A fugitive member of a Scots crime supergang has been jailed for five years and 10 months for his role in a massive £15m drugs and dirty money operation.
John Gray was at the top table of the mob alongside notorious kingpin brothers Barry and James Gillespie as well as James “The Don” White.
Gray, 53, was sentenced this week having pled guilty to a charge of being involved in serious organised crime between August 2015 and June 2020.
7View 7 ImagesJames Gillespie (Image: Crimestoppers)
7View 7 ImagesBarry Gillespie(Image: Crimestoppers)
The notorious brothers who spearheaded the ‘supergang’ are missing and thought to be dead after falling foul of South American gangs while hiding out in a Brazilian bolthole.
It’s understood the pair became embroiled in a row over protection money.
Some sources have claimed the crime fugitive siblings were murdered by their former associates.
Originally from Rutherglen, they became two of Scotland’s most wanted men.
They are believed to have fled to the Brazilian city of Fortaleza amid claims from Police Scotland that they ran a multi-million pound organised crime empire that flooded Scotland with drugs and guns. They posed as wealthy tourists living in the apartment – which was four times the size of the average Glasgow flat – and overlooked the idyllic Praia do Meireles beach.
When last seen, they were living in the plush £320,000 pad.
View 7 ImagesThe wanted brothers were believed to have been hiding out in Fortaleza, Brazil
But friends and family went months without hearing from the duo, who ran their own encrypted mobile phone company, leading to Police Scotland to say the “may have come to harm” following their reported fall-out with gangsters. Their MPC Communications firm sold encrypted phones and hinted at the counter-surveillance techniques they deployed to avoid capture.
The pair were wanted over a worldwide probe into money laundering, drug smuggling and weapons trafficking operating across three continents – in Scotland and England, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, France, Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Brazil.
The gang were also linked to a number of brutal attacks on Scottish soil.
View 7 ImagesJames ‘The Don’ White.
White, from Gartcosh, assumed control of the gang after the brothers went missing and it was estimated in court he made over £126 million.
In encrypted messages on the EncroChat app which cops gained access to, White appeared to confirm to an associate that the Gillespie brothers had vanished.
He was jailed for ten years at the High Court in Stirling in 2023 for his role in the gang after being arrested in Brazil.
The kingpin was initially caught, using a false passport, in Italy in 2020. Police there mistakenly let him go and he escaped to South America. After a large-scale manhunt, he was found again, several months later, by armed police in a rented bolthole in the Brazilian city of Fortaleza using the name Vincent McCall, of Suriname.
View 7 ImagesJames White during his arrest in Fortaleza, Brazil in 2020
One of White’s main roles was running the gang’s drugs operation, responsible for distribution around Europe. He was linked to a £10million cocaine seizure after a lorry was stopped by Border Force officials in Dover in November 2017. It had arrived from Alicante in Spain bound for a fake company set up by the gang in Rochdale, Greater Manchester.
Hidden spaces in the truck had been constructed to conceal 90 taped blocks of cocaine. It emerged 16 other shipments to Rochdale had been made over the previous two years.
At his sentencing hearing it was heard how White was aware of cars and premises being used to hide firearms and dirty money.
These included sub-machine guns, Glock pistols, an M75 fragmentation hand grenade, bullets, silencers, and £1.7m of cash. Anti surveillance gadgets were also found. White was further heavily involved in the widespread selling of encrypted devices for criminals to secretly communicate with each other.
White is also believed to have been involved with Ross McGill’s Tamo Junto crime gang while in jail.
View 7 ImagesJohn Gray was convicted at the High Court in Glasgow. (Image: Police Scotland)
Gray, of Paisley, Renfrewshire, was caught during the huge Operation Escalade probe into the gang described as “the most sophisticated” Scots police had ever encountered for their dealings in drugs, firearms, serious violence and dirty money.
He was initially clocked in a summit meeting with “principle members” of the crew in Glasgow’s Princes Square shopping mall.
He was also at other similar meeting at a KFC restaurant in Wishaw, Lanarkshire as well as in nearby Motherwell town centre.
Mobsters also got together in Gibson Street in Glasgow’s west end and Gray was seen leaving with James ‘The Don’ White, and the pair were later captured having a chat in a cafe in the Shawlands area of the city.
At his sentencing it was heard that the total amount of cocaine Gray was involved with ranged between £4.5 million and £13.5 million, and cannabis with a value of £497,500.
Gray was also involved in the collecting of £1 million as well as obtaining a substance to bulk out and help maximise profits for drugs.
His undoing came after the law authorities busted the phone network in 2020 and the crook quickly fled to Dubai but was snared at Glasgow Airport in March this year having landed back in Scotland.
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