The Iceman: The Rise and Fall of a Crime Lord Read Online Free
Author: Jim Wilson
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Long before these brazen shopping molls became the scourge of security guards and retailers the length and breadth of the land, it was the boys who were making piles of cash – simply by taking it out of shop tills. Nabbing wallets from outside a local chippy was one thing but their daring till-dipping trips were soon to attract the attention of the now defunct Scottish Crime Squad and even Interpol. The McGoverns were about to enter the big league.
One police officer said:
They started out by going round big stores in Scotland like Marks & Spencer and staging what appeared to be a real fight between a couple of kids who had been brought along for the purpose. When the woman leapt out from behind the till to try and stop the boys from killing each other, one of the gang would calmly lean over and clean out the till. The McGoverns made this scam their own. They then started to get their hands on till keys. It was usually the case that the same keys fitted every till in every store in a UK-wide chain. It was a free for all.
The boys were dabbling in drug dealing at this point as well and the money from the stealing helped to finance their first bulk purchases. Such was the scale of their till dipping that they soon became known to police forces across Scotland. That led to the former Scottish Crime Squad taking an interest and, as the heat increased on them here, they would travel into England but that was even more serious as it was cross-border crime. Before long they were travelling to Europe and hitting places like Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels.
These brash young men with their pockets stuffed with cash were well suited to the late 1980s environment of yuppies and excess in which they operated. It was coming to the end of Margaret Thatcher’s era and, at the time, the biggest comedy character was Harry Enfield’s yobbish Loadsamoney who taunted people with his own wad of banknotes.
An ex-police officer said:
The problem was that we were always a step behind them. I remember being part of a Scottish Crime Squad team that followed them by car to the ferry at Hull. As they got on the ferry, they had a right laugh by waving at us as we stood watching, unable to do anything.
They often used Hull but were smart enough to use various English ports. They would drive south and hit stores in all the big English cities along the way – you could follow their progress from the trail of crime reports.
Sometimes they would use a stolen car to travel. There was no shortage of people in Springburn willing to sell them their driving licence for as little as £30. That way, they could just dump the car which had been hired in the other person’s name at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and fly back to Glasgow. The sergeant at Glasgow Airport was told to look out for them and he must have pulled them a hundred times. This was before the Euro was introduced in 2002 so they would have piles of different European currencies like Dutch guilders or French francs. It was also before the Proceeds of Crime Act came along so there was nothing they could do about all this cash even though it was obviously stolen.
One former McGovern family ally said:
They always worked in teams of four in a car and Tony was the boss. He made sure the best boys came with him and, if they weren’t up to scratch, they would be put on the sidelines for a spell.
They had a rule that they would not return home until they each had £5,000 in their pockets. They could turn over up to £30,000 from a trip to Europe which, even today, is a staggering amount of money. They had passports planked over there in case they had to flee in a hurry.
They would put on different accents, such as Irish, French or English, to confuse any witnesses who would have no idea they were actually Scottish. If they got cornered by a store guard, there was always one of them able to knock him out as they were capable and fit. On some
Long before these brazen shopping molls became the scourge of security guards and retailers the length and breadth of the land, it was the boys who were making piles of cash – simply by taking it out of shop tills. Nabbing wallets from outside a local chippy was one thing but their daring till-dipping trips were soon to attract the attention of the now defunct Scottish Crime Squad and even Interpol. The McGoverns were about to enter the big league.
One police officer said:
They started out by going round big stores in Scotland like Marks & Spencer and staging what appeared to be a real fight between a couple of kids who had been brought along for the purpose. When the woman leapt out from behind the till to try and stop the boys from killing each other, one of the gang would calmly lean over and clean out the till. The McGoverns made this scam their own. They then started to get their hands on till keys. It was usually the case that the same keys fitted every till in every store in a UK-wide chain. It was a free for all.
The boys were dabbling in drug dealing at this point as well and the money from the stealing helped to finance their first bulk purchases. Such was the scale of their till dipping that they soon became known to police forces across Scotland. That led to the former Scottish Crime Squad taking an interest and, as the heat increased on them here, they would travel into England but that was even more serious as it was cross-border crime. Before long they were travelling to Europe and hitting places like Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels.
These brash young men with their pockets stuffed with cash were well suited to the late 1980s environment of yuppies and excess in which they operated. It was coming to the end of Margaret Thatcher’s era and, at the time, the biggest comedy character was Harry Enfield’s yobbish Loadsamoney who taunted people with his own wad of banknotes.
An ex-police officer said:
The problem was that we were always a step behind them. I remember being part of a Scottish Crime Squad team that followed them by car to the ferry at Hull. As they got on the ferry, they had a right laugh by waving at us as we stood watching, unable to do anything.
They often used Hull but were smart enough to use various English ports. They would drive south and hit stores in all the big English cities along the way – you could follow their progress from the trail of crime reports.
Sometimes they would use a stolen car to travel. There was no shortage of people in Springburn willing to sell them their driving licence for as little as £30. That way, they could just dump the car which had been hired in the other person’s name at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport and fly back to Glasgow. The sergeant at Glasgow Airport was told to look out for them and he must have pulled them a hundred times. This was before the Euro was introduced in 2002 so they would have piles of different European currencies like Dutch guilders or French francs. It was also before the Proceeds of Crime Act came along so there was nothing they could do about all this cash even though it was obviously stolen.
One former McGovern family ally said:
They always worked in teams of four in a car and Tony was the boss. He made sure the best boys came with him and, if they weren’t up to scratch, they would be put on the sidelines for a spell.
They had a rule that they would not return home until they each had £5,000 in their pockets. They could turn over up to £30,000 from a trip to Europe which, even today, is a staggering amount of money. They had passports planked over there in case they had to flee in a hurry.
They would put on different accents, such as Irish, French or English, to confuse any witnesses who would have no idea they were actually Scottish. If they got cornered by a store guard, there was always one of them able to knock him out as they were capable and fit. On some