Notorious crime boss Jamie 'Iceman' Stevenson jailed for 20 years #crime #news #scotland

One of the UK’s most notorious gangsters has been jailed for running an international drug smuggling scheme that saw nearly a tonne of imported cocaine hidden in a banana shipment. James Stevenson, known as “Iceman”, admitted to masterminding the importation from South America which was seized by Border Force in Dover in September 2020 and addressed to a Glasgow fruit merchant. Following the seizure, NCA and Police Scotland officers carried out several raids. How the UK’s FBI caught the ‘Scottish Tony Soprano’ A police chase from a picnic table at a Scottish castle to a Valentine’s Day rendezvous in Alicante – how police brought down Iceman. It came after French law enforcement was able to break into the encrypted communications platform EncroChat leading to hundreds of arrests across the UK. Stevenson, of Rutherglen, became one of Scotland’s most wanted men. During a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday, Stevenson was sentenced to 12 years in prison for directing the cocaine smuggling operation and a further eight years for running an illicit pill factory. Others involved in the plot are also due to be sentenced on Wednesday.