How a ‘quiet’ schoolboy from Berkshire turned into a ruthless killer for an Albanian crime family: TOM KELLY speaks to the ‘Home Counties hitman’ from behind bars after he was jailed for life over £1million blood feud hit

On a spring lunchtime in 2023, a man dressed as a delivery driver strolled into a five-star hotel in an Albanian seaside resort, said good morning to the owner who sat drinking coffee and blasted him six times from point blank range with a Soviet-made automatic pistol.

The cold-blooded hit, which was caught on CCTV, was the seventh murder in a three-decades long blood feud between two families in the Balkan state.

Under the sinister Albanian custom codified in a 15th century law book called the Kanun, a family must avenge a relative’s murder by killing a male member of the killer’s family – who then have to do the same in return – in an ongoing cycle of slaughter.

But for the first time, this blood feud killing was a British led operation.

The gunman, Ruben Saraiva, was raised in the Home Counties and he was allegedly aided by a four-strong UK hit squad who acted as his surveillance team – including a young mother from Bristol.

The man accused of masterminding the murder is also a British based member of an Albanian family who believed the victim, Ardian Nikulaj, had shot one of their relatives 26 years earlier.

This had followed the killing of one of Nikulaj’s family after a row over an unpaid £15 petrol bill in 1997, which sparked the long-running feud between the families.

Costs have spiralled since then, with Saraiva and his alleged accomplices suspected of being offered a share of up to £1million by other, as yet unidentified, figures who are believed to have bankrolled the operation from the UK, according to a source involved in the investigation.

The British gang were selected because, while father of four Nikulaj was on the alert for potential local assassins, he would never have suspected any danger from visitors from England, prosecutors allege.

Saraiva lay in wait in a nearby apartment block stairwell for several days while the other Britons checked into Nikulaj’s Coral hotel in the Northern Albanian resort of Shengjin where they allegedly posed as tourists as they spied on him and his family before one gave the order for the gunman to strike.

He fled on a waiting motorbike as Nikulaj’s wife rushed down from the family’s apartment two floors above the hotel bar where the killing happened to find screaming staff standing over her husband who was slumped dead in his seat.

This week Saraiva stood in a glass-fronted dock a few feet from Nikulaj’s wife in a cramped Albanian court as a judge jailed him for life without parole after finding him guilty of premeditated murder in collaboration with others.

Now the Mail can reveal the extraordinary story behind the ‘Home Counties Hit Man’ – and the horror of the family he targeted.

It includes an exclusive interview with the killer from his high security jail in Tirana where he moaned about conditions.

He complained it was ‘f****** unacceptable’ that he is held in solitary confinement, ‘locked up 23-hours a day’ and has three guards escort him to the shower, claiming: ‘My rights have been violated ever since I f****** got here mate.’

Saraiva told us he does not know why he is still being held in maximum security after more than two years on remand, insisting he had proved he is ‘not a threat’ and suspects the authorities want to ‘break’ him.

But in an extraordinary twist, we can reveal it is because the hitman has now become a target – from his own side.

A source from Albania’s General Prison Directorate told the Mail that he requires heavy protection because it has received intelligence suggesting the shadowy UK figures who funded Nikulaj’s assassination have now put a £500,000 bounty on Saraiva’s head to eliminate the risk of him revealing their identities to the authorities.

For now, at least, their secrets are safe as speaking to the Mail, Saraiva improbably continued to protest his innocence and insisted he had only visited Albania to have ‘fun’.

Saraiva is the son of Portuguese parents, a former footballer turned telemarketer father and nurse mother.

Both are described as kind and hard-working people who are said to be astonished at what happened to their son.

As one of three close family sources the Mail spoke to put it: ‘We are good people, we are not criminals. So is Ruben. He is a fantastic boy. We were gobsmacked.’

Saraiva moved from Portugal to the UK with his father when he was four.

When his mother came to the UK four years later he split his time between his father, who lived on the outskirts of Reading, Berkshire, and his mother who settled in Lewisham, south-east London.

Pictures of Saraiva in his youth show him dressed in suit and tie, apparently a model of respectability.

One family source described him as being ‘shy’.

They said: ‘He is very calm and quiet. He is friendly but he does not put himself out there to make friends, people have to come to him first.’

Another described him as ‘smart and funny’.

‘He was brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness. He used to have to go to meetings.

‘He was not out on the street when he was a little kid as his mum would not let that happen.’

Saraiva told the Mail he had a ‘normal upbringing’ and that mostly consisted of playing football and attending school.

