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Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes! - The Underworld Podcast | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes!

The Underworld Podcast

Tue Jun 10 2025

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Underworld Podcast

Episode Title: Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes!
Release Date: June 10, 2025
Hosts: Sean Williams & Danny Gold

Episode Overview

This explosive episode provides a deep dive into Scotland's ongoing underworld war—an escalating blood feud that has gripped Glasgow and Edinburgh with brutal violence, power struggles, and transnational criminal alliances. Journalists Sean Williams and Danny Gold trace the decades-long rivalry between the Daniel and Lyons crime families, how their turf war has drawn in Irish super-cartels, South American drug routes, football hooligans, and a terrifying new actor from Dubai. The hosts unspool a gripping narrative that connects grisly local attacks to a wider global criminal network, illustrating how Scotland has become a battleground for modern narco warfare.

Major Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Dover Banana Cocaine Bust (00:30–05:53)

In September 2020, a massive Border Force operation uncovers over a ton of cocaine hidden in Ecuadorian banana shipments, destined for David Bilsland—a Glasgow grocer with underworld ties—and Jamie Stevenson, notorious as “The Iceman” ("Scotland's answer to Tony Soprano").
This bust, dubbed "Operation Pepperoni," exposes deep connections stretching from the UK and Spain to Ecuador and Abu Dhabi, but authorities fear it will simply trigger even more violent power struggles.

2. Origins: The Daniel-Lyons Family Feud (08:28–14:43)

Glasgow's 1990s narco scene is dominated by the Daniel and Lyons families, battling over a cocaine and heroin market estimated at $400 million.
The violence escalates from thefts at house parties to public shootouts and even grave desecrations.
Key Incidents:
- 2006 Garage Shooting: Masked hitmen murder 21-year-old Michael Lyons in a “Godfather”-esque attack (13:04).
- The feud intensifies with tit-for-tat shootings, kidnappings, and extortion attempts.

"Think Montagues and Capulets only with Stone island jackets and face like chewed up dog toys. Really makes you proud to be British, this stuff."
– Sean Williams, 11:19

3. Outsize Personalities and Brutal Enforcers (14:43–22:55)

Kevin "Gerbil" Carroll, a Daniel chief enforcer, becomes infamous for his unpredictable violence, including desecrating graves and orchestrating abductions and shootings.
Carroll is murdered in 2010 in a spectacular daylight supermarket car park hit—"arguably the most public gangland hit ever carried out in Scotland" (21:01).

4. Power Vacuums, Super-Cartels, and International Ties (22:55–30:11)

The murder of key figures and successful police operations create instability, enabling the Lyons family to forge alliances with the global Kinahan cartel (Irish mafia) and expand their influence from Spain to Dubai.
The episode highlights a vicious cycle: every gangland “win” for police seems to spark new violence and alliances.

"You need to keep your foot on the neck of the violence."
– Unnamed retired cop, quoted by Sean Williams, 39:00

5. Cocaine, Benzos, and Scotland’s Drug Crisis (28:27–34:18)

While knife and gun violence grabs headlines, Scotland spirals into a drug crisis: heroin, cocaine, and especially benzodiazepines (street benzos).
Dundee and Edinburgh emerge as epicenters of addiction and innovative criminal practices like “cuckooing” (taking over homes for drug activities).
Despite major busts, drug death rates in Scotland are more than four times higher than two decades ago.

"Dundee...has some of the worst stats of drug abuse in the whole UK. Cuckooing...has become so rife in the city that NGOs have been set up specifically to combat it."
– Sean Williams, 30:25

6. Soccer Hooligans and Narco Culture Collide (34:18–39:00)

The city’s football culture, particularly the ultras of Rangers (Union Bears) and Celtic (Green Brigade), feeds into criminal operations:
- Hooligan groups are involved in trafficking and violence.
- Lloyd Cross, a prominent Union Bear, uses his vehicle firm to ship drugs, leading to open support for criminal associates at Rangers matches.
Drug-fuelled football violence becomes a larger societal problem.

7. New Blood: Brazilian and Dubai Connections (41:56–46:00)

Amid the power vacuum, a new player emerges: Ross “Miami” McGill, a former Union Bears ultra, takes charge from Dubai with Brazilian cartel links.
McGill’s group, Tamo Junto ("We are together" in Portuguese), adopts cartel-style tactics: social media threats, firebombings, targeting family members—mirroring the tactics of Latin American cartels.

