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The Downfall of Scotland’s Most Sophisticated Crime Gang
Written by
Bora Ömeroğlu
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Introduction
CHAPTER 1 – A Chance Encounter
CHAPTER 2 – Jackpot
CHAPTER 3 – Torture of Robert Allan
CHAPTER 4 – Arrest of David Sell
CHAPTER 5 – Scotland’s Most Sophisticated Crime Gang
CHAPTER 6 – The Court Case
CHAPTER 7 – The Gillespies
CHAPTER 8 – Dominos Are Falling
CHAPTER 9 – The Bitter End
Conclusion
January 20, 2017. Glasgow, Scotland.
In this cold night on the eastern outskirts of the city, two officers from Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit (OCCTU) were surveilling a silver Toyota Yaris in Church Street, Baillieston.
The routine surveillance was part of Operation Escalade – a long-running investigation by Police Scotland since 2014 into the most prolific organized crime group in the country.
The group was responsible for international drug trafficking, money laundering and illegal weapons leading to a turnover of more than £100m every year.
And the breakthrough the investigators were desperately looking for, finally was about to reveal itself.
Mark Richardson – an Edinburgh-based drug kingpin, and a major player in Scotland underworld was about to appear around the silver Yaris.
And little did the officers know, this chance encounter was going to change the entire course of their operation – and more shocking revelations were just about to begin.
So, tune in for the incredible story of Operation Escalade and the unimaginable Downfall of Scotland’s Most Sophisticated Crime Gang.
January 20, 2017.
As part of the ongoing Operation Escalade, OCCTU was monitoring several properties and vehicles linked to the organized crime group.
One of these vehicles was a silver Toyota Yaris parked in Church Street, Baillieston, on the eastern outskirts of Glasgow.
When suddenly Marc Richardson – a major player in Scotland underworld showed up around the vehicle, investigators at first were taken by surprise.
But – this chance encounter was about to change everything.
When finally, OCCTU officers moved-in to the scene and apprehended Richardson, they quickly realized that he had the keys to the Toyota with him.
And on the keychain – there was a fob which did not appear to activate any alarm on the car.
The detectives then discovered the fob was an activation key to a Bluetooth device located in the rear cluster light of the car.
And when they activated the device a metal plate on the car came up on a hydraulic ram – and revealed a hidden compartment.
This was the beginning of everything.
After a thorough search within the compartment, officers found a 9mm Glock handgun that was loaded and contained Richardson’s DNA on it.
Also, officers realized that the compartment was hidden in such an elaborate way – that on a random stop there would have been next to no chance of finding it.
Detectives knew that they were on to something.
Marc Richardson was arrested on the spot and the arrest immediately set in motion a chain of events unraveling a vast criminal network.
The following weeks officers discovered several other sets of car keys, leading up to different remote locations in the city.
One of the keys was labeled “Annie”, leading to an industrial unit on Croftside Avenue in the Croftfoot area of south Glasgow.
Another was for Westburn Farm Road, Cambuslang, and it was a key of the logistical hub that was believed to be the main workshop where the gang modified their £250,000 fleet of vehicles.
Finally, by cross-referencing all the keys to their addresses linked to the organized crime group, investigators created their strategy of action. And now it was time to act.
On 5 February, 2017, OCCTU first raided the lock-up on Whittingehame Drive, Anniesland, in the west end of Glasgow.
And this was going to be a Jackpot!
In Anniesland, the first thing the OCCTU officers noticed was the unit was rented under a false name and was paid the monthly £500 fee upfront and in cash.
In the compound there was only one big shiny door with two strong padlocks on it and the rest was filled with old rotten doors falling apart.
The investigators had a key. And on it, it was written: ‘Annie’, and luckily, they were in Anniesland. And once they opened the padlocks:
It was a Jackpot!
Inside, officers found 11 guns – all neatly packaged and labeled –
including Glock pistols, a Heckler and Koch sub-machine gun and a M75 hand grenade.
The deadly storage of guns also gave the police a treasure of forensic evidence.