In his later teens he surprised his mother by going to live full time with his father and stepmother in Reading where he attended college and worked in a Tesco warehouse.

It is also where his life took a dark turn.

Aged 17 he and an accomplice were caught selling cocaine and heroin with a street value of more than £600 in nearby Wokingham.

He received a suspended sentence at Reading Court in 2013 and afterwards returned to live with his mother.

Initially it went well, and he took construction and electrician courses and started an apprenticeship.

But he was soon back in trouble after stabbing a 17-year-old during a knife fight.

His family said this time he was jailed for several years, after being convicted of wounding with intent, and they believe it was during his time behind bars that he first had contact with the Albanian underworld. 

The first family source said: ‘We really think it was prison.

‘We did not know of him having any Albanian friends. His friends were English.’

According to relatives, despite living almost his entire life in the UK, after his sentence he was deported to Portugal – where he understands but does not speak the language – because his parents had never applied for him to get UK citizenship.

Despite this, it seems he was able to return to the UK and flew from London to Tirana where he arrived on Valentine’s Day 2023, two months before the murder.

Asked by the Mail, Saraiva was elusive about his route, only saying: ‘How I got here, or what not, I can’t remember.’

CCTV shows he was met at the airport in Tirana by Edmond Haxhia, the alleged mastermind of the plot to kill Nikulaj.

He is the first cousin of the Lekstakaj family which is embroiled in the long-running blood feud with the Nikulaj family, prosecutors told the court.

Haxhia, who is originally from Albania but had moved to Birmingham, had himself returned to Albania in November 2022 to get engaged.

In police interviews, Saraiva conceded that he knew Haxhia, admitting he ‘could have been traveling with Edmond’.

Haxhia and the other Britons accused in the case were later arrested on an Albanian arrest warrant in the UK and are currently in a legal battle against extradition.

Speaking to the Mail, he confirmed he knew one of his co accused, explaining: ‘He is my friend. He was here.’ Saraiva denied knowing any of the other Britons arrested in the case.

Savaira spent his time before the attack staying in a house owned by Haxhia in Kakariq, a small village a few miles outside Shengjin.

Locals, who were curious at his extended stay, said he told them he planned to ‘marry an Albanian’ and started learning the language.

Saraiva insisted to the Mail that he was on ‘holiday’.

He said: ‘Albania is a beautiful place. I met a lot of warm people.

‘Obviously straight away they could see I am not Albanian.

‘Everywhere I went people were asking me am I a footballer, what do I do?

‘It is a fun country. It is a nice place.’

The reality was far more sinister.

A month after his arrival he and Haxhia bought a motorcycle in the capital Tirana using the ID of Haxhia’s then fiancé to make the purchase.

According to Haxhia’s ex fiancé – who gave evidence for the prosecution – Saraiva drove it from Tirana to Kakariq village.

Several times before the killing, he used the bike to travel to Shengjin to carry out reconnaissance on the hotel.

CCTV caught him lurking in an apartment stairwell a short walk from Nikulaj’s Coral hotel and bar for eight hours straight.

Witnesses living in the block noted he smoked frequently but was always careful to put the cigarette butts in his pocket, apparently not to leave any DNA trace.

A young girl who lived in the complex later reported seeing a ‘strange man with a beard hanging around all the time‘ and drew a picture of him showing he dressed in the same delivery driver’s disguise he wore on the day of the shooting.

Meanwhile, Nikulaj and his family were welcoming a group of Britons who they believed to be some of the first visitors to the newly opened hotel.

They are alleged to include Harriet Bridgeman, who Nikulaj’s wife later told the Mail ‘kept trying to have eye contact with Ardian’.

Her husband is said to have helped arrange her a rental car and, the following day when her card didn’t work in the restaurant, paid for her meal.

A few days after she left another British man called Harry Simpson is said to have arrived in the resort, this time checking into a nearby hotel.

He was travelling alone and played pool on the table in the Coral hotel garden and befriended the family’s then 13-year-old son, Luis.

In the hotel bar he routinely drank beers from the bottle, which he always took away with him, the family said.

On another occasion, after finishing a pizza in the restaurant, he picked up his tray and tried to put it behind a curtain in the restaurant where staff and family worked, despite the family telling him they would deal with it.

By this time their son had become concerned about him, Nikulaj’s wife said.

She said: ‘I went to Ardian and said Luis has suspicions about this man. Ardian said, “Don’t worry son, he’s just a tourist, you don’t have to worry about him.”‘

On April 19, 2023, the day of the shooting, the family had a morning coffee together laughing and joking in what his wife said was an ‘adorable atmosphere’.