“This is like Mexican cartel level stuff happening here, huh?”
– Danny Gold, 45:56

8. Escalating Violence, Social Media Threats & “Tamo Junto” (45:00–48:06)

Tamo Junto makes public videos of attacks, uses skull-and-rifles insignia with Scottish colors, and issues chilling warnings to rival families.
Even children of gangsters are at risk; violence is spreading beyond Scotland into Spain and Thailand.

9. Live Crisis: Murders and Global Reach (48:06–49:28)

Just before recording, two ex-feud members (Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jr.) are killed in Malaga, Spain, showing how the Scottish gang war now transcends borders.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Sean on Scotland’s cycles of violence:
“Every time police have a success, it's actually pouring petrol on the fire.” (41:56)
On drug death rates:
“Scotland now has the worst drug death rate in Europe, with over twice the rate of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.” (40:20)
On football’s role in crime:
“Research last year suggested that cocaine use...may have superseded excessive drinking as a cause of violence and antisocial conduct in the modern game.” (34:18)
On the new Brazilian/Glaswegian cartel's branding:
"It does look like a death squad from a Marvel movie. But also I see tmj. Isn't TMJ that thing that people get in their jaw?"
– Danny Gold, 45:16

Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic | |------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:30 | The Dover Banana Cocaine Bust & Operation Pepperoni | | 08:28 | Daniel-Lyons Family Feud History | | 13:04 | 2006 Garage Shooting: Spark of Open Gang Warfare | | 21:01 | Kevin "Gerbil" Carroll’s Murder: Scotland’s Most Notorious Hit | | 22:55 | Lyons Super-Cartel Expansion and International Links | | 28:27 | Scotland’s Soaring Drug Crisis (Heroin, Cocaine, Benzos) | | 34:18 | Football Ultras/Drug Cartel Nexus | | 41:56 | Power Vacuum & Emergence of "Miami" and Tamo Junto | | 45:00 | Tamo Junto's Social Media Campaigns & Public Attack Videos | | 48:06 | Identification of Ross “Miami” McGill & His Business History | | 49:28 | Recent Double Murder in Spain: The Feud’s Expanding Global Reach |

Final Thoughts

The episode paints a vivid, sometimes darkly humorous, picture of how Scotland’s narco feuds have evolved from local turf wars to a chaotic, blood-soaked battle touching Dubai, Brazil, and Spain. By blending investigative insights, local color, media analysis, and personal anecdotes, Danny and Sean create an immersive true crime narrative that will fascinate anyone interested in the global underworld, modern organized crime—and just how deeply football, drugs, and violence are woven together in Scotland’s ongoing saga.

For listeners seeking more:

Dive into The Underworld Podcast's back catalog covering the Kinahan cartel, European super-cartels, and more.
Search “ice cream wars” and “Encrochat” for historical context referenced in this episode.

Contact:
Tips and insights: underworldpodcastmail.com

Support:
Patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast

Prepared for listeners and readers who want an in-depth understanding without having to listen to the full episode. All timestamps and quotes are accurate to the speakers’ original tone and manner.

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Transcript

Sean Williams (0:00)

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Sean Williams (0:25)

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Sean Williams (0:30)

