THE decade-long fight to dismantle Scotland’s biggest drugs cartel has swept up nearly 50 hoods linked to the notorious Gillespie organised crime gang.
Police Scotland’s Operation Escalade was launched in 2014 as a crack team of sleuths and crimebusters began spinning an intricate web that would snare dozens of top table hoods working under kingpin brothers James and Barry.
The notorious Gillespie gang was raking in millions via connections in South America[/caption]
They were raking in millions via crime connections in South America that tied Scotland’s most fearsome crooks to so-called narco-terrorists steeped in murder and mayhem.
Scots cops and international lawmen based around the globe have swept up dozens of hoods who were up to their eyeballs in violence, intimidation and even murder.
Eleven years on the whereabouts of James and Barry Gillespie, aged 47 and 51, remains a mystery amid fears they may have been murdered in a Brazilian bolthole.
Now here in our Sun Club crime special we peel back the layers of the Escalade blitz that crippled the country’s biggest ever drugs, guns and dirty money racket.
Just months after the probe was launched a horrifying chain of events ended in an abduction and torture ordeal that reads like the script from a Quentin Tarantino movie – and would lead to the gang’s demise.
Drug dealer Robert Allan found himself at the mercy of the Gillespie mob in 2015 after being drawn into a cocaine deal that would put his life on the line.
Allan was a long-standing pal of Gillespie lieutenant James ‘The Don’ White whose role was to oversee the distribution of the tonnes of narcotics being shipped in from South America.
White, 47, turned up at Allan’s door around May 2013 and arranged for Allan to take on a 2kg stash of white powder worth around £90,000.
The drugs would be given to Allan ‘on bail’ meaning no cash changed hands and it was up to him to shift the product and pay his debt later from the takings.
It’s not clear to what extent Allan agreed to the transaction but the suspicion is he had little choice. White gave his mate the phone number of Barry O’Neill, 45 – another Gillespie hood who would facilitate the handover a couple of days later.
Allan was instructed to take the cocaine which was inside a hidden compartment behind the registration plate of a modified motor.
Given Scots’ appetite for snorting stimulants up their noses you would have been forgiven for thinking it would not be difficult to find a steady stream of buyers in the city bars and nightclubs.
But it didn’t transpire that way through an unfortunate quirk that was no fault of Allan’s.
Allan was ordered to take the £90k drugs ‘on bail’ and pay his debt from the profits[/caption]
Within a number of weeks it became clear one of the batches wasn’t right, contaminated to the extent the dealer wasn’t able to sell as planned.
Drug gangs aren’t famed for their flexible customer service and White wasn’t about to give Allan a pass – even if he was a close pal.
With the reliability of a Rolex, the phone call demands for payment ran like clockwork on a daily basis, growing increasingly sinister and threatening as the hours ticked by.
Allan pleaded with White for more time but his anxiety over the grim circumstances he was involved in ramped up when he was told the drugs were the property of James and Barry Gillespie.
Soon an irate Barry was calling Allan directly, cranking up the pressure for the return of his dirty money and leaving Allan fearing for his safety.
Drug dealer turned supergrass Robert Allan fled to Portsmouth[/caption]
The desperate dealer stopped taking their calls and fled Scotland without informing the gang and initially sought sanctuary in Portsmouth on England’s south coast where he hoped the heat would come off.
There was a fat chance of that and White began making efforts to track him down with the aid of other fearsome Gillespie hoodlums.
Allan’s friends and loved-ones were also on the receiving end of threatening phone calls as the Gillespie brothers refused to let go of the debt – should it leave others with the deluded impression they too could take advantage.
The tech-savvy crew also used tracking devices to monitor the movements of their prey and had earlier placed one of the gadgets on Allan’s motor.
Eventually on March 11, 2015, Allan was traced at an address in the sleepy village of Dodworth, North Yorkshire.
Any illusion Allan may have had that he’d left his past behind came crashing down when he was assaulted and abducted by Gillespie henchmen.
The terrifying appearance of enforcer David Sell, 57, was the first sign his number was up.
Moments before, Allan discovered a note claiming to be from his neighbour at his back door which read: “I would like to discuss a parking space with you.”
Sell then walked up to the property and Allan’s nightmare began.
Sell was gripping a can of beer as he thundered his fist into Allan’s face, sparking a brutal fight before two more armed accomplices waded in.
Desperate Allan grabbed a gun off one man as he fought for his life.
But he lost the weapon and was pistol-whipped before the thugs forced him into the living room where he was cable tied.
As he was brutally beaten, one of the men shouted: “Do you think you can f*** with us?”
Sell guarded Allan at gunpoint while an accomplice used a six-foot chain to bind him from head to toe. One thug sneered at him: “It’s not about the money, it’s the f****** principle.”
The downfall of The Don & his cronies
JAMES ‘The Don’ White “elevated himself” to the top of the Escalade organisation one year after the ‘disappearance’ of kingpin bros James and Barry Gillespie in 2019.
But his time at the top was cut short within a year when he was captured in Forteleza, Brazil, before his extradition back to Scotland.
He was caged for nine years and ten months in August 2023 for his decade-long part in the Gillespie mob.
We told how White struck up a romance while hiding out in South America with Brazilian beauty Paula Gomes who told of her heartache when her “very special” boyfriend’s criminal empire came crashing down.
The pair met after married White fled to the country as the net was closing in.
