Gangster Ross McGill's promising athletic past long before Edinburgh gang wars

Edinburgh Live

3 days ago

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Gangster Ross McGill is now known to many as the Dubai-based crime lord Mr Big, but things could've turned out very differently.
He first came to public attention as a promising young athlete, and began collecting sprinting medals at 15-years-old. In 2010, he claimed a bronze in the under 17's 60 metre race at Kelvin Hall in Glasgow.
The following year, he came first in the New Years Day meeting in Musselburgh - winning the 60m handicap race. The following month in the under 20s men's event he smashed the club's 60 metre record beating the best in Scotland in the process, reports the Daily Record.
By this time he had been called into a training group for the Scottish Athletics team coached by Olympian Brian Whittle, now Tory MSP. He was picked to represent his country in the Celtic games in Antrim in Northern Ireland in August 2011 and came second in the 100 metres.
McGill also set a highly impressive personal best time of just over 11 seconds. But it was his one and only appearance. Despite the prospect of a promising and lucrative athletics career he seemed to disappear off the radar. But McGill was embarking on another race - to the top of the criminal ladder.
While he enjoyed some success as a runner he obviously believed that greater success, power and riches were to be found elsewhere. At the age of 14 in 2008 the keen Rangers fan had joined the Union Bears, an emerging Rangers fans ultra group. By 2021 he was its leader or Capo with access all areas at Ibrox and had been photographed with Rangers captain James Tavernier and then manager Steven Gerard.
Nobody at Ibrox suspected there was anything wrong with this outwardly pleasant and articulate individual. In September that year he unexpectedly resigned his position as leader and appeared to have disappeared off the radar for a second time. However he was about to go down a third route that would bring him even great notoriety.
In early March this year a series of attacks on members and associates of the Daniel crime family both in Edinburgh and Glasgow began, which to this day has resulted in more than 50 police arrests. The attacks would continue into June and involved daytime assaults with machetes and firebombings of people's homes and commercial property.
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At that time the Daniel's had been in a long running feud with another Glasgow crime family the Lyons. It appeared that associates of Edinburgh cocaine baron Mark Richardson - a Daniel ally - had in turn duped a Lyons associate by paying for a £500,000 drugs deal with fake notes. It had echoes of a previous incident almost 25 years ago. In this instance the Lyons were alleged to have stolen £20,000 worth of coke from a Daniel safe house in Milton, Glasgow.
The man said to be orchestrating the violence was none other than Ross McGill, now holed up in Dubai and the alleged victim of the fake cash scam. A group of highly motivated young men going under the name Tamo Junto were carrying out the attacks in Scotland, allegedly under under McGill's orders, posting videos of the violence including burning properties.
The footage also carried warnings of further attacks against the Daniel's and their associates. The Richardson crew had made the mistake of thinking he was a nobody and easy prey - but nothing could have been further from the truth. In reality the 31 year old he had been on a police watch list for several years over claims he was involved in drug dealing and serious and organised crime.
As a result he he fled the UK fearing he would be arrested after French cops cracked an encrypted criminals phone network EncroChat.
That had been the means by which gangs across the world could previously contact each other, do business, and leave messages without being caught. Now Police Scotland had a haul of incriminating information that was already bringing down a large number of organised crime groups.
McGill, who was known by the nickname Miami, had initially fled to Malaga in Spain before moving to Dubai where he resurfaced as an aspiring crimelord. To this day it is not clear how McGill made the transformation from promising athlete, to fans leader to international crime figure.
It was however clear he had made contacts with some of Scotland's most powerful underworld figures but how? One suggestion is that he developed links with key figures following Rangers - both at home and abroad - providing an excellent cover for any clandestine meetings.
It's also been claimed McGill was introduced to the highest levels of criminal networks by by another Glasgow organised crime figure 47 year old James White - known as the Don. He had previously been the right hand man of two drug dealing brothers James and Barry Gillespie from Rutherglen near Glasgow.
The Gillespie's had been exposed for the first time in 2019 by our sister paper the Sunday Mail as Scotland's two most powerful crime figures.
By then they had relocated to the town of Fortaleza in Brazil with White but went missing around 2019 and are now thought to have been murdered. White was extradited back to Scotland in 2022 from Brazil to stand trial at the High Court in Glasgow where he was sentenced in 2023 to nine years and ten months for his involvement in serious and organised crime.
McGill is also a close pal of ex-Union Bears Lloyd Cross, 33, now serving a six year prison stretch for his role in a £100million racket smuggling cocaine in banana boxes. The man said to have masterminded that particular operation was gangland Mr Big Jamie 'Iceman' Stevenson who is serving a sentence of 16 years and three months for his role.
It's also been claimed that McGill's rise rapid rise has been boosted by support from gang chiefs Steven Lyons, 44, and the late Ross Monaghan, 43, who was shot dead at his bar in Fuengirola in Spain along with close friend and associate Eddie Lyons jnr in May.
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With White and others in prison and the Gillespies missing presumed dead, it's been claimed that Ross McGill now oversees drug routes from South America previously established by others. In turn fast-tracking his rise to the top of the criminal tree. However people we have spoken to suggest that McGill like other criminals before him is merely filling the vacuum that normally opens when major crime figures are behind bars.
In a recent interview for Criminal Record Graeme Pearson, former Director General of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement said: "You have the new first division coming through who are saying these old guys are in the jail, we don't need to bother with them, we'll do our own thing and that creates the violence we now witness."
One source said: "People think he must be backed by someone bigger, but McGill is very much his own man and used to running his own organisation. "The Union Bears is a good example of that."
As things stand at present McGill appears to be stuck in Dubai as he faces arrest if he returns to the UK. At present there is no extradition treaty between the UK and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) but that could change in the future.
There have been suggestions that McGill - and other Scottish underworld figures based there - could try to get UAE citizenship to avoid being sent back to Britain. One police source told the Daily Record: "At the end of the day McGill can run but he can't hide. "But you have to remember that McGill used to be good at running."