It's September 2020 in Dover, a town on the Kent coast some 80 miles southeast of London. And Britain's border force is about to hit the jackpot. It's six months since cops all over Europe cracked Encrochat, a messaging service used by the continent's biggest narco traffickers. And the Dover team is sure there is a big shipment of cocaine hidden in consignments of fruit arriving from Latin America. They've already searched 17 loads in that time. They found nothing. But you know what they say, 18th time's a charm. And on this chilly day, tucked inside dozens of cardboard boxes full of Ecuadorian bananas are 119 parcels wrapped tightly in tin foil. When the officers cut into the packages, they discover almost 1,000 blocks of cocaine, a ton of the drug in total, with a street value of well over US$100 million. The boxes are on their way to David Bilsland, a grocer by trade, but cops are more interested in his underworld connections and his market stores. The 63 year old is from Glasgow, 500 miles north of Kent, and he's linked to one of Scotland's most notorious gangsters, a man whose reputation for cold bloodedness has earned him the nickname the Iceman and whom others have described as Scotland's answer to Tony Soprano. Billsland expects to shift the gear from Dover in truck belonging to his own firm. But the bust, part of a police op called Pepperoni that spans the uk, Spain, Ecuador and tellingly, Abu Dhabi, has made sure that will never happen. Instead, Billsland, a gangster named Jamie Stevenson and four others are banged up for their blunders in the great British Bodge banana box Border bust. It's one of the border forces biggest seizures in years. A huge success, but only on paper, because Billsland and Stevenson have been around for years and they're key players in a bitter family feud for control of Scotland's lucrative cocaine, heroin and benzo markets. A feud that has for over two decades seen daylight assassinations, high speed car chases and gruesome machete attacks. Cops know that every time they take a Win, there's going to be a power struggle in the underworld. And with Billsland and Stevenson behind bars, their enemies in Glasgow, Glasgow, Edinburgh and far further afield will spot a chance to bury them. By 2024, the feud has spilled into an all out war. Homes are firebombed, gang associates shot, stabbed and threatened. Even kids are being targeted. Cop numbers are down since the pandemic and detectives fear their sleepwalking into something even more brutal than the razor wars that slept Glasgow in the 1920s and 30s, or even the the blood soaked ice cream wars of the 80s. Those guys, they never had social media. But today's mobsters are desperate to Instagram their crimes, posting videos of burning vehicles and homes, accompanied by poetic threats and a pulsing Motown soundtrack among them. A new crew has come to Scotland. Its skull and cross rifle badge is a grim, ultra violent watermark throughout. It calls itself Tamo Junto, which doesn't sound very Scottish and it isn't. Tamojunto's boss lives a thousand miles away and he's got connection to some of the scariest gangs on the planet in Spain, Dubai, and in the favelas of Brazil. Tamojunto. We're together in Portuguese. The feud just took a giant leap into the abyss. Over the coming months, as Glasgow and Edinburgh burn, details about this shady new character's life will leak in local media. He's in Dubai with links to Glasgow's football hooligan scene in bed with the mighty Kinahan cartel and heir to Latin American cocaine roots bequeathed by a pair of fallen brothers. Some call him Mr. Big, others Miami. Whether or not he'll emerge from the shadows, the kingpins men in Scotland aren't afraid to publicize their rampage of terror. These rats have been thieving for a long time. One of their messages reads addresses Billson and Stevenson's criminal pals. It's time for people to stand together as one and remove this vermin from our streets. Welcome to the Underworld podcast. Hello, everyone, and welcome to a weekly dose of true crime that dives into the criminal underworlds that affect all of our lives, whether we like it or not. I am Sean Williams, an investigative reporter and aspiring golfer in New Zealand. And I'm joined as ever, by filmmaker Danny Gold, who's once again in Spotify's shiny New York office. While I'm just sat here in the cold in my apartment, it's winter here and cold, Danny, it's summer there. Have you been enjoying that New York heat?

Sean Williams (10:41)

I was gonna not give a personal anecdote, but let's not go there after this. The tightening of belts at City hall and fewer Bobby's on the beat, which is policemen in public for American listeners. And you got a pretty decent recipe for narcos to thrive all this time. The two biggest crews in Scotland are the Daniel crime family and the Lyons crime family. Both emerge in the 1990s to serve Glasgow's lucrative drug market, then worth around $400 million. Jamie Daniel, the head of his clan has risen from scrap metal dealer to cigarette smuggler to heroin kingpin. And the Daniels are the better established of the two groups. But in 2001, a feud kicks off when members of the Lions crew steal a five figure consignment of Daniel cocaine in the Glasgow suburb of Milton during a house party. Think Montagues and Capulets only with Stone island jackets and face like chewed up dog toys. Really makes you proud to be British, this stuff. Now this feud explodes in January 2003 when members of both sides are shot and injured in separate attacks. Among these are the Daniels chief enforcer, a crackpot named Kevin Gerbil Carroll, and Johnny Lyons, brother of Lyons family leaders David and Eddie Senior. So far so scrappy. In 2004, Gerbil Carroll is charged with attempted to murder alliance associate with an AK47. But the case falls apart at trial and he's a free man. Everybody's scared of him. The Paulus. I'm trying to do my limmy voice there. The cops, they are now very much aware of the feud and they're deploying more resources to Glasgow's underworld. But in Carroll, they're up against by far the most unpredictable player in the whole game, as near as a psychopath as they come in love with the violence. His rivalry with the Lyons clan goes back to childhood, when he'd been bullied by members of the family and aged 19, he's jailed for three months for car theft. By his mid-20s, Carroll is a hardened gangster and the Daniels chosen man for dirty jobs. And no job is dirtier, arguably, than the one he carries out in November 2006. Now that's when Carroll, with the aid of a 4x4 and a rope, tears down the gravestone of Eddie Lyon's senior son Gary, who had died in 1991 aged just 8 of leukemia.

