It's a tale of fallen kings and a massive bust, bruv. John Gray, 53, from Paisley, has been handed five years and ten months for his part in a £15m drugs and dirty money empire. But the real story is at the top table: notorious brothers Barry and James Gillespie, alongside James 'The Don' White.
The Gillespies, wanted men from Rutherglen, went AWOL after a reported fallout with South American gangs over protection cash 💡. Last seen in a plush £320k pad in Fortaleza, Brazil, they've been MIA for months, with cops thinkin' they might be six feet under.
'The Don', from Gartcosh, took over the reins and allegedly raked in £126m. He was nicked in Brazil using a false passport 🛌, then sent down for ten years at Stirling High Court in 2023. White's crew flooded Europe with drugs, guns, and encrypted phones to keep the feds off their trail.
Gray got caught up in Operation Escalade, meetin' with top brass in Glasgow's Princes Square and KFCs across Lanarkshire. He was involved in cocaine worth between £4.5m and £13.5m, cannabis worth £497,500, and collected a cool million for the gang 💰.