ICEMAN'S £80M COKE BUST

Stevenson set for a long stretch for masterminding drug smuggling racket

- CONNOR GORDON

SCOTLAND'S biggest crime boss, Jamie "Iceman" Stevenson, has admitted masterminding a worldwide multi-million pound drug cartel.

Stevenson yesterday entered guilty pleas to being behind a plan to ship £76million worth of cocaine in banana boxes to a fruit market.

Cocaine weighing nearly a ton was seized by Border Force teams in Dover in September 2020.

Stevenson, 59, already one of Scotland's most notorious gangland figures, is now facing a long spell in prison.

In dramatic developments at the High Court in Glasgow on day five of the trial, Stevenson pled guilty via Thomas Ross KC, defending him, to a charge of being involved in the importation and supply of cocaine between January and September 2020.

The vast cocaine haul was smuggled from South America in what appeared to be shipments of bananas addressed to a fruit merchant in Townhead, Glasgow.

Dirty cash was also used to buy equipment lease premises, buy cars and register company directors under fake names.

Stevenson was central to a massive pill factory which churned out millions of etizolam pills - commonly known as street valium.

He pled guilty to a charge of being involved in serious organised crime relating to the production and supply of the pills.

He will be sentenced at a later date for his crimes.

Prosecutors said the huge trafficking operation spanned the UK, Spain, Ecuador and the luxury Nurai Island Resort in Abu Dhabi.

The gangster and five associates are all now behind bars after being snared as part of the joint Police Scotland and National Crime Agency probe Operation Pepperoni.

The smashing of the EncroChat phone network - favoured by criminals also led to their downfall after scores of messages revealed what they were doing.