Sean Williams (14:46)

I like it. Yeah, yeah. They do it different up north and it goes on, quote, they all know what it's about. The money doesn't matter to me as it's got to be paid to the piper. I don't want the police, the boys, not even your wife knowing about it. If you keep them out of this, then all your lives can go back to normal. As we are all losing money through this. If you have any tricks for my pickup man, then the deals are off. Remember to keep your mouth shut. No cameras, no surveillance, as the pickup man doesn't know nothing, so he's no use to you. Drop off 4pm Saturday. I'll draw you a map. An X will mark the spot. That's pretty threatening. But Lyons never pays the 25k. Instead he hands the letter to the police. Anderson and McDonald, meanwhile, have been under surveillance since the Dec. 6 shooting and they've hardly been discreet, going around describing themselves as the Untouchables and talking about a mysterious piper, which you presume is probably the same piper in the letter to David Lyons. The pair lead detectives to a house on the east side of Glasgow where they discover a machine gun, grenades and ammunition, plus a bunch of weapons that have been stolen from a nearby army barracks. It's a pretty open and shut case. And in May 2008, a judge sentences Anderson MacDonald to a Scottish record 35 years in prison. Later knocked down to 30 on appeal for what he describes as a, quote, cold blooded premeditated assassination. This is all the bloody conclusion of an attempted power grab by the Lions. Basically, the Daniels had been on the scene since the 90s. They'd been the strongest, but the Lions were young, impulsive, and thought they'd spotted a chance to get the throne. But the December 2006 killing and the actions of Gerbil Carroll are the Daniel's way of snapping back, putting their rivals down. The Lions are weak at this point. They've lost a prominent family member, Steven Lyons, the nephew of David, who wasn't killed in that garage. He flees to Spain and this is crucial because it's over there that he meets members of the Kinahan Cartel, the Irish mafia that's taking over Europe's cocaine trade, amalgamated into one giant, so called super cartel with capos from the Netherlands, Albania and way further beyond. We've done a bunch of shows on them, so go to your search bar, type in Kinahan and get educated. But essentially, young Stephen Lyon is about to make connections in some very high places and they're going to pay dividends down the line. A bit like a Danny Gold shitcoin investment. How's that doing, by the way?

Sean Williams (18:28)

That'S all you need Anyway. Now in the story, remember this podcast thing we're doing? We've rattled all the way up, we're all the way up to late 2009. So the Daniels have beaten the Lions into submission and Gerbil Carroll, lifetime member of the psycho club, he rules the streets of Glasgow. He carries out a series of so called alien abductions on rival dealers across Scotland. They're named because, having been brutally tortured, beaten and robbed, none of the victims tell police they can remember a thing about it. Gerbil was by most accounts a maniac, writes Glasgow. Live and incorrigible. Not a great combination. Carroll is, unsurprisingly making enemies left and right. He's getting more and more out of control, and it's clear that if anybody's going to silence them, they're going to need to come at him with something more audacious than anything that's gone before. Not least when, in January 2010, Carroll shoots and injures Eddie Lyons Jr. Again, this time in the army. The Lions might be down, but they're not out. And the latest act by Carol is an excuse they need to do something big. On January 13, 2010, at around 1pm, Carroll has arranged to meet a drug pusher named Stephen Glenn, who is associated with the Lyons family, at the supermarket car park in Glasgow. You're working for me now, he tells Glenn, trying to poach him from the Lyons. Anybody that doesn't fall into line is going to get banged. But listener Glenn isn't going to get banged. It is he who will do the banging. Minutes later, Carol was sitting in the back of a black Audi A3. A great car, a winner's car. True Wellington, Dad's car. When a Volkswagen Golf screeches to a halt in front of it, Carol's two associates leaps out of their front seats, leaving him alone in the vehicle. The child locks are on. He's Trapped, two masked men emerge from the gulf and open fire. The rear window shatters as does Carol's head and chest from 13 shots in total across almost 30 seconds, leaving him slumped dead on the sea. Now, sure, Glasgow can be a rough place, but a military style execution in broad daylight in an ASDA car park, that just ain't cricket. Local media goes into overdrive talking about a Sopranos style hit. I mean, is there a Sopranos hit like that, Danny? And the BBC describes it as, quote, arguably the most public gangland hit ever carried out in Scotland.

