Drug dealers jailed for key roles in murdered gangster’s heroin trade
TWO drug dealers associated with murdered Glasgow gangster Euan Johnston have been jailed for playing a key part in his £600,000 heroin trade.
Former squaddie Brian McMahon, 30 – who was sitting with Johnston when a gunman assassinated him – was sentenced to three years and three months. His DNA was found on a bag containing heroin worth £17,600 which police recovered from the boot of a car they stopped in Possil on March 5, 2014.
Gary Bradburn, 39, was sentenced to five years and three months for running a drugs factory in his home in Glasgow’s Keppochhill Road.
Officers found a cutting agent and a hydraulic press used for bulking out and packaging drugs as well as a bag of 45 per cent pure heroin on a kitchen counter. More heroin with a purity of 49 per cent and an estimated total street value of £640,000 was found in a carrier bag.
McMahon and Bradburn admitted heroin dealing but their former co-accused Johnston died before he could be brought to justice, the High Court at Livingston heard.
Johnston was shot repeatedly as he sat in his Audi in Kinning Park, Glasgow, last November.
The trio’s case was the latest linked to 40-year-old drug baron Roy Dunstance who is serving 11 years for running a £9 million drug and gun empire from Spain.
David Nicolson, McMahon’s advocate, said his client had grasped the opportunity offered to him by a friend to “make some quick money”. He said McMahon had played a “limited role” by dropping off one bag containing drugs of “limited value” – £17,600.
Judge Lord Clark said both accused had been operating at the lower end of the drugdealing scale. But, he said the offences were connected to organised crime.
He said: “On the face of it you were involved in the supply of drugs on a very significant scale.”