Unbeknownst to them, at that very moment Saraiva was on his way to destroy the happy family.

A worker at a nearby petrol station described him filling up his motorbike and speaking in broken Albanian. He wore a helmet, fluorescent vest, mask and gloves, which hid distinctive tattoos on his hands.

Soon afterwards, he parked in his usual spot and hung around for two hours.

At the same time, prosecutors allege, Simpson was seen repeatedly approaching and leaving the veranda of the Coral hotel bar.

At 1.17pm, Simpson was seen speaking on his phone while drinking a beer.

Five minutes later Saraiva entered and fired six bullets that hit Nikulaj in the head, torso and arms.

Horrific CCTV of the attack shows Saraiva brandishing the gun at terrified hotel staff as he fled.

Footage also shows him sprinting down the road, before leaping on his motorbike and speeding off.

The motorbike was later found dumped in a river close to land belonging to Haxhia.

Saraiva left Albania eight hours after the shooting crossing the land border to Greece on foot.

Separate CCTV caught Simpson leaving the hotel immediately after the shooting, taking his beer with him and walking away with a light run from the hotel garden toward the promenade.

Simpson and Haxhia both flew back to the UK in the hours after the attack, but Saraiva went on from Greece to Morocco where he was tracked down by the Albanian police and extradited in late December 2023.

He was held there for eight months as the Albanian authorities applied for extradition, and it was the last time he spoke to any of his immediate family, who were stunned by the news.

‘Last we knew he was in Portugal in 2023 and was working in construction,’ the first family source said.

‘Next thing we knew he was in Morocco in prison.

‘We were shocked. We did not know he had even gone to Albania.’

They were horrified to see the footage of the attack.

‘We Googled it and watched. We were so shocked by the whole situation.

We could not tell [if it was Ruben].’

Since extradition to Albania he has been held in solitary confinement in the 302 Jordan Misja remand prison in Tirana.

Asked about his treatment by the Mail, he ranted: ‘I have been here longer than two years and in isolation for all this time.

’It f**** you up, man.’

‘I have been locked up 23 hours a day. I get 15 minutes outside.’

‘I am held in maximum security and in isolation.

’I don’t get treated like everyone else. Basic things that I see other people have I don’t get.’

Asked when he last saw his family, Saraiva replied: ‘Never.’

He added: ‘In my situation, who is going to want to risk flying to Albania to come and see me?’

The first family source said he told them from Morocco not to visit them because he feared someone would want ‘revenge’ and he could become part of the blood feud.

However, sources have told the Mail he has had one visit during his time on remand, a woman from the UK thought to be his girlfriend.

At his trial, prosecutors said, as well as his sightings with Haxhia before the murder, his DNA was found on a hijab recovered from the trunk of the rental car used by Haxhia. Prosecutors suspect this may have been planned to be used as a potential disguise.

Investigators also found Saraiva’s DNA profile matched chewing gum discovered at Haxhia’s house. His DNA was also found in the hotel room where Simpson stayed.

Kujtim Cakrani, the lawyer for Saraiva, told the court that no fingerprints or DNA linking him to the crime were found at the scene, only secondary locations, and that it could have been someone else involved in the feud that carried out the murder.

But at Lezhe Court in Northern Albania, Judge Lirim Bulica found Saraiva guilty and ordered his life sentence to be served in a high security prison in Albania. It means he’s expected to spend the rest of his life locked up with the most notorious Albanian organised crime bosses.

Saraiva, who was flanked by three-armed guards in the dock, shook his head as the verdict was announced and appeared to lash out at the glass before being bundled away to the waiting police van.

Back in the UK, Bridgeman, Simpson, Haxhia and the other suspects in the operation, who were arrested after their return home, are in a lengthy legal battle to try to avoid deportation to Albania to also face trial. They all deny any wrongdoing.

Meanwhile, the blood feud that sparked the carnage goes on.

Since Ardian Nikulaj’s murder, there have been two further killings, one from each family, taking the total of victims to nine.

And Nikulaj’s relatives fear worse to come, after his brother was warned there is a £1.7million bounty on his head with enemies in the UK who are scouring the globe for another hitman.

One of Nikulaj’s young adult daughters told the Mail she and her sister are scared that if they have children they may one day become victims of the feud.

‘We continue living with fear with danger,’ she said.

‘It’s a never-ending story.’

• Investigations@dailymail.co.uk