How Scotland’s biggest gangster Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson’s drug empire was smashed by a single meeting in Spanish hotel

JAMIE ‘Iceman’ Stevenson’s time at the top of the Scottish mob pyramid finally came crashing down after an astonishing cat and mouse chase with crime fighters.

The 59-year-old kingpin has today been sentenced to 20 years behind bars after menacing the city streets for decades and flooding the country with narcotics.

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For years he thought was untouchable as he travelled the globe evading justice.

But the clock was ticking on his multi-million pound empire as Scotland’s leading gangbusters pieced together the astonishing scale of his illicit enterprise.

Here we reveal the inside story and incredible twists and turns that led to his downfall.

It starts with the Organised Crime Partnership (OCP) which comprises officers from Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency who work as one to target the country’s most serious organised hoodlums.

They are based at the Scottish Crime Campus in Gartcosh, Lanarkshire, under the same roof as specialists from the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and other law enforcement agencies.

The OCP was the centre point for Operation Pepperoni that set its sights on the takedown of Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson and his mob.

Such was the gang’s global reach that they also worked with crime fighters in Spain, Holland and the USA as part of a huge probe that also drew on the support of the NCA’s network of International Liaison Officers who are represented in around 100 countries.

Pepperoni began in 2019, the year before the better-known Operation Venetic that saw French and Dutch forces crack the EncroChat encrypted phone network.

Cops tracking Iceman didn’t know it at the start of their probe but the info gathered from the Venetic sting would later play a huge role in bringing him to justice.

An earlier development saw an erstwhile respected businessman David Bilsland fall under the police radar thanks to their intelligence gathering network.

It was suggested Bilsland had links to organised crime and that his seemingly respectable Glasgow Fruit Market in the city’s Townhead area was worth a closer look.

Investigators discovered he had become involved in the importation of bananas from Ecuador to the UK which, according to business experts, was unusual given that bananas aren’t profitable and are only usually brought on by bigger supermarket chains.

They then discovered Bilsland had made arrangements to travel from Glasgow to Alicante in Spain on Valentine’s Day 2020 for one day only and with no luggage of note.

It seemed suspicious and they contacted counter-parts in Spain who carried out surveillance on Bilsland that led them to the Melia Hotel where he met a shadowy figure for coffee.

The Spanish sleuths took photos of the pair and sent them back to Scotland where investigators were stunned to see the man Bilsland had arranged to meet was Stevenson.

An image of the unmistakable mob boss revealed the astonishing level of criminality Bilsland had got involved in and added rocket fuel to the investigation.

The plot they had hatched saw Bilsland begin arranging clean and legit shipments of bananas to his Glasgow unit to bed-in or normalise the trade route.

The thinking was that border agencies would initially take an interest in new shipments and then over time reduce their checks at which point dirty packages could be added to the haul.

There were 17 clean weekly shipments from May to October before the gang decided the time was right to add the one tonne of cocaine to their 18th fruit cargo with two more on route from South America.

While this was ongoing the NCA had been handed vast amounts of data from the Encrochat takedown which gave them further evidence of Stevenson’s vast drugs empire.

Messages revealed his involvement in an industrial scale ‘street valium’ factory in Rochester, Kent, that was being managed by sidekicks Gerry Carbin and Paul Bowes.

And it wasn’t long before the early Encro info gave cops the chance to pounce.

Two crack squads carried out a joint operation that saw them bust the factory on June 12, 2020, at the exact same time as they arrested Stevenson who was by then back in Glasgow.

Intel led the officers to the Sherbrooke Castle Hotel in the city’s southside where Stevenson was in a meeting with associates at a picnic table in the luxury grounds.

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Stevenson was caught on the hop and when he clocked the plain clothes cops heading in his direction he panicked, fearing for his life.

The gang boss – whose criminal career has left a trail of victims in its wake – was suddenly being hunted and he feared the worst.

In his desperate bid to flee the mystery men he thought were about to kill him he fell down a grass embankment and into a crumpled heap.

But as he braced himself for an assault the cops in pursuit made their identities known and the cowering criminal kingpin let out a sigh of relief.

Stevenson was glad to be in police custody rather than on the receiving end of a rival’s handgun – but it wasn’t anything like the lucky day he thought it was.

