A notorious gang leader has admitted masterminding a plot to smuggle almost a tonne of cocaine from South America to Scotland hidden in a shipment of bananas.
Jamie Stevenson, better known as ‘Iceman’, has pleaded guilty to directing the importation of the drug seized by Border Force teams in Dover in September 2020.
The seizure, called Operation Pepperoni, involved the National Crime Agency and Police Scotland. At the time, the NCA estimated the cocaine was worth £100m.
The packages of cocaine were hidden in boxes of bananas from Ecuador, addressed to a fruit merchant in Glasgow.
The operation took place in the United Kingdom, Spain, Ecuador and Abu Dhabi.
Stevenson, from Rutherglen in South Lanarkshire, was a leading figure in the highest echelons of organised crime in Scotland.
He was once described as the Scottish answer to Tony Soprano, the mafia boss from the television series The Sopranos.
The 59-year-old was accused of murdering his witness and criminal accomplice Tony McGovern outside a Glasgow pub in 2001, but the case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
Six years later, after being the target of a groundbreaking undercover police investigation, Stevenson admitted laundering more than £1 million in dirty money.
He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, but in 2014 he was back on the streets.
The prison sentence did not end Stevenson’s criminal career.
In the summer of 2020, he was wanted again after police seized 28 million Etizolam ‘street Valium’ tablets from a pill factory in Kent.
Etizolam has been linked to hundreds of drug deaths in Scotland.
It is reported that Stevenson was arrested but released on bail, allowing him to flee the country. The cocaine bust in Dover followed in September.
In 2022, the National Crime Agency named Stevenson on a list of 12 Wanted Men in the UK and within weeks he was in jail again.
A joint operation between the NCA, Scottish Police and the Dutch National Police led to his arrest while jogging in Bergen op Zoom after a period of supervision.
Stevenson was extradited to the UK and this month appeared in the High Court in Glasgow along with six other men.
The evidence began on Monday, with Stevenson denying a total of 14 charges. However, the 59-year-old has now admitted his role in cocaine trafficking and the production and supply of Etizolam.
The jury heard it took officers three days to find cocaine hidden in banana boxes shipped from Ecuador.
On Wednesday, two other men, Gerard Carbin, 45, and Ryan McPhee, 34, pleaded guilty to charges of being involved in serious organised crime and the production and supply of a Class C drug, etizolam.
Fruit trader David Bisland, 67, Garry McIntyre, 43, and Paul Bowes (53) remain on trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Prosecutors listed 14 charges in a seven-page indictment, covering allegations that occurred between January and September 2020.
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