They were two promising athletes who turned their backs on sport to pursue a life of crime and become deadly enemies in the process. Ross McGill was a young sprinter who would go on to run for Scotland while youth footballer Mark Richardson was on Hibs’ books and a contemporary of future Celtic and Scotland captain Scott Brown.
However, a row over a £500,000 consignment of cocaine allegedly paid for with fake money put McGill and Richardson at loggerheads and lead to unprecedented levels of violence on the streets of Scotland. As a promising sprinter with the Renfrewshire athletics club Kilbarchan Harriers, McGill from East Kilbride, in Lanarkshire, had been called into a training group for the Scottish Athletics team coached by Olympian Brian Whittle, now a Tory MSP.
At the age of 18, he was picked to represent his country in the Celtic games in Antrim, Northern Ireland, in August 2011 and came second in the 100 metres. McGill also set a highly impressive personal best time of just over 11 seconds. However while in his late teens he appeared to turn his back on a promising athletics career and joined the Rangers fans group, the Union Bears, reports the Daily Record.
By 2021, he was its leader – or Capo – with access to all areas at Ibrox, and had been photographed with Rangers captain James Tavernier and then manager Steven Gerard. Nobody at Ibrox suspected there was anything wrong with this outwardly pleasant and articulate individual.
In September that year, he unexpectedly resigned his position as leader and seemed to disappear off the radar for a second time. That was until March last year. In the early part of the month a hairdressing and beauty salon in the Leith area of Edinburgh – linked to Mark Richardson – was set on fire and badly damaged.
It led to a spate of incidents involving the firebombings of people’s homes and commercial property – both in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
At that time, the Daniel clan had been in a long-running feud dating back almost 25 years with another Glasgow crime family, the Lyons. It appeared that associates of Edinburgh cocaine baron Mark Richardson – a Daniel ally – had in turn duped McGill – Lyons associate – by paying for the £500,000 drugs deal with fake notes.
The man said to be orchestrating the reprisal violence was none other than McGill, now holed up in Dubai. A group of young men going under the name Tamo Junto were carrying out the attacks in Scotland, allegedly under his orders, posting videos of the violence including burning properties.
The Richardson crew had apparently made the mistake of thinking McGill was a nobody and easy prey – but nothing could have been further from the truth. In reality, he had been on a police watch list for several years over claims he was involved in drug dealing and serious and organised crime.
As a result, he fled the UK, fearing he would be arrested after French cops cracked an encrypted criminals’ phone network EncroChat – used by gangs around the world to contact each other, do business, and leave messages without being caught. McGill, known by the nickname Miami, had initially fled to Malaga in Spain before moving to Dubai.
To this day it is not clear how McGill made the transformation from promising athlete to international crime figure. It’s also been claimed McGill’s rapid rise has been boosted by support from gang chiefs Steven Lyons, 44, and the late Ross Monaghan, 43, who was shot dead at his bar in Fuengirola in Spain along with close friend and associate Eddie Lyons jnr in May.
Steven Lyons is currently in a Spanish prison awaiting trial on money laundering charges. Richardson was a promising footballer who is reputed to have played in the same Hibernian youth team as former Celtic and Scotland star Scott Brown.
He first came to public attention in 2007 when he and his dad, also called Mark, were caught dealing coke. Mark snr, 44, was jailed for four-and-a-half years and his son, 19, for 32 months. Two years later, he was arrested as part of an alleged dog-fighting ring in the east of Edinburgh.
Charges were later dropped amid claims witnesses were too scared to testify. In 2010 Richardson was back behind bars, having been sentenced to 10 years for his part in a cocaine and crack cocaine distribution network.
At the time he was said to have a criminal empire worth £5million in property, vehicles and jewellery. He was also said to control almost threequarters of Edinburgh’s cocaine trade and was one of the major players in Scotland’s underworld.
Undercover police had been on Richardson’s trail for months and had tailed him to meetings with Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll – the feared enforcer for Glasgow’s Daniel crime clan. In 2009, he was holding regular summits with the 29-year-old – who was shot dead in an Asda car park in Robroyston, Glasgow, in 2010 – and cops watched as they dined together at the Italian Kitchen restaurant in Glasgow’s Merchant City.
Carroll’s name was later found on a list of people Richardson had been lending money which was hidden in a photo frame during a raid. The total amount involved came to £84,260 – but the exact sum Carroll owed couldn’t be made out.
In the police raid that led to his arrest and imprisonment, officers had found him preparing cocaine for sale as crack cocaine. In a separate raid in the capital’s Inch area, cops discovered shotgun cartridges, bullets and knives hidden in decking in a back garden.
After his release from prison Richardson appears to have returned to his old ways. In January 2017, he was arrested in Baillieston, Glasgow, as part of a crackdown on organised crime.
Twelve months later he would be among nine men jailed for a total of 87 years. The nine were described as one of the most sophisticated crime rings ever to operate in Scotland. The police investigation into the violence linked to the McGill and Richardson feud codenamed Operation Portaledge have so far led to 64 arrests with a number of perpetrators given lengthy jail terms.
One man was jailed for eight years and four months after admitting carrying out a machete attack on an Edinburgh businessman linked to Richardson. Last month Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell claimed that the violence that had ripped the country apart had ended due to a combination of the police action and a “resolution of differences” between the rival sides – who she did not name.
McGill was kicked out of Dubai last September by the authorities and his current whereabouts are unknown. Richardson is still behind bars but is due for release soon.
Graeme Pearson, former director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency has previously urged the police not to be complacent and believes the rival factions will already be planning their next move. Pearson said: “The reality is that those who have been arrested and those who are still at large continue to do business.
“It may well be that the severe impact of violence that was witnessed of late has ended but I wouldn’t be complacent and I wouldn’t hold my breath for the next phase starting. Because it will start.”
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