And one of them – the DNA evidence on a Beretta discovered in the unit – would lead the investigation to the discovery of torture victim Robert Allan and the people who was responsible for this violence.
Robert Allan was a mid-level drug dealer who owed the organized crime group £30,000 debt, around the time of April, 2013.
Allan, unable to pay his debt to the gang – then decided to flee Scotland and managed to stay off the gang’s radar for 2 years.
In March, 2015 – Allan returned to Barnsley, Yorkshire but he was immediately tracked by the gang.
David Sell – one of the crime group’s high-level lieutenants turned up at his door with two of his associates and mobsters forced Allan to a car and then drove him to a desolate industrial unit in Fauldhouse, Midlothian.
There, Sell and his associates started to torture Allan.
The torture included Allan being whipped with a thick chain, smacked with a metal bar and left him with a broken leg after he was battered with a 14-pound sledgehammer.
Allan was then ordered to strip naked and was sprayed with bleach.
And when the men were done with him – then a hooded Allan was taken to a rural spot in Stewartfield, East Kilbride and was shot three times – twice in one knee and then the other, and he was dragged to the top of a hill and ordered to roll down.
As his attackers then left, members of the public came to his aid and Allan somehow managed to survive this brutal torture.
But the Beretta 9000, that was used to pistol-whip him with, left his DNA on the gun – and almost 2 years later the same gun now was about to tell his untold story to the Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit and identify his attackers.
And this was all going to be possible – thanks to a groundbreaking forensic technic developed for Operation Escalade.
Beretta 9000, that was used to torture Robert Allan was only one of the haul of weapons recovered from the lock-up in Anniesland.
The semi-automatic gun, which had been elaborately scrubbed clean by the organized crime group, was hidden in a specially-engineered compartment of a Honda CRV.
The gang took meticulous steps to cover their tracks – but this time it was the use of another meticulous forensics technique which would lead to their downfall.
On March 13, 2017, when the Beretta 9000 reached the Scottish Crime Campus in Gartcosh, North Lanarkshire – it was completely dismantled.
Traditionally, forensic scientists were only to swab the surface of a weapon in their efforts to obtain a forensic sample.
That was until a leading ballistics expert in Gartcosh, decided to start taking them apart in order to test them for further analysis.
By stripping weapons down to their smallest components, forensic scientists in Gartcosh were able to trace and test the microscopic particles from skin to sweat which were previously hidden from the traditional DNA tests.
And thanks to this elaborate new technic – experts of OCCTU managed to recover Roger Allan’s DNA from a small blood sample that slipped into the chamber and the magazine of the weapon.
An arrest warrant was issued for David Sell and his associates – and almost a full year later after the crime, in 2016 David Sell was under arrest for his role in the torture of Robert Allan.
The arrest of David Sell was a crucial part of the Operation Escalade since it was the first – of the upcoming blows – that will lead to the downfall of Scotland’s most sophisticated crime gang.
After all the raids, new revelations and six arrests, the Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit of Scotland now had an intimate knowledge of the organized crime group and their elaborate methods to conceal their operations.
It was now clear for them, this was one of the ‘most sophisticated’ major crime organizations in Scotland, and they knew they were up for a challenge.
The group had deep connections and ties with criminal activities not only in the UK but all across Spain, Portugal, Belgium and Holland.
Their cocaine operation was industrial in its scale, generating an estimated more than £2m a week, and overall £100m a year.
They had access to a terrifying arsenal of weapons, vast quantities of drugs and an extremely large amounts of dirty money.
Moreover, they were sophisticated enough to go to remarkable lengths to conceal all of these from authorities.
To hide their guns, they rented warehouses with fake identities in remote locations. To transport and store their weapons they built hidden compartments in their vehicles and kept them in heavily fortified lock-ups.
But one of the most shocking revelations was that the gang used state-of-the-art counter-surveillance technics and equipment to establish their secure network – in order not to be compromised by the authorities.
