Cocaine kingpin Mark Richardson was promising footballer before turning to life of organised crime

Daily Record

2 days ago

Convicted cocaine baron Mark Richardson was once a promising teenage footballer but instead turned to a life of organised crime
He was a promising young footballer who is said to have played in the same Hibernian youth team as former Celtic and Scotland star Scott Brown. However the Edinburgh teenager gave up the chance of sporting glory to pursue a career in organised crime that currently sees him languishing behind bars and at the centre of a major international gangland war.
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So how did a once promising footballer go wrong?. Was it nature or nurture? In reality it would appear Mark Richardson was born into a life of crime flogging drugs at the age of 12 to other kids in his school playground.
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Richardson first came to public attention in 2007 when he and his dad, also called Mark were caught dealing coke. Mark Richardson Snr, 44, was jailed for four and a half years and 19 year old Mark jnr for 32 months.
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Two years later he was arrested as part of an alleged dog fighting ring in the East End of Edinburgh. Charges would later be dropped with claims that witnesses were too scared to testify.
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In 2010 Richardson was back behind bars having been sentenced to ten years for his part in a cocaine and crack cocaine distribution network. At the time he was said to have a criminal empire worth £5million in property, vehicles and jewellery.
He was also said to controlled almost three quarters of the capital's deadly cocaine trade and was one of the major players in Scotland's underworld.
His customers ranged from cocaine-snorting partygoers in the capital's trendiest clubs and desperate junkies hooked on rocks of crack cocaine. Undercover police officers had been on Richardson's trail for months and had tailed him to meetings with Kevin "The Gerbil" Carroll - feared enforcer for the Glasgow based Daniel crime clan.
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In 2009 Richardson was holding regular summits with the 29-year-old - who was shot dead in an Asda car park in Robroyston, Glasgow, in January 2010 - and cops watched as the pair dined together in Glasgow's trendy Merchant City Italian Kitchen restaurant.
Carroll's name was later found on a list of people Richardson had been lending money hidden in a photo frame during a raid. The total amount involved came to £84,260 - but the exact sum Carroll owed couldn't be made out.
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As well as counting Carroll among his cronies, Richardson was an associate of taxi firm owner and Daniel family member Steven 'Bonzo' Daniel.
In the police raid that led to his arrest and imprisonment officers had found him personally preparing cocaine for sale as crack cocaine. In a separate raid in the capital's Inch area, cops discovered a cache of shotgun cartridges, bullets and knives hidden in decking in a back garden Richardson was released from prison in 2014 and in November that year was photographed by our sister paper the Sunday Mail with Steven Daniel at a meeting with multi-millionaire taxi boss and property tycoon Stevie Malcolm.
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Malcolm, one of Scotland's richest men, said the pair had wanted to add taxis to his fleet, but he wasn't interested because he knew "one of them was dodgy." However it wasn't long before Richardson was back inside. In January 2017 he was arrested in Baillieston, Glasgow, as part of major crackdown on organised crime.
Twelve months later he would be among nine men jailed for a total of 87 years The nine were described as one of the most sophisticated crime rings ever to operate in Scotland. Detective Chief Supt Gerry McLean who led the investigation codenamed Operation Escalade described Scotland as a "much safer place" with the gang including Richardson off the streets.
Richardson, now 30, had initially been suspected of the shootings of underworld figures Ross Monaghan and Robert Kelbie but was given a term of eight years and nine months after admitting having a Glock handgun in a hidden compartment in his car.
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In May that year in a bizarre turn of events his father blamed him for destroying their family with his criminal activities. Mark Snr said his own marriage crumbled and he turned to heavy cocaine use in the wake of his son's offending. Both him, his wife and their other son Dale had also been given " Osman letters" by police telling them their lives were in danger.
The details emerged when the father appeared on drug dealing charges at Edinburgh Sheriff Court. He was jailed for 18 months after pleading guilty to having £1320 of cocaine in his van in the city.
In 2019 while languishing in prison there was fresh blow for Richardson when a close fiend former boxer and Trainspotting 2 star Bradley Welsh was shot dead outside his home in Edinburgh's posh new town. A Sean Orman was given life for the killing in May 2021 and told he must serve 28 years before he can be considered for parole.
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Even today the motive for Welsh's death remains unclear. The shooting was said to have been ordered by an Edinburgh crime figure linked to the Lyons family and may have been aimed at Richardson as much as Welsh. Richardson is currently serving his third jail term since 2007 but time behind bars does not appear to be a deterrent due to the riches that can be earned from a life of crime.,
In an interview last month for Criminal Record the former Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Drug Enforcement Agency Graeme Pearson called for greater powers for the police and courts to both freeze and seize criminal assets. Pearson said:"The last 20 years have shown what happens when one is relaxed about how you address the seizure of assets from organised crime. "We do not seize enough and draw the wealth that comes from it.
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"That is the key to tackling organised crime - you reduce the profit then you seize the profit."
Richardson was back on the front pages in March this year when members of a group linked to former Rangers ultra leader Ross McGill began a series of attacks on members and associates of the Daniel family in Edinburgh and Glasgow.
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It was said that an associate of Richardson had ripped of McGill in a £500,000 cocaine deal paid for with fake notes. During this period of violence Richardson was reportedly put in isolation for his own protection at Low Moss jail in Bishopbriggs, Glasgow.
A far cry from his days as a promising young Hibs player almost 25 years ago. Richardson is due to be released from prison soon but appears to be a marked man - as he has been for most of his life.