentjana, 51, have been left devastated and embarrassed by their wayward son in their modest flat back in Albania (pictured)

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It is a very different story to Puka’s life of luxury in his hometown of Lac, Albania, where packs of wild dogs roam the streets and much of the infrastructure is crumbling

But it is a very different story back in Puka’s hometown in the Western Balkans.

Puka hails from the small town of Lac in a region characterised by its scenic landscapes close to both the Adriatic Sea and the mountainous terrain of northern Albania.

He is one of two brothers illegally living in the UK. Puka’s lesser-known younger brother Denis, 28, is himself facing jail over a series of burglaries.

In August, Denis pleaded guilty at Chester Crown Court to five offences of conspiracy to burgle.

Meanwhile back in Albania, Leke and Gentjana have quietly devoted their lives to education while living in a £35,000 two-bedroom apartment in a run-down communist era block which has been their home since the 1980s.

The couple have another son called Gerti, 26, who neighbours say has followed in his parents’ footsteps to become a teacher. Their fourth son is only five and lives with them in the apartment where washing hung from a balcony when we visited.

The crumbling Shtjefen Gjecovi middle school where the couple work is just a few minutes’ walk from their home.

A close family source told the Daily Mail how the couple were left in despair after their sons chose to follow the path of seeking to escape their poverty-stricken hometown through easy money rather than hard graft.

Speaking anonymously, they said: ‘Dorian and Denis’ parents are very well respected in Lac – they are teachers, they have good jobs and they work hard.

‘It’s tough living here, rent is expensive, food is expensive and they get 1400 Euro a month between them as teachers – Leke is a physics teacher at the local middle school and his wife works there.

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Dorian Puka (left) is one of two of his four brothers to have entered the UK illegally – Denis (right) has also pursued a life in Britain

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Frequently pictured from head to toe in Gucci, when not cruising through London in his collection of supercars, Puka can be seen dining at top restaurants and on luxury holidays

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Dorian Puka posts extensively online with his collection of supercars, which include a Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley Bentayga, Mercedes AMG, Porsche Cayenne and a Jaguar XF

‘Everyone knows about Dorian and Denis, it’s been on the Albanian TV news and in the papers here, and it’s a small town so everyone knows they are Leke and Gentjana’s boys and they are really embarrassed.

‘We were in the café once and it came on the news and Leke just shook his head, he said he was embarrassed by it and he hasn’t seen Dorian in years. Denis was over a couple of years ago, but the older boy hasn’t been here for a long time.’

A former pupil of Dorian’s father added: ‘Professor Puka was the best teacher I ever had, he is a good man, and his lessons were always interesting.

‘I learned a lot from him, and he kept many of us on the right path and believe me it’s very easy to go astray here.

‘I think that’s why he and his wife are so embarrassed by what’s happened to their two boys who have gone to the UK.

‘When you say Professor Puka in Lac everyone knows him and what a good man he is.’

Professor Puka’s son didn’t take too kindly to the Daily Mail looking at his family background. While we spoke to his family in Albania, the flashy, prolific burglar phoned the local fixer we were using and demanded he handed the phone to our reporter.

On the other end of the line, from the UK, he raged: ‘I messed my life up a few years ago but now I’m clean. It was five years ago, it was nothing.’

Of his repeated deportations and returns Puka said: ‘I am not the first one, there are lots like me who are deported and come back?’

Lac, with its population of just under 13,000 and around an hour’s drive north of the Albanian capital Tirana, was once famous as an industrial centre.

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The crumbling Shtjefen Gjecovi middle school (pictured) where Puka’s parents work is just a few minutes’ walk from their home in Lac, Albania

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Crime is rife in Lac, thanks to high unemployment, and much of the housing is in a poor state of repair

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Lac has become known as the home to an ‘academy of burglars’ who go by the nickname ‘Hawks’ and are responsible for an international crime wave

But with the fall of communism in the early 1990s the factories were closed, and the town now offers few opportunities for working men.

Crime is rife in Lac, thanks to high unemployment, and much of the housing is in a poor state of repair.

Packs of wild dogs roam the streets, gnawing at scraps from overflowing waste bins while suspicious residents eye up strangers in town with a fierce gaze.