Sean Williams (22:55)

Anyway, the prime suspect in Carol's shooting is a Lions trigger man named William Buff Patterson, who, because he's clearly innocent, flees to Spain 10 days after the murder. I mean, I don't know why any of these guys are getting out to Spain. It's just nuts. Buff spends more than four years on the run and he features on the UK Serious Organized Crime Agency's Top 10 Most Wanted list. But in 2014, he hands himself into a police station in Madrid. He's sent back to the UK and he's convicted and sentenced to 22 years. In a mark of Carroll's notoriety, court officials read out a list of 99 potential suspects in his death. A number of tit for tat killings follow. But the scales of power in Glasgow and Scotland are really tipped in the Lion's favour. In July 2016, that's when Jamie Daniel, chief of the Daniels family, dies of cancer, aged 58. Carol, the crew's top enforcer, is long dead and nobody's been found with half the appetite for chaos since. Furthermore, Daniel's son and her apparent Xander Sutherland is behind bars on a lengthy heroin wrap. So there's a big power vacuum at the top of the Daniels crime family and it's unclear who's going to fill it. At the same time, the Lions, supercharged by the connections to the Kinahans and Europe's exploding cocaine trade, spot yet another chance to become the kings of Scotland's underworld. Almost a decade after the garage shootout that nearly killed them off. In the five months following Jamie Daniels death, they carry out five attempted murders. One of them is Robert Daniel, who on December 8, 2016, is rammed in his car by another vehicle, chased into a house, then hacked at twice in the head with either a hatchet or a machete. Here's the BBC quote. Asked in court if he was aware of any ill feeling between the Daniel and Lyons family, Robert, 29, replied, not that I know of. Now, that guy's is a real ometa for you. No pentiti here, Italians. The most gruesome of these attacks is dealt out to Steven bonzo Daniel. On May 18, 2017, Daniel's heading home after dropping off some friends when his car is rammed again by a VW Golf, which is then joined by an Audi A3. It's a great car, Danny. It's really. It's a really cool car for, like, super cool people. And a crazy chase in series through Glasgow, hitting speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.

Sean Williams (27:38)

A bowl of soup. Anyway, Lord Mulholland is totally wrong. Glasgow definitely is a place of retribution. I mean, you just heard it like for the last 20, 25 minutes. And the law of the jungle. In early 2020, French, Dutch and British authorities crack the Encro chat system, though, giving them access to millions of messages exchanged by the biggest narco kingpins in Europe. We did a show way back when this all happened with report Ed Caesar, who wrote a brilliant New Yorker piece about the fallout from Encore Chat. So definitely listen to that when you get a chance. But among the top level criminals giving away their secrets to the cop like they're on MySpace, one of them stands out in the UK, Jamie Iceman Stevenson is a 59 year old drug smuggler who is well, well known in criminal spheres. Back in 2007, a judge jailing him for 12 years had said that, quote, it is clear that you occupy an important position in the world of organized crime. Money laundering provides an essential service to the drugs trade and contributes materially to its profitability. What they're saying by that is that this guy is a really, really big deal. It's really sophisticated and crucially, he is a lion's associate and by extension an associate of the Kinahans, operating out of Dubai and working with members of the Lyons family. But with the Dover banana shipment from the cold open, he's been caught. Absolutely banged to rights, Stevenson goes on the run in the Netherlands. But in 2022, two years later, he's caught when, get this, a pal he's on the land with goes on a bender in Amsterdam's red light district using a bank card the police are monitoring. They're caught, brought back to the UK and in October 2024, Stevenson is jailed for 20 years while his associates, including David Bilsland, the grocer who was in on the Dover plot, they get a total of 29 years. During the trial, authorities lift the lid on a Stevenson plan to flood Scotland with millions of tablets of etizolam, also known as street Valium, from a factory in Kent. Stevenson's kingpin days may be over thanks to this banana bust, but drug use is going bananas across Scotland. Nonetheless, in 2023, there were 1,172 drug misuse deaths in the country, which is a 12% increase on the previous year. This is actually over four times higher than the number of deaths back in 2000 when heroin was ripping few communities and opioids still account for 4/5 of all deaths today.

