An international drug trafficker who was once one of the UK’s most wanted men has today been jailed for 20 years.
James ‘Jamie’ Stevenson, 59, masterminded a plot to smuggle nearly a tonne of cocaine from Ecuador to Glasgow Fruit Market Ltd in the city’s Kennedy Street.
The huge consignment had a street value of £76m and was hidden in boxes of bananas. It was seized at the Port of Dover in September 2020. Such was the volume of the cocaine, it took officers three days to search and pinpoint all 119 packages of the Class A drug.
Stevenson was also central to a conspiracy to produce and supply approximately 28 million Etizolam “street valium” tablets, which were seized following a raid on a pill factory in Kent.
Stevenson, known as ‘Iceman’, denied the offences until his long-awaited trial in August had begun.
Three days after the trial started he admitted two charges: directing Serious Organised Crime for the offence of importing cocaine, and being involved in Serious Organised Crime through the supply of Etizolam, a Class C drug.
He remained impassive as he was sentenced at the High Court in Glasgow.
Stevenson and his organised crime group (OCG) were brought down by investigators from the National Crime Agency, Police Scotland the Metropolitan Police under Operation Venetic – the UK, NCA-led response to the takedown of encrypted communications platform EncroChat in 2020.
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