A notorious drug kingpin’s foot soldier was caged earlier this week for his role in a multi-million cocaine plot. Declan Price, 29, was snared by police in August 2024 after working with 38-year-old dealer Paul Easdon.
Price was pulled over in a Renault Clio in the Sandyhills areas of Glasgow in August 2024. He was clutching two carrier bags – each packed with blocks of taped cocaine worth £300,000.
The drugs were linked to Easdon, a former plant hire worker from Strathaven, after police found his DNA on the packages.
Flashy dealer Easdon is a rival of gangster Jamie ‘the Iceman’ Stevenson. It is understood Stevenson ordered firebomb attacks on a hair salon in Hamilton run by Easdon’s wife.
Price was sentenced to 40 months in jail this week. Easdon is already serving six years behind bars after he was caught boasting how the cartel was making £4m-a-month from selling cocaine alone.
View 4 ImagesDeclan Price (pictured) appeared alongside Paul Easdon at the High Court in Glasgow where he admitted his part in the supply of cocaine.(Image: Mike Gibbons)
The pair were caught out after law authorities smashed the EncroChat phone network favoured by criminals.
Easdon began operating in organised crime in April 2018 and enjoyed swanky holidays and flash cars as he built up a cocaine ring.
Easdon used the nickname “glasgowceltic” to run his criminal enterprise, in a network that included ex-Mr Scotland bodybuilder John Barry McDuff and another criminal who used the name “mrr-Rangers”.
Discussions between the two included purchasing cocaine which was stated as being worth £40,000 per kilogram. There was also chat of “mrr-Rangers” paying Easdon £320,000 as well as £100,000 which was to be collected in Johnstone.
Another person Easdon was in contact with received a message from him remarking how he was “spinning 100+ bro”.
Easdon chatted with contacts about different types of cocaine which included ‘Chanel’ and ‘CR7’. In some messages, he also gave advice to associates.
This included how to avoid detection by the authorities as well as the purchasing of a hydraulic press to help prepare and package drugs.
Prosecutors said that the EncroChat network helped Easdon and his associates sell in excess of 100 kilograms per month of cocaine at a price of at least £40,000 per kilogram.
Associate John Barry McDuff, who used the name Reverselily”, discussed with Easdon about the purchase of heroin and cannabis.
Negotiations on the encrypted platform saw the pair agree prices of £45,000 per kilo for cocaine and £18,000 each for heroin.
McDuff was jailed for seven years in September 2024 after he pled guilty to a charge of being involved in serious organised crime.
Easdon’s network became so large he came into competition with international drug trafficker Jamie ‘the Iceman’ Stevenson – a man who was one of the UK’s most wanted fugitives before his downfall.
View 4 ImagesJamie Stevenson
Such was the rivalry between the two organisations, Stevenson is understood to have ordered to burn down Easdon’s wife hair salon.
Authorities across Europe managed to shut down EncroChat and have since used the mountain of evidence recorded in the encrypted chats to make thousands of arrests and criminal charges.
Stevenson was one of those brought down thanks to evidence from EncroChat after he masterminded a plot to smuggle almost a tonne of cocaine worth around £100 million in a box of bananas from Ecuador.
View 4 ImagesPaul Easdon was in the same criminal network as John Barry McDuff (pictured)(Image: Supplied)
Easdon is now just another name on the list of criminals brought down after using EncroChat.
Just days after McDuff was sentenced, Easdon pled guilty to a charge of being involved in serious organised crime in September 2024.
The following month, Easdon was sentenced to six years imprisonment for his part in the huge drug trafficking operation.
Earlier this week, his foot soldier Declan Price, 29, received a sentence of 40 months for his part after he pled guilty to a charge of being concerned in the supply of cocaine.
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Easdon also pled guilty to a charge of being concerned in the supply of cocaine and will return to court next month for sentencing.
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