Sean Williams (30:54)

Yeah, it is awful. Like, it's fully. Oh, my God, the stories you read about that. Just. Yeah, don't read it, just listen to this show. Anyway, benzos have been identified in almost 60% of. Of drug death cases in Dundee. So it's fair to say that if Stevenson's pill factory had got up and running, there could have been a public health disaster on Scotland's streets in recent years. Of course, cocaine has flooded Scotland's streets just like it has everywhere. I mean, there are uncontacted tribes in the Indian Ocean that are probably on the gear. Each Friday night in Scotland, there has been increased concern over the rise in people injecting the drug, especially in Edinburgh. Locals call this prop. And one user has told local station STV that its use is, quote, an epidemic. It's actually shook the town, to be honest. Add to this increased levels of synthetic opioids like nitazines finding their way into the Scottish drug supply chain, and you've got this situation whose potential for death and destruction, not to mention the crimes associated with tons of folks being off their heads on coke and smack, far outweighs the stuff Irving Welsh was writing about back in the early 90s. Okay, so there's your context. But what doesn't help in all of this either is the role of football hooligans or ultras being thrown into the mix. Glasgow is home to two of the biggest clubs in Europe, Rangers and Celtic, and it's one of the darkest rivalries in world sport. Very long story, very short. Glasgow is very closely bound to the history of neighboring Northern Ireland, traditionally being a place of high immigration by Irish Catholics, especially after the. The Great famine of the mid-1800s. And so it has taken on the north sectarian divisions between Catholics and Protestants. Rangers, traditionally Protestants Loyalists, they're often union flags and royal imagery at their games. And Celtic, as the name suggests, traditionally Irish Catholic club with all the links that entails, including to the ira. At the extreme ends of this spectrum are two sets of ultras. On one side, Rangers Union Bears, which does sound like a gay club, and Celtics Green Brigade, which sounds less gay and more like a name for the Hoots bar staff on St Patrick's Day. Both are deep into cocaine use. What else? And along with it, violence British football hasn't really seen since the 1980s, when English clubs were banned from Europe and deaths at matches weren't too uncommon. Research last year suggested that cocaine use, which is so rife in this world, may have superseded excessive drinking as a cause of violence and antisocial conduct in the modern game. Fans, supporters associations, police officers, government advisors and safety groups in England and Scotland were all interviewed about the relationship between matchgoers and alcohol during an extensive three year study. And it was found that class A drug use was of far greater concern. Cocaine, they say, is part of the problem.

Sean Williams (34:25)