In a social media post, Gomes wrote: “I will never forget all that you have done for me.
“Actually remembering you is remembering me. You are a very special person, very special.”
It later emerged White made more than £126m from his life of crime.
His jailing came five years after David Sell, 57, was locked up with other members of the so-called £200million supergang.
The mob admitted various kidnap, gun, torture and drugs charges in January 2018.
Sell stood in the dock at the High Court in Glasgow with Mark Richardson, 37, Martyn Fitzsimmons, 44, Anthony Woods, 51, Francis Mulligan, 48, Michael Bowman, 38, Gerard Docherty, 45, Steven McArdle, 40, and Barry O’Neill, 45, as they were caged for a total of 87 years’ jail.
He was then driven 250 miles back to Scotland and dumped in an industrial unit in Fauldhouse, near Bathgate, West Lothian.
It was the start of a violent two-day torture ordeal that left Allan bloodied and broken and no doubt fearing his end was near.
It’s understood James and Barry themselves were involved along with White and Sell – as the highest-ranking members of the Escalade gang laid down their own twisted law.
Allan was wrapped in metal chains and padlocked so he had no chance of escape as his tormentors circled before beginning their bloody underworld ritual.
First came the punches and kicks as 48-hours of brutality began.
A gun was pressed against the side of his head and metal poles and chains rained down upon him. That was bad enough but then someone produced a 14lb sledgehammer which came thundering down onto his leg, his shattered bones splintering through his skin.
He was then stripped naked and power-washed with a bleach-like substance, the chemicals seeping into his open wounds, adding to his agony.
But worse was still to come. After he was dressed in a police-style forensic suit, the gun came out again and this time there was no pretending.
And at one point one of his captors asked him: “Are you alright? Don’t want you f****** dying, don’t want to be up on a murder charge.”
Allan was shot three times on the outskirts of East Kilbride[/caption]
Horrified commuters discovered Allan near to the Morrisons supermarket in East Kilbride[/caption]
The thugs blasted him in the legs to complete his ordeal before loading him into the back of a van, driving him down a remote track on the outskirts of East Kilbride.
The hooded victim was dragged from the motor and shot with one thug asking Allan if he was ready. He was then shot three times, twice in one knee and once in another.
Stricken Allan was ordered to crawl and pointed towards the nearby busy road but he couldn’t move due to his injuries and mangled legs.
The gang gave their crippled victim a helping hand by pushing him down an embankment and as he rolled towards the road one of the fiends shouted: “You still owe the money.”
It didn’t take long before Allan was discovered by horrified commuters as they made their way along the town’s Stewartfield Road, just a stone’s throw from Morrisons supermarket.
The brutality and ruthlessness of the Gillespie gang’s empire was suddenly there for the world to see – a grotesque and savage spectacle that would add rocket fuel to the crimefighters committed to bringing the gang to justice.
Fast-forward a decade from that crime crossroads and the Gillespie gang has been obliterated – its key members either languishing in jail or in the case of the kingpins missing, feared-dead in Brazil.
Allan went on to become what’s often referred to as a supergrass, helping cops investigate the Gillespie network – and playing his part in their downfall.
He was later given a new ID to protect him from revenge attacks – becoming a marked man for life after revealing the mob’s secrets.
Legal chiefs slapped a permanent ban on printing his photo and he was given a completely new life in a bid to keep him safe.
Sell admitted attacking Allan at the High Court in Glasgow in 2018 when further details of the near-deadly assault and abduction emerged.
DNA was found on a weapon that had been used in the attack — providing cops with a vital clue to link the abduction to the hoods and finally bring the feared mob to justice.
Crime-fighting success
SCOTLAND’S top cop hailed the success of the gang-busting team behind the decade-long fight to dismantle the Gillespie mob.
Chief Constable Jo Farrell said the unit at Gartcosh Crime Campus, near Motherwell, Lanarkshire, ranks among the best crime-fighting squads in Britain.
Operation Escalade is one of a wave of mobster crackdowns that’s resulted in dozens of shady dealers and killers being thrown in jail.
Ms Farrell said in May last year: “It’s an exemplar in terms of policing across the UK and beyond in our ability to work with other law enforcement agencies around organised crime.”
We told how mobster James ‘The Don’ White was caged after cops exposed his role in an international drug-dealing and gun-running plot.
Our crimefighters also worked with European colleagues on Operation Venetic to crack gangs’ encrypted chat networks and score more convictions.
Ms Farrell vowed to continue the hood blitz and reassured Scots of her aim to get more cops on the streets.
She stressed: “Serious crime affects communities, so it’s important we have a good presence at a local level.”
Months later, Allan’s DNA was found on a Beretta pistol in a secret compartment of a Toyota car in a lock-up in Anniesland, Glasgow.
The breakthrough in February 2018 allowed cops to link the abduction to the gang and accelerated their case against the Gillespie network.
Their investigation led to nine men admitting being part of one of the most sophisticated crime rings ever to operate in Scotland.
Others have followed with White snared and jailed in 2023 after he was captured hiding out in Brazil and brought back to Scotland.
We told how White sent an encrypted Encrochat message to his wife and friend to say he was taking over the mob following the disappearance of his former bosses in 2019.
But to this day – ten years after Allan’s torture and abduction – the whereabouts of the Gillespies remains unknown.
Like this story? Watch our documentary on Scotland’s biggest gangster – Jamie ‘The Iceman’ Stevenson – below..
