The Downfall: Dawn raids that crushed an empire

Jun 1 2008

IT was still dark when officers started arriving at the squat police station in East Kilbride town centre.

By the time the briefing began, 150 officers had assembled. Only 15 of them knew why.

The small group from the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency understood that morning's work would signal the beginning of the end of an operation stretching back four years.

The secret offensive against Scotland's biggest drugs trafficker had taken officers around the world and back.

It had involved months of uncomfortable, nerve-jangling surveillance - months of covert observation and secret recording of some of Scotland's most dangerous and ruthless men.

It had already led to the seizure of 12 tonnes of drugs worth £61million, nine convictions for drug trafficking and money laundering and disruption to the criminal operation streaming heroin, cocaine, speed and cannabis into the country.

As the sun came up on September 20, 2006, the police operation, code-named Folklore, was about to enter a final, decisive phase.

Twenty addresses were to be visited that Wednesday morning in Lanarkshire, Glasgow and Amsterdam.

The Scottish task force were split, briefed and ready to move by 6.15am.

The SCDEA's team, led by the elite agency's crime controller, Detective Superintendent Stephen Ward, attended the briefing that detailed officers to each of the target addresses and revealed the identities of the six men and two women to be taken from the houses and flats scattered across the west of Scotland.

But Ward did not follow any of the units rolling out of the car parks around the station, opposite the district court and council buildings.

Instead, he returned to the agency's headquarters. There, in the control room of the non-descript red-brick Osprey House, hard against Glasgow Airport, he would follow the endgame of Folklore.

His attention was focused most on two of the homes where the occupants were about to be abruptly woken.

Afterwards, Ward would tell reporters: "Today has seen us target several individuals.

"Organised crime is led by ruthless and dangerous individuals who seek to make profit from the pain and suffering of the most vulnerable people in our communities.

"The public rightly expect our response to this to be co-ordinated and robust."

Most of the police teams had headed out of East Kilbride but the vehicles of one of the tasked units drove south, in convoy, along the deserted carriageways of the new town to Lindsayfield, one of the modern estates on its southern borders.

Sleeping inside a doublegaraged villa were Gerry Carbin Jnr, 26, his partner Karen Maxwell, 31, and their two children, aged one and six.

They had also been home one Saturday evening eight months earlier when, as detectives listened in, Carbin unwillingly took delivery of a holdall containing £204,000 of drugs money.

The bag hidden first in a cupboard then in a study, would provide the breakthrough the Folklore team had been working towards for years.

Seven miles away, another team had arrived at their destination, Fishescoates Gardens in Burnside. Armed response units were nearby and the 150-strong force also included the so-called 'Angry Men', Strathclyde officers trained and equipped for forced entries in the face of extreme hostility.

Wearing protective clothing, visored and carrying mini-rams, the teams were ferried by van to each of the homes. The raids began at 6.40 am.

The doors were forced open and stayed open as officers entered the homes, detained the suspects and mounted inch-by-inch searches.

As cupboards were emptied, drawers rifled and carpets lifted, officers found almost £8000 in Carbin's home along with eight luxury watches.

A further 36 high-value watches were found in the simultaneous raids, some valued at more than £30,000.

Those searches, already underway even before the suspects had been taken from their homes, would help secure their downfall.

One officer involved in the arrest of Carbin and his partner said: "They were still half asleep but knew who we were and why we were there.

"We had gone to Carbin's in January looking for a bag of cash and he had lost the plot, shouting and bawling.

"This time, he just kept it shut and got dressed."

In Burnside, Carbin's stepfather was equally subdued.

Like the others, he was driven to the high-security police office in Govan and detained.

Jamie Stevenson called himself a self-employed car valet and jewellery trader.

According to his tax forms, his business was slowly growing, earning him £38,083 in 2003, rising to £80,885 two years later.

His returns to the Inland Revenue did not include the dirty millions raked in from commanding Scotland's biggest-ever drugs importation business.

By 8am on September 20, 2006 - six years and four days after the fatal shooting of his former best friend and gangland ally Tony McGovern - Jamie Stevenson was behind bars. He had nothing to say.