Right? He was like owned. He was part owned by gangsters with the cut, like the Mexican cartels or something that brought him over from Cuba. Then he owed them a bunch of money, I think it was. Damn. Yeah, I. I can't remember how that finished, but I think he's playing in Mexico now. So maybe he's having a better or worse time reach out to us. Yes, Hill back to Scotland however, one of the key players in the Jamie Stevenson banana bust is Lloyd Cross, a self styled top boy of the Union Bears who's followed Rangers all around Europe and has been arrested doing so. It is Cross's vehicle recovery firm that's been used as a drug shipping group for Stevenson, and Cross has been working closely with Billsland, the grocer to get the gear from Dover to all corners of the UK. In October 2024, just weeks after Cross's sentence alongside Stevenson, Billsland and their gang, the Union Bears unfurl a banner at a Europa League match against Lyon reading no Surrender lc Lloyd Cross and Ranger's Riot Crew while setting off fireworks over the head of their own goalkeeper. Cross is a Union bear. Ranger's daft and still has a lot of friends in the group, one source tells the Scottish Sun. But flaunting your support for a drug dealing thug while aiming fireworks over your own goalie's head shows just how brainless this mob are. Here's the thing, Stevenson, Bilsland and Cross, like I said earlier, they're all Lyons family associates, Kinahan associates. With them behind bars, things will likely get more violent. And on the other side of the feud, remember how Jamie Daniels death left a power vacuum at the top of the Daniels Klan? That void is filled by Edinburgh based Mark Richardson, who in 2018 is jailed for eight years after being caught with a Glock pistol and another 18 months is added to his sentence for a high speed car chase with the cops. So some of the biggest Lions players have gone down for the banana bust. And there's trouble at the top of the family too. Remember Steven Lyons, Lyons family nephew who ran off to Spain after the 2006 garage shootout? He's gone from there to Dubai, the mothership for global organized crime, and he's alleged to have racked up debts to the Kinahan cartel for a bunch of failed deals during the pandemic. And those are not the people you want to be in the red with. The Lyons family seems like it's in a state of disarray, but the Daniels crew is arguably even more shambolic. With no Jamie Daniel or Gerald Carroll, Mark Richardson takes over the crook from Edinburgh with a long and distinguished rap sheet. In 2010, courts sentenced him to 10 years prison, aged as 23 when he's caught trying to sell $3 million of heroin and crack across Scotland's capital. Several years later, he hooks up with Steven Bonzo Daniel. Remember the guy who got his face macheted half off. And together they run the Daniels criminal enterprise. Bonzo's face is a complete mess. Looks like a topographical map. Real hellraiser vibes. In 2017, Richardson is swept up in a huge police sting, Operation Escalade, which reveals, among other things, that Scotland's biggest gangsters are now traveling to Brazil to meet face to face with leaders of the First Capital Command, the pcc, stockpiling military grade weapons and torturing enemies with incredible levels of violence. Among them are brothers James and Barry Gillespie, who then go on the run in Brazil. And the following January Richardson cops this almost nine year sentence, later increased to over a decade. And then Richardson just looks like a regular bloke. He's like pink skin, loose shirts, slightly overweight, he's basically British, but he's sophisticated. He launders money for a series of complicated schemes. And he runs the Daniels family from prison, quarterbacking drug deals and building up a groundswell of support in Edinburgh to try to take Glasgow from the Lyons family, which is a pretty dangerous business even if the Lyons leadership is all over the place. Between 2017 and 2021, Scottish police track over 70 incidents related to this violent turf war in something they call Operation Engagement, which threatens to blossom into an all out war at any moment. The authorities though, they're fighting a losing battle, not least because their own house is in shambles. As Glasgow had climbed from its murder capital status and politicians down south in Westminster had hopped aboard the bandwagon narrative of of positive change. The Conservative government had cut budgets dedicated to combating organized criminal groups. The number of Scottish police officers has fallen by almost a thousand. And all this is coming at the same time as Scotland's cocaine market is soaring, says Graham Pearson, former head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency. Quote, those involved in organized crime have had a fairly joyful time developing their business with the odd casualty. As law enforcement intervenes, most of those who might have been able to change the situation have lacked the commitment to see things through and have prioritised other areas such as the NHS and education. Organised crime was overlooked and the wealth and power of those people has developed and become more confident. Another retired cop speaking to the Telegraph puts it simpler, quote, you need to keep your foot on the neck of the violence. Today there are 90 serious organised criminal groups operating in Scotland and over 1400 people involved in criminal activity. As of Last March, only 158 of them were in prison. Scotland now has the worst drug death rate in Europe, with over twice the rate of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which are the UK's other three constituent nations.

