By John Paul Clark,Jordan Shepherd
Copyright glasgowlive
Glasgow gangster Ross McGill used a single bitcoin worth £25k to rebuild his drugs empire after running out of money while on the run in Spain.
An underworld source has described the events which led to the former Union Bears capo moving to the United Arab Emirates – making £1 million a month.
McGill, 31, had built up a significant drug dealing network in Scotland over a number of years, but fled to Marbella in 2022, fearing he would be arrested after French cops cracked the encrypted phone network EncroChat, reports the Record.
The source revealed that McGill soon ran out of cash in Spain. He said: “McGill had been living a lavish lifestyle for years and it didn’t stop when he moved over to Spain.
“When Rangers reached the Europa Cup Final in May, 2022, he rented out a massive villa for all of the Union Bears to live in for a week.
“But McGill just suddenly found it very hard to keep on top of everything. A lot of people owed him money and by November 2023, he also became really paranoid that he was also about to get the jail on a European arrest warrant.
“All he had left was one bitcoin worth £25,000, so he decided to use that to fund a new life over in Dubai.”
The source said McGill was worried about being detained by Border Control at the airport in Spain so he decided to take a boat from Malaga over to Morocco.
For around a week he travelled with his girlfriend across Northern Africa into Asia in taxis and buses before eventually arriving in the United Arab Emirates.
The gamble paid off and McGill soon started mixing with cartel bosses who were importing massive amounts of cocaine to the UK.
The source said McGill was soon making more cash than he could ever have anticipated.
He continued: “All of a sudden he had access to cocaine at a cheaper price and purer quality than most of the drug dealers in the UK.
“McGill tapped back into all of his old contacts in Scotland and his business was booming again.
“For every kilo he sold, he was making at least £10,000 more than he would have if he still lived in Spain or Scotland.
“Within a matter of weeks he was selling 300 kilos of cocaine every few weeks and raking in £1 million pound a month.
“He was the biggest drug dealer in Scotland and was buying cocaine from a few cartels because he was so busy and nobody could keep up with his orders.”
However, everything changed after McGill was ripped off by a crook from Edinburgh gangster Mark Richardson’s crew, who paid for cocaine using fake bank notes.
McGill created the Tamo Junto (TMJ) gang and waged war against Richardson’s mob and their associates from the Daniel clan in Glasgow.
Properties and individuals were targeted throughout the last six months, leading to 57 people being arrested for a variety of offences under Police Scotland’s Operation Portaledge investigation into the feud.
Arrests in Dubai soon followed in a crackdown on serious and organised crime in the city.
McGill, and TMJ associates Steven Lyons, 44, and Stephen ‘Jimmy’ Jamieson, 42, were among five men who were arrested in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The source added: “McGill will surely regret this war with Richardson for the rest of his life.
“He made enough money to have lived in luxury for the rest of his days in the desert if he hadn’t come to the attention of the authorities with this gang war.”
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