Crime lord Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson used his Encrochat device to order a firebomb attack on his own home, it can be revealed. Stevenson, 59, gave Lewis Connor, 29, the green light to target the £375,000 property in Dennyloanhead, Falkirk, after he lost it in a proceeds of crime battle with prosecutors.
The devious plan came to light after French authorities cracked the Encrochat system which criminals used to hide their illicit activities. Investigations revealed Connor’s tag, LivingSilver, had been in regular contact with Stevenson who used ‘BigTasty’ as his handle on the platform.
Connor staked out the house before setting it alight in May 2020. In one message LivingSilver told BigTasty, ‘I will burn your old gaff to the ground’, and received a reply stating, ‘blow house to f**k’.
LivingSilver later replied, ‘burnt to f**k, place just took, will send someone to take a pic if you want but place was like Blackpool illuminations when I left’.
A further message from LivingSilver stated: “Feel like the IRA back in the day, keeping me busy during lockdown, giving me something to do.”
Another message revealed BigTasty wanted CeCe’s salon in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, targeted and instructed Connor to put the owner under surveillance. The salon was gutted by a blaze just days after the Falkirk property had been targeted.
In one message to LivingSilver, BigTasty wrote: “Follow the cow home.”
Connor, of Glasgow, went on trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court where a jury convicted him of two charges of wilful fireraising and a further charge of conspiring to set fire to various properties and vehicles in Falkirk, Airdrie, Glasgow and Blantyre. Sheriff Colin Dunipace told Connor there was no alternative to a prison sentence.
The link to Stevenson could not be revealed at the time of the Connor trial due to legal reasons. Stevenson was charged over the incidents but his not guilty pleas to conspiring with Connor to target the properties was accepted by prosecutors as part of a mid