Sean Williams (41:56)

All of this is mixing into a deadly cocktail of cocaine, riches, power vacuums and blood feuds. Add to this the fallout from Operation Phonetic Ecrochat and the banana bust and you have a recipe not just for turf wars, but chaos. Every time police have a success like the Stevenson case, it has repercussions in the criminal world. A former undercover cop tells the Telegraph. The criminals look to see how vulnerable they are. They start looking inwards at scapegoats, and violence is their answer to everything. When police have a success, it's actually pouring petrol on the fire. Steven Lyons, the Lyons family scion, leaves Dubai amid his debt trouble with the Kinahans. Into this void and chaos steps a third player, a guy keen to stamp his own mark on Scotland from a Home in Dubai, where he'd been since 2022 after evading criminal charges. Back home, a man with a history as a union bears ultra with links to Lloyd Cross and Jamie Stevenson, who can source drugs from the Kinahans and get them to the Lions and Daniels from Europe's shipping ports. A man known to media only as Miami. Miami also has links to James and Barry Gillespie, the fraternal mobsters who've gone missing in Brazil, presumed by now to be dead and killed out there. Perhaps Miami had a hand in it, perhaps not. But this guy has friends in almost all the high places you can imagine. And in March this year, he makes a $700,000 cocaine deal with associates of Mark Richardson, the head of the Daniels clan. Here's what happens next. According to an anonymous source speaking to the sun, quote, one of Richardson's crew went out to Dubai for a few weeks and agreed to take 16 kilos of cocaine, but didn't pay. Another guy ended up paying with fake notes rather than genuine cash. Moves like this just aren't tolerated. It's the old paper in the briefcase trick, guys. I mean, I guess it must work sometimes, but I wouldn't advise ripping off some psychotic cocaine kingpin with it. And Miami, unsurprisingly, goes into a bloodthirsty tailspin. A contract is put out on Richardson's life and guards move into a new prison. Bonzo Daniels, he of the slashed up face, actually moves from Glasgow to Dubai as he thinks it'll be safer out there. By late March, masked goons are firebombing homes, businesses and cars belonging to Daniel's family associates. Before long, attacks are being filmed and post to social media. One minute long example on March 23rd includes a montage of Alison Strikes set to the Vandellas, Nowhere to run, which, yeah, it's a stone cold banger and something straight out of a Guy Ritchie movie. This is a message to anyone associated with Mark Richardson. The caption reads, we are only just getting started. We are coming for all of you. The violence, of course, is just getting started. Throughout March and April, more homes and cars are vandalized as Miami makes his mark on Richardson and the Daniels. In late April, the perpetrators named themselves Tamo Junto, which means we are together in Brazilian Portuguese. Their badge is pretty gnarly. A growling skull in St Andrew's flag colours flanked by cross assault rifles and TMJ 2025. I've put it in the script so that he can actually give his professional opinion. What do you reckon?

Sean Williams (45:59)

Yeah, it's, it's, it's mad, man. It's so public as well. Yeah. Amid all of this, Bonzo Daniels home is firebombed and 135 grand bounty is placed on his head. In May, Bonzo comes back from Dubai to Glasgow. Weirdly, he's got a panic room in his house and still bollards in the drive outside to avoid any vehicle ramming attacks. Miami's men, one source tells Glasgow live, quote, know everything about his movements and haven't ruled out going after him at a Rangers game. But attacking him at Ibrox, which is the stadium, with the amount of police there would be difficult. Another Daniels associate who flees to Thailand is tracked down there and slashed across his face, leaving a pretty brutal wound. More recently, children and family of gangsters have been targeted, saying that hasn't happened since the early days of the Lion's Daniel feud some 20 years back. Says Graham Pearson, the former cop. Quote, it is a complex picture because you've got people who are in prison who still want to have influence inside and outside and look after what was their business on the outside. You've got wannabes who are coming forward and they think this is an opportunity for them. And you've got others who have old scores to settle that they could not settle when crime bosses were around. All of that mixes together and the greed for the money that comes from drugs and from the kudos that comes from being a main man. And you end up with competition, violence and the kind of incidents we've seen. On May 17, media finally lift the lid on Miami's identity. His name is Ross McGill, a 31 year old former leader of the Union Bears Ultras. He's actually fled Scotland in 2022 at the fallout of the Encro chat banana busts, initially to Spain and then of course to Dubai. He's had a bunch of failed legit enterprises, including a pie company, construction takeaway food, mobile phone stands, a restaurant, a dry cleaning firm, management consultancy and a fitness outlet McGill could have attended. Failed. Connor blogged about his corporate woes on LinkedIn, but he went down a far more honorable path. Cocaine trafficking.