As darkness begins to fall, the streets are deserted with locals retreating to the safety of their homes.

While Puka’s parents have devoted their lives to educating youngsters, Lac has earned a reputation as a centre of learning excellence of a very different kind.

It has become known as the home to an ‘academy of burglars’ who go by the nickname ‘Hawks’ and are responsible for an international crime wave targeting the homes of footballers and celebrities across Europe.

Thieves behind the burglary of former England footballer Raheem Sterling’s home in 2022 who escaped with jewellery and watches worth £300,000 were from here and had entered the UK illegally.

Albanian nationals Alfred Isufi, 48, Gerard Kalaja, 22, and Henri Osmani, 44, are being sought for questioning over the crime along with dozens of burglaries across the south east England.

They are believed to be linked with Emiliano Krosi, 24, also from Lac, who was jailed for more than 11 years last November for the raid of Sterling’s home and 32 other burglaries as part of a £1.1million crime spree between November 2022 and March 2023.

A report by the think-tank Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime highlighted the issue, saying: ‘Young men returning from their “adventures” abroad with expensive cars, clothing and jewellery became role models for poor and impressionable kids in Lac who wanted to be as “successful” as their new heroes.’

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Puka was jailed for nine months in 2016 and then three and half years in 2017, being deported after each sentence before making his way back to the UK illegally

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Puka claims he is now ‘clean’ but did not tell the Daily Mail’s reporter where the money for his extensive car collection, luxury holidays and designer clothes comes from – all while he claims asylum

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Even when in prison Puka continued posting on his social media accounts using a smuggled phone

The report added: ‘By 2015 and 2016, the phenomenon became so widespread in the area that some youngsters dropped out of school in order to travel abroad and engage in thievery.

‘Young men with experience in breaking and entering passed on their skills to the younger ones in what became a de facto school of crime.

‘From this recruitment ground, teams were assembled and spread out across Europe to conduct robberies.’

The gangs are said to have become part of Albanian popular culture with TV shows and movies depicting, and sometimes lampooning, ‘the lavish and thieving lifestyles of the young men from Lac’.

Analysts say the phenomena thrived amid growing poverty and ‘a legacy of criminality, guns and a culture of lawlessness’ following a wave of civil unrest in Albania in the late 1990s.

This appears to be borne out by the circumstances of Puka’s extended family which may form the basis of his claim for asylum in the UK.

The Daily Mail has discovered that more extended relatives have been involved in an on-going ‘blood feud’ with another local family.

Last March one relative believed to be a distant uncle Agron Puka, 54, was ambushed by an armed gang as he dropped his children outside the local school in a nearby village.

We unearthed dramatic footage which shows Argon’s bullet-ridden Audi in the aftermath of the incident in which he was shot in the shoulder.

He survived the attack and was later charged himself over the ‘unauthorised’ use of a weapon’ after he allegedly opened fire on three members of the rival Noka family.

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A close family source told the Daily Mail how the couple were left in despair after their sons chose to turn to crime (Pictured: Dorian Puka)

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Puka is pictured outside a luxury five-star hotel during one of his many holidays in the UK

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Having been deported twice following lengthy jail sentences, Dorian Puka is now claiming asylum and wears an ankle tag

Agron is currently in custody while investigations continue but claims that he acted in self defence.

An Albanian police source told the Daily Mail: ‘In the past the Puka family have had a conflict with the Noka family and in the incident in question firearms were used.’

But the source went on to insist Puka had no history of criminality before he arrived illegally in the UK via a truck in 2014 when he was aged just 20.

They added: ‘Dorian for as long as he has been in Albania, never got into any trouble here and was not a subject of interest for us.

‘Like many others from Lac he is a criminal product of being in the UK and that’s where his criminal activity began.’

After just months in Britain, Puka’s first brush with the law came when he broke into a home in Twickenham, south west London while the owner was away on holiday in France.

The owner spotted him and an unknown accomplice on a webcam and police found him hiding in a bush nearby.

After DNA linked him to the burglary and another break-in the previous month, he was jailed for nine months in 2016 and deported the following year.

