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Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0_arthurJPG.jpg\")
\nArthur Thompson Snr(Image: Daily Record)<\/p>\n
Arthur Thompson’s evil empire has been told after it was shattered by a hail of bullets.
\nArthur Thompson Snr(Image: Daily Record)<\/p>\n
Glasgow’s reputation for violence<\/a> has been maintained for more than a century despite attempts to clean up its image.<\/p>\n At times rivalries<\/a> have boiled over to such an extent that part of the city seemed akin to the Wild West.<\/p>\n From the 1970s, Arthur Thompson Sr<\/a> had reigned as the city\u2019s most feared crime boss.<\/p>\n Known as the \u201cGodfather\u201d, he ruled through violence and intimidation to rake in \u00a3100,000-a-week as a loan shark, his protection rackets and the sale of drugs<\/a>.<\/p>\n By the Nineties, however, his grip on the underworld withered as street vendettas gave way to high\u2011stakes heists<\/a> and lucrative drug empires.<\/p>\n A turning point came in August 1991, when his son Arthur Jr, aka Fatboy, was gunned down <\/a>outside the family\u2019s Ponderosa estate, named after the ranch in the television series Bonanza.<\/p>\n Suspicion fell on Thompson\u2019s former enforcer Paul Ferris, who was arrested and prosecuted<\/a> in a \u00a34.1 million trial that became the longest and most expensive in Scottish legal history. Over 300 witnesses were called before Ferris was acquitted.<\/p>\n Then, in March 1993, Thompson Sr<\/a> died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n It marked the dawn of a new era and new faces as criminals vied for a place in the upper echelons of the city\u2019s underworld<\/a> hierarchy.<\/p>\n Ian \u201cBlink\u201d McDonald and the notorious Mick Healy were among the most fearsome<\/a>.<\/p>\n McDonald had built a reputation in the late 1980s for fighting and stabbing<\/a> rivals in Glasgow\u2019s schemes.<\/p>\n In 1991, he and Healy had led an audacious \u00a36million NatWest bank heist<\/a> in Torquay.<\/p>\n After hiding in the bank for two days, the six bank robbers wielded shotguns<\/a> as they ambushed the 16 staff members starting their shift.<\/p>\n A female worker survived being shot<\/a> in the head before the gang, unable to get the keys to the vault, fled empty-handed.<\/p>\n Healy, described as the \u201cUK\u2019s most dangerous man\u201d, was jailed<\/a> for 19 years. MacDonald got 16 years.<\/p>\n Ferris was eventually imprisoned<\/a> after his arrest in London in 1997 following a two-year surveillance operation by MI5 and Special Branch.<\/p>\n At his trial at the Old Bailey in July 1998 he was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment after being convicted of conspiracy to sell or transfer prohibited weapons, conspiracy to deal in firearms<\/a> and possessing explosives, although the sentence was reduced to seven years.<\/p>\n The consolidation of lucrative drug operations also involved the likes of Ian Douglas McAteer, a prominent Glasgow gangster<\/a> with ties<\/p>\n to Liverpool\u2019s drugs<\/a> trade. McAteer went on to become one of the suspects in the 1999 murder of television presenter Jill Dando. That same year, he murdered a gangland associate Warren Selkirk, for which he was sentenced to life in prison. He remains behind bars.<\/p>\n As Glasgow gangsters competed for the drugs trade, Edinburgh also faced a crimewave<\/a> as cocaine and ecstasy flooded into the capital.<\/p>\n Among the seediest of the city\u2019s criminals<\/a> was the \u201cBlackhill Butcher\u201d, Martin Hamilton.<\/p>\n Born in Glasgow\u2019s Maryhill and a gay predator, Hamilton would routinely rape<\/a> young men to satisfy his perverted sexual appetites.<\/p>\n He also abused and tortured his victims<\/a> in a bid to take over the Edinburgh\u2019s drugs trade.<\/p>\n Teenage dealers<\/a> were supplied with heroin and ecstasy but faced horrific retribution if they failed to deliver cash.<\/p>\n Cases against Hamilton in Glasgow had previously collapsed due to witnesses<\/a> being afraid to testify.<\/p>\n But his downfall came when a teenage<\/a> couple bravely stood up to him in court.<\/p>\n A girlfriend and boyfriend had been held captive for 11 hours in a flat in Glasgow, during which they were scalded with boiling water and stabbed<\/a>, all the while being forced to stand in a bath so they would not drip blood on to carpets.<\/p>\n Their willingness to testify allowed detectives to revisit Hamilton\u2019s victims in Edinburgh and some agreed to provide statements<\/a>.<\/p>\n A senior officer described him as \u201cone of the most evil<\/a> men I have ever come across in my service\u201d. In 2000, Hamilton was found guilty of 11 out of 14 charges involving the sale of drugs, abduction, assault and torture.<\/p>\n On release from prison, he returned to his criminal<\/a> ways but went missing in April 2015.<\/p>\n The body<\/a> of the brutal sadist was found in a shallow grave in woodland near West Calder, West Lothian.<\/p>\n Chopped into pieces<\/a> by underworld rivals, only his skull and some parts of his spine were recovered from the grim scene.<\/p>\n Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today.<\/p>\n You’ll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland.<\/p>\n No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team.<\/p>\n![\"Arthur](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_Arthur-Thompson-Jnr.jpg\")
Arthur “Fat Boy” Thompson(Image: Daily Record)<\/p>\n![\"Ian](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_Blink-MacDonald.jpg\")
Ian “Blink” MacDonald pictured in 2015(Image: Daily Record)<\/p>\n![\"Paul](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1_GL640283.jpg\")
Paul Ferris walks free from court in 1991<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0_WACOMMUNITYQR3.jpg\")
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