Bloody feud saw enforcer executed in car park

GANGS operating across Scotland are responsible for some of the most violent and shocking crimes.

Police believe around 70 per cent of the estimated 96 serious organised crime groups in the country are in Glasgow and the West.

A further 18 per cent are based in Edinburgh and the East, while 10 per cent are in the North.

When the gangs jostle for power and influence, their violent clashes can spill onto the streets. The most notorious ongoing rivalry remains between the Lyons and Daniel crime families in north Glasgow.

For two decades shootings, stabbings, hit and runs, firebomb attacks and witness intimidation have marked the bitter feud. In 2010, after a spate of tit-for-tat attacks, Daniel family enforcer Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll was shot dead in an Asda car park.

Six Lyons crime clan associates were jailed in 2019 for plotting attempts to kill five men linked to the Daniels.

The gangs have links to other groups, with the Daniels having a long-term association with Edinburgh drug boss Mark Richardson, who is serving an eight-year prison term for his involvement in a nineman gang jailed for a total of 87 years after a probe into violence, drugs and firearms offences.

Prosecutors described the gang as ‘the most sophisticated encountered by Police Scotland’.

Richardson is linked to gangland brothers Barry and James Gillespie, who are wanted by police for allegedly running a multi-million pound drugs and guns empire.