Within a year, he managed to evade border controls and return to the UK and quickly launched a crime spree.

Puka was eventually caught by plain-clothes officers patrolling Surbiton, Surrey, where there had been a spike in local burglaries.

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The Daily Mail has discovered that more extended relatives have been involved in an on-going ‘blood feud’ with another local family in Lac (pictured)

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With the fall of communism in the early 1990s Lac’s factories were closed, and the town now offers few opportunities for working men

He was wearing an expensive watch he had stolen and had a stash of other timepieces which he couldn’t explain and turned out to have been taken from properties in the neighbourhood.

Puka was jailed for three and half years in 2017 and, after serving his time, was again removed from Britain in March 2020.

But by the end of the year he was back in Britain again and brazenly chronicled his travels through Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands on Instagram.

Now faced with deportation, he lodged an asylum application, and has been on immigration bail and subject to an electronic tag since 2023 while he awaits a tribunal to decide on his claim.

As he awaits the protracted outcome of his fate, Puka began filling his time with social media updates – promoting his first video driving a red Ferrari. And before the Lamborghini there was a Bentley Bentayga, Mercedes AMG, Porsche Cayenne and a Jaguar XF.

Frequently pictured from head to toe in Gucci, when not cruising through London in his collection of supercars, Puka can be seen dining at top restaurants like San Carlo in Knightsbridge, Hakkasan in Mayfair and at The Shard.

He also shared his experiences enjoying a drink at the Radio rooftop bar on the tenth floor of the five-star hotel ME London on the Strand, which affords panoramic views of the capital’s skyline.

And there seemed to be no expense spared during a break at the five-star Carbis Bay hotel in St Ives, Cornwall.

At the hotel, which was the venue for a G7 summit in 2021, he enjoyed the luxury facilities of the spa, infinity pool and championship golf course.

He’s also been showing off his extraordinary £160,000 watch collection from a Rolex Day-Date worth £53,000 to the cheapest, conservatively priced at £10,000.

Even during his most recent stint in prison, Puka was posting photos on Instagram from a smuggled phone alongside the Albanian drug lord Lulezim Zefi who is serving 12 years for supplying £720,000 of cocaine and money laundering.

Yet confronted by the Daily Mail this week Puka failed to see why his case was attracting such attention.

He said: ‘I am not hiding from anyone. I don’t know why there is so much interest in me, I am not David Beckham.’

‘There is nothing to be shocked about me. Yes, I did my burglaries but I did my time, there are other people doing more shocking things than me. I don’t want to tell you the story of my life.

‘Why are you writing about me all the time? Dorian has a new jacket, new car, new girlfriend. Who the f*** cares?

‘I am pure and clean now. I have done nothing wrong. I did something small five years ago and that’s it.

‘I am not hiding anything, I go to the same coffee shop every day, I am not running away from anything. I paid for what I did, I went to prison.’

Asked how he made his money Puka said: ‘Do I ask you about your personal life? Why should I tell you? The police know what I do, the immigration service know what I do.

‘I am not a stupid guy. If I was doing anything wrong, I wouldn’t be posting it on TikTok.

‘I paid for what I did. The people who I burgled know I paid for it and I have now changed my life. I am not hurting anyone, I have a tag on my leg, immigration know where I am.

Puka said he had ‘cousins all over the UK’, but declined to discuss the nature of his asylum claim saying: ‘I am not milking the system but I have human rights like everyone else.

‘I have been here for 13 years and I messed up my life when I first came but now I am clean.’

And he didn’t want to elaborate on his life back home in Albania.

He said: ”I haven’t seen my father for 13 years. He has nothing to do with me. Do you live with your father still?

‘I have my own life and he has his. I am not hiding anything. The police know where I am. The immigration service know where I am. If I had anything to be secret I wouldn’t be posting on Tik Tok.

‘What happened to me in Albania is my personal life, and the police and immigration service know about it. If I tell you anything about my personal life I will be in danger.’

Yet his life doesn’t appear to be in so much peril that he feels the need to keep a low profile.

He added of his social media bragging: ‘I post videos because I like making TikTok. I like making videos, I am good at them.’