During his panic Stevenson had left his EncroChat handset sitting on the picnic table and that alone meant his time at the top of the criminal pyramid was on borrowed time.

ICEMAN EXECUTION FEARS

BY GRAHAM MANN

JAMIE ‘Iceman’ Stevenson feared he was about to be executed by gangland rivals when he was nicked by undercover cops at a luxury hotel, we can reveal.

Scotland’s number one mobster bolted for cover – leaving his EncroChat mobile device behind on a picnic table – when he saw plain clothes officers circling at the plush Sherbrooke Castle in Glasgow.

It was only when the terrified mob boss, 59, fell down a grass embankment and got cuffed by cops he discovered they weren’t sinister underworld hitmen out for his blood.

A source said: “When he realised he was being arrested by cops he was actually relieved because he thought he was about to get assassinated.”

Read more HERE

It allowed investigators to later show beyond any doubt that Stevenson was calling the shots under the Encrochat handle of Elusiveale and Big Tasty – tying him to a global narcotics conspiracy.

But before that he would have one final last hoorah on the run when astonishingly an English court prosecuting the Kent case released Stevenson on police bail.

There was only one outcome and Stevenson fled to Spain, vanishing off the radar.

Efforts to track him down included a high-profile NCA appeal that saw Stevenson named as one of the top ten most wanted fugitives in the UK.

Within two weeks they tracked their man to a town in Holland where once again Stevenson was hot-footing it, only this time through choice on an early morning jog.

Dutch and Scots cops swooped on the kingpin on February 4, 2022, before he was extradited back to Scotland three months later.

ENCROCHAT EXPLAINED

BY GRAHAM MANN

THE Encrochat network favoured by criminals was one of the largest encrypted communications services in the world.

Around 60,000 people across Europe used it, with around 10,000 of those users being from the UK.

Mystery continues to surround the people who made and supplied the handsets to hoods eager to keep their activities off the radar.

But the users came unstuck when French law enforcement cracked the system using software they have kept a closely guarded secret.

We told last week how a leading crimebuster said the takedown of Encrochat phones gave Scots cops the upper hand – and “turbo-boosted” their fight against gangsters.

Miles Bonfield, deputy director of the National Crime Agency, hailed the impact of Operation Venetic, a hi-tech blitz that unearthed the activities of hundreds of hoods.

He said: “It made a real difference to turbo-boosting some investigations that were already running and giving them the vital insight and evidential assistance they needed to prove their heinous criminality.”

A digital forensics expert told The Iceman’s trial the vast data haul gathered from an EncroChat sting was “the most information ever seen” in any single Police Scotland probe.

Detective Constable Paul Graham revealed the scale of the messages harvested by French and Dutch authorities as he gave evidence at the High Court in Glasgow.

The info gathered from the encrypted devices formed a key part of Operation Pepperoni which ultimately triggered the downfall of Stevenson and his gang.

The 46-year-old told jurors he has been part of Police Scotland’s Cyber Crime Unit for a decade and has 24 years’ experience in the force.

He was asked by Advocate Depute Alex Prentice KC about how the force managed the haul provided via Europol and the National Crime Agency (NCA) after French law enforcement infiltrated the encrypted device network in 2020.

He said: “It was the most information in any single inquiry Police Scotland has ever seen.

“We had to find a way to get that into the system to be able to search by the appropriate means.

Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Ferry, Police Scotland’s Head of Organised Crime, today said: “The sentencing of Stevenson, Bilsland, Bowes, Carbin, McPhee and Cross following their guilty pleas sends out a clear message that the activities of those who think that they can bring illegal drugs into our communities will not be tolerated.

“I want to acknowledge the hard work and diligence shown by the officers who investigated the group and provided the evidence in what was a complex investigation and shows the value of working with our law enforcement partners including the National Crime Agency and those abroad. It also shows Police Scotland’s unwavering commitment to the Serious Organised Crime Taskforce and its national strategy.

“This multi-agency operation, which spanned several countries, prevented a huge haul of illegal drugs reaching our communities and will have undoubtedly saved lives. However, we cannot be complacent, and our officers will continue their work to ensure Scotland remains a hostile environment for organised criminals.”