They invested heavily in cutting edge US anti-surveillance equipment, which enabled them to do technical sweeps of their cars and houses for surveillance devices.
Ironically, their listening devices and other gadgets that detected illegal transmissions – were only available to the elite Scottish law enforcement and high-level Scottish military.
Their level of sophistication even made the detectives of the case question their technical capabilities whether their methods were at risk of being detected by the gang itself.
In one interesting case, one of the officers of the case reported that when they were following some of the gang members, officers were suspecting that they had the capability to jam the airwaves.
He witnessed that sometimes there weren’t any signals coming from their vehicles – but the officers could see that the mobsters were using their phones and other digital devices.
This was such a key lesson for the investigators that before even the cases came out, Det. Ch. Supt McLean – one of the leading detectives of the case – gave presentations at Scotland Yard about the urgent need of the law enforcement to invest in technology and become “digitally enabled” in order to level the playing field with these criminal groups.
The investigation of the OCCTU also revealed that even though the masterminds behind the crime gang and their key lieutenants were believed to operate in the UK, Spain and Portugal – the main success of this elaborate operation relied on sourcing the cocaine directly from cartels in Columbia and Brazil.
It was clear that the gang’s reach was global.
This crucial information was revealed to the investigators after the arrest of David Sell when the mobster admitted to traveling to Brazil himself in order to negotiate a deal of high-purity cocaine directly with the cartels and arrange their shipment to the UK, through West Africa.
This unexpected development caused the detectives of OCCTU to seek out international collaborations with DEA (in the United States), the UK National Crime Agency, Europol and Interpol, for surveillance access in South America, the UK and all across Europe.
And with these newly formed partnerships – OCCTU now had a newly gained a global reach in order to go after the real criminals abroad.
But first, it was time to deal with the local ones.
As the Operation Escalade got deeper and deeper and many of its separate investigations started to combine – by the end of 2017, the meticulous work of OCCTU started to give its fruits.
Nine high-level mobsters of the organized crime gang – including David Sell and Marc Richardson – were now in prison for their criminal activities.
Their list of crimes included the “merciless” torture of a man to a huge arsenal of drugs and weapons found hidden in a car, possessing an illegal firearm, to laundering money for the mob.
In December, 2017, finally, Scotland’s “most sophisticated” gang had their day in court and suddenly organized crime now had a face – nine of them!
And among the nine – it was sentenced for a total of 87 years in prison.
David Sell was given the biggest jail-term of all – with 15 years and 8 months in prison for his part in the abduction and brutal torture of Roger Allan.
During the trial, the court heard Robert Allan and how he became a target of the gang after he could not pay a £30,000-drug debt.
Allan said to the court how he fled Scotland when he was unable to pay this debt – but he was tracked in Barnsley, Yorkshire in March 2015.
David Sell and his armed associates confronted him and he was then driven to a remote location in Fauldhouse, Midlothian only to be beaten and tortured.
This torture included him being whipped with a thick chain, smacked with a metal bar and left with a broken leg after he was battered with a 14-pound sledgehammer.
Sell, also admitted in court of being involved in abducting and assaulting Allan as well as endangering his life.
Sell’s associate in the torture, Barry O’Neill, pled guilty to taking part in a cocaine dealing and sentenced to 7 years and 4 months in prison.
Next, prosecutors focused on the locked storage facilities and cars used by the crime group.
These were about the “concealing, packaging and transporting” of cocaine, cash and firearms for the crime gang.
These were the handy work of Michael Bowman and Francis Mulligan – the electronics expert of the gang – who worked for the group and in doing so facilitated their criminal activities. Anthony Woods was also involved in these activities.
Bowman and Mulligan were both sentenced to 8 years in prison, and Woods got 11 years and 1 month after he pled guilty to having roles in “serious organized crime”.
Next stop was an investigation of a shooting that happened in September, 2016 at the home of Robert Kelbie – a local gangster from Ratho, Edinburgh.
Gerard Docherty was arrested after DNA evidence linked him to the scene and he was sentenced to 10 years and 6 months for his part in the shooting.
Then, the prosecutors brought up the big guns.
It was the discovery of the massive number of deadly firearms found in the lock-up in Anniesland, Glasgow in 2017.
The guns, the drugs in the hidden compartments of the rear bumper of the Honda CRV and Toyota Yaris – including Glocks, a Beretta, sub machine guns, a grenade and bullets.
Steven McArdle was caught with a Glock at a house in Wishaw, North Lanarkshire in August 2016 – McArdle was sentenced to seven years and 100 days in prison.
Mark Richardson was arrested after a similar weapon; a Glock was found hidden in the Toyota Yaris in Glasgow’s Baillieston, in January 2017 – Richardson was hit with an 8-year, 9-month sentence in prison.
Finally, an ex-army war veteran turned gun-runner for the organized crime group – Martyn Fitzsimmons was locked up for 10 and a half years for having a Glock as well as ammo and £36,000 of dirty money.
The arrests of the nine high-level mobsters were a huge blow in the fight against the organized crime group.
The move was designed to tackle the country’s most dangerous crime gang’s ability to move and operate so freely in the UK.
And now with the local wholesalers facing lengthy terms in jail, the next phase of Operation Escalade was about to focus on the Godfathers who were flooding the country with drugs, trafficking guns, settling scores and laundering money for their international operations.
It was time to go after Gillespies Brothers.
It was in March of 2015 – that the world first officially heard of James and Barry Gillespies’ name on the papers.
It was the murder trial of Martin Toner – a local criminal from Pollokshaws, Glasgow who went missing on 30 June, 2004.
Several weeks later, Toner’s body was found in a farm field in Langbank, Renfrewshire. He was stabbed 12 times and his throat was cut.
Two men – Douglas Fleming and John McDonald were standing on trial for the murder but the widow of Toner had other suspicions.
When asked in court what she thought about her husband’s death, Michelle Toner mentioned for the first time the brothers’ names on the record: James and Barry Gillespie.
She said: “The only feud Toner has ever had was with anyone, was with the Gillespie brothers. That’s why I believe the Gillespies have something to do with his murder.”
But when further questioned if she had any evidence about her suspicions about the brothers’ involvement in the crime, she replied:
“No. That was just speculation on my part.”
Michelle Toner further testified that – in May of 2002 James Gillespie walked into Toner residence and tried to shoot Martin Toner at point blank. But fortunately, his gun jammed and he was not successful.
She also said after the incident – she and Toner moved out from their Glasgow residence out of fear for their lives.
These transcripts were from the court case of Martin Toner in 2015 –
His murder trial almost 11 years after his disappearance. This was also the last time the Gillespie brothers have been seen or heard from.
Gillespies were originally from Rutherglen, near Glasgow. One of the very few pieces of information you can find about them was that they would call themselves property developers.
But the truth was the brothers were hustlers. They started out their criminal careers as Rutherglen street dealers and then when the opportunity presented itself they formed their own gang and moved up their operations to importing guns, and laundering money for the Scottish mob.
And now in March, 2015 – feeling the heat from the Police Scotland it is believed that the brothers fled the country first to live in Algarve, Portugal and then to Brazil, where they used their connections to secure protection.
By the end of 2017 – James and Barry Gillespie were two of the most wanted men in Scotland for their role of flooding the country with large quantities of cocaine and guns as well as directing organized crime and ordering assassinations throughout the UK and Europe.
But despite the power of their connections, now one thing was clear:
With the arrests of their associates in the UK the dominos were about to fall and the circle around them was closing in.
January, 2018. Glasgow, Scotland.
After successfully convicting nine high-level mobsters of the organized crime group in Scotland and now with their new partnerships with DEA, the UK National Crime Agency, Europol and Interpol – OCCTU was now fully ready to after the real criminals in the organization and to cut the head of the snake.
And in 2019, they managed to form a team of more than 200 specialist police officers, including an elite team of Colombian detectives, DEA agents, local and international officers who joined the hunt to find the real bosses of the organized group: James and Barry Gillespie –
Or with the nickname they gave them “The Escobar Brothers.”
