Jamie 'Iceman' Stevenson sentenced to 20 years

Scotland's 'Tony Soprano' jailed for 20 years after £76m cocaine plot trial<br /><br />James Stevenson was described by the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency as operating in “much the same way as the Sopranos ran their business as shown on television”.<br />One of the UK’s most wanted men who plotted to smuggle £76 million of cocaine into Britain from Ecuador in consignments of bananas has been jailed for 20 years.<br /><br />James Stevenson, 59, also known as The Iceman, pleaded guilty mid-trial at the High Court in Glasgow to two charges – directing a serious criminal offence of importation of cocaine, and being involved in organised crime through production and supply of etizolam, known as street valium.<br /><br />He was jailed for 20 years when the case was called at the court on Wednesday.<br /><br />Four other men who admitted their guilt mid-trial are also due to be sentenced.<br /><br />The court previously heard Border Force officers at the Port of Dover seized 18 consignments of bananas addressed to Glasgow Fruit Market between May and September 2020.<br /><br />They contained cocaine with a purity of 73 per cent, weighing almost a tonne and with a street value of £76 million.<br /><br />Fruit market trader David Bilsland, 67, entered a guilty plea to a charge of agreeing to import cocaine and co-accused Paul Bowes, 53, pleaded guilty to being involved in organised crime linked to the production and supply of class C drug etizolam at a string of premises including the Nurai Island Resort in Abu Dhabi, in London and in Rochester, Kent.<br /><br />Stevenson’s stepson, Gerard Carbin, 44, and co-accused Ryan McPhee, 34, admitted being involved in organised crime through the production and supply of etizolam.<br /><br />The plot was smashed by French law enforcement officers who infiltrated the encrypted EncroChat network in April 2020.