Scottish crime boss dubbed Iceman who plotted to kill his best friend and ordered firebombing of his own home appeal 20-year sentence for £100m drug smuggling operation
A Scottish gangster who plotted to kill his best friend and ordered the firebombing of his own home is appealing his 20 years behind bars.
A Scottish gangster who plotted to kill his best friend and ordered the firebombing of his own home is appealing his 20 years behind bars.
Jamie Stevenson, 59 - also know as Iceman - was last week handed the lengthy sentence for heading a sophisticated drugs smuggling operation after police discovered £100m of high purity cocaine hidden inside boxes of bananas in Dover.
A street Valium pill factory - which could churn out 250,000 tablets per hour - was also uncovered in Kent.
The crime boss had pled guilty mid-trial at the High Court in Glasgow to directing others to commit a serious offence and being involved in serious organised crime.
Jamie Stevenson, pictured in a police mugshot, was jailed yesterday in Glasgow for 20 years. He is appealing the sentence which for heading a sophisticated drugs smuggling operation
Stevenson pictured Alicantes four-star Melia Hotel after being caught in a surveillance sting targeting another criminal
Stevenson was charged with the murder of Tony McGovern, the best man at his wedding , but the charges did not stick
He admitted directing a serious criminal offence of importation of cocaine and being involved in organised crime through production and supply of etizolam, known as street valium.
Stevenson had a long criminal history and previously faced charges over the attempted assassination of his best friend and fellow drugs kingpin Tony McGovern after the pair came to blows in a vicious power struggle - but the charges did not stick.
The Court of Appeal in Edinburgh today/yesterday confirmed Stevenson is now contesting the jail-term imposed by judge Lord Ericht.
An appeal against the sentence has been lodged by his legal team. No court date has been set.
Five other members of the drugs gang were jailed last week after also admitting their roles in the mob.
Police discovered £76m of high purity cocaine hidden inside boxes of bananas in Dover. Stevenson admitted directing a serious criminal offence of importation of cocaine and being involved in organised crime through production and supply of etizolam, known as street valium
Stevensons gang had tried to import almost a tonne of cocaine. Five other members of the drugs gang were jailed last week after also admitting their roles in the mob
Stevensons stepson Gerard Carbin, 45, was sentenced to seven years, David Bilsland, 68, Lloyd Cross, 32, and Paul Bowes, 53, six years each while Ryan McPhee, 34, was locked up for four years.
The High Court in Glasgow previously heard Border Force officers at the Port of Dover seized 18 consignments of bananas addressed to Glasgow Fruit Market between May and September 2020.
They contained cocaine with a purity of 73%, weighing almost a tonne and with a street value of £76 million.
The plot was uncovered after French law enforcement officers infiltrated the encrypted EncroChat network in April 2020.
The court was also told delivery was being arranged of more than 13 million street valium pills, and during a raid in Rochester, Kent, in June 2020, equipment capable of producing 258,000 pills per hour was discovered.
Stevenson, known in underworld circles as The Iceman, was also involved in the production and supply of street valium
Sentencing Stevenson on October 2, Judge Lord Ericht said he had directed a complex operation for the importation and supply of cocaine and played a leading role in manufacturing street valium, with 13.5 million pills seized by police.
Stevenson had spent decades as one of the UKs most notorious gangland figures and in 2001 was charged with the murder of his former close friend Tony McGovern before the case was later dropped.
The gangster originally rose up through the Glasgow underworld in the 1990s and became close friends with McGovern, whose family ran the so-called McGovernment mob in the north of the city.
Stevenson had a long criminal career and is pictured in an earlier police mugshot
Around 28 million Etizolam street valium tablets were seized in a raid on a pill factory in Kent
One of his co-accused, Ryan McPhee, 34, also admitted to being involved in serious organised crime
In July 1992, Stevenson - then a senior figure in the gang - performed the role of best man at McGoverns wedding, before six years later McGovern would return the favour.
However, the pair would later fall out amid a vicious power struggle and Stevenson narrowly survived a botched attempt on his life. Then, in 2000, McGovern himself died in an assassination that many blamed on his former friend.
Stevenson was arrested and charged the following with murder, but the charges did not stick.
Yet with police keeping a close eye on his criminal activities, Stevenson found himself before the courts again in 2007 when he was jailed for more than 12 years for money laundering.
He was freed in 2014, but soon returned to crime at a worldwide level.
The next major blow came in 2020 when French authorities cracked the Encrochat system used by Stevenson and other criminals to communicate.
This led to prosecutors successfully securing an order to seize one of his homes over the proceeds of crime act - only for the mobster to retaliate by setting the property on fire.
Stevenson gave Lewis Connor, 29, the green light to target the £375,000 house in Dennyloanhead, Falkirk, after he lost his court battle.
Investigations revealed Connors tag, LivingSilver, had been in regular contact with Stevenson who used BigTasty as his handle on the platform.
Connor staked out the house before setting it alight in May 2020. In one message LivingSilver told BigTasty, I will burn your old gaff to the ground, and received a reply stating, blow house to f**k.
LivingSilver later replied, burnt to f**k, place just took, will send someone to take a pic if you want but place was like Blackpool illuminations when I left.
A further message from LivingSilver stated: Feel like the IRA back in the day, keeping me busy during lockdown, giving me something to do.
Stevenson was posing as a British tourist in Spain when he was unwittingly caught up in a police surveillance operation that led to his downfall.
Officers were watching the bar of Alicantes four-star Melia Hotel as part of Operation Pepperoni after tracking a dodgy Glaswegian fruit seller there following his 11th hour decision to fly to Spain on Valentines Day 2020.
Spanish officers tipped off by their British counterparts sent surveillance images of the meeting back to Scotland.
The summit was the beginning of the end for Stevenson and his demise was sealed at the fateful Valentines Day meeting, where Stevenson held a conversation with Bilsland about using shipments of bananas as a cover for smuggling in a tonne of cocaine worth £100million.
Until then detectives had had no idea where he was after he fled the country on police bail.
But when photographs from the Alicante bar arrived in Scotland, investigators were stunned to see the man David Bilsland had been meeting was Jamie Stevenson, one of the UKs most wanted criminals and a murder suspect nicknamed the The Iceman.
In a T-shirt and jeans the gangster, once the key suspect in a murder case involving his own best man, was confident he passed off as just another British tourist - and completely unaware he was under surveillance.
Police Scotland and the National Crime Agency had already formed an organised crime partnership to target top-tier criminals and Stevenson was high on their list.
Suspicions heightened when it emerged Bilsland was booked to travel from Glasgow to Alicante for only a day and Operation Pepperoni officers asked counterparts in Spain to follow him.
Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Ferry, head of organised crime at Police Scotland, described it as a eureka moment in the operation.
On June 12, 2020, police arrested Stevenson as he met with associates outside the grand Sherbrooke Castle Hotel in Pollokshields.
He panicked when he saw plain clothes officers pour out of a car, assuming he was being targeted in a gangland hit.
Stevenson ran 100 yards before he tripped and tumbled down a grass slope. But he was relieved when he realised he was being arrested and not shot.
In April 2020, French law enforcement had infiltrated the system and Stevensons messages helped secure his conviction.
A raid on a pill factory linked to Stevenson in Kent led to the seizure of 28 million Etizolam street valium tablets. This placed the case in an English jurisdiction, so Stevenson was taken south of the Border.
Incredibly, he was released on police bail – and fled abroad.
He was eventually rearrested in 2022 while out jogging in the historic Netherlands city of Bergen op Zoom.