Gillespie brothers have already been accused of heading the most sophisticated and dangerous crime gang in Scotland but now they were on the spotlight of every law enforcement agency in the world and they were wanted internationally.
The Escobar brothers were feeling the heat.
And this immense international mobilization of the law enforcement immediately started to provide results:
One of Scotland’s most wanted fugitives and a high-level lieutenant of Gillespie Brothers – James White was arrested in Brazil.
White, whose nickname was ‘The Don’, was half naked when he was arrested and the cuffed pictures of him sitting on a chair with his shorts –helpless and defeated – were published all around the world.
It was almost like a reminder for the Gillespie brothers of the things that were about to come.
According to reports, the task force who arrested White, also had the crucial intelligence that the Gillespie brothers were also on the scene – but when they arrived, they were only able to find White in the hotel room.
White was being hunted for years by the Scottish authorities for his role of being involved in the import of illegal drugs to the UK between March, 2015 and January, 2017.
White was arrested, and later extradited to Scotland to face justice.
It was also around this time, in January 2020, another associate of the Gillespie brothers, Christopher Hughes was arrested in Turin, Italy.
He was wanted for his involvement in the execution of Martin Kok, a Dutch criminal turned crime blogger who was detailing the activities of the organized crime group in his popular blog.
Hughes was a trusted member of the crime gang run by the Gillespie Brothers and he was in touch with them during his role of luring Martin Kok to his execution.
Hughes was found guilty on March 30, 2020 and sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in the assassination of Martin Kok.
But the murder of Martin Kok did not solve any of the problems for Gillespies. Their lieutenants were getting picked by the international task force one by one and the circle around them was getting smaller and smaller. Suddenly there was no place safe.
And soon they were going to feel the pressure to the fullest.
With the newly arrests of their trusted associates – James White and Christopher Hughes – and the decisive efforts of the international task force, dominos were falling down one by one for the brothers.
They were on everyone’s list now.
And as time passed by, several conflicting reports started to emerge about the Gillespie brothers – that they may have had a fallout with the local gangsters who were providing security for them in Fortaleza, Brazil over their protection money.
Other reports suggested the siblings were kidnapped for ransom. Some even suggested they become too dangerous to protect and they were executed by a Brazilian gang.
Police Scotland reportedly told their families who were concerned about the safety of the Gillespie brothers, that they “may have come to harm” while on the run in Brazil.
But despite all that, no news has surfaced about the Gillespie Brothers for a while. As if they were dropped off the radar in 2019 as they were being hunted by the authorities.
But then one day – on January 3, 2022 something unexpected happened.
The National Crime Agency of the UK suddenly removed the Gillespie Brothers from their most wanted list.
They went on and said that they believe that the Gillespie Brothers may have died while they were on the run in Brazil.
South American police later claimed that a Brazilian crime cartel that was shielding the brothers, turned on them after Gillespies refused to comply with ever larger demands for protection money.
And even though, officially, the Organized Crime and Counter Terrorism Unit of Scotland is still appealing for anyone who has information about the current whereabouts of James and Barry Gillespie to get in touch with them, they are almost certain about their conclusion on the possible deaths of the brothers.
As of today, Operation Escalade is still ongoing and continues to target the most dangerous organized criminal groups in Scotland and around the world.
Since its launch in 2014, the investigation helped the convictions of 42 criminals for serious offenses including being involved in organized crime, supply and possession of drugs, firearms offenses and money laundering.
Eight fugitives connected to the organized crime group were arrested on international warrants in Europe and South America and were extradited back to Scotland to face justice.
Two men, James and Barry Gillespie, remain at large and are still wanted by Police Scotland for their involvement in the group’s activities.
At least that was their official statement.
So, this was the story of Operation Escalade and The Downfall of Scotland’s
Most Sophisticated Crime Gang.
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| Client: | OCG TV, Scotland |
| Date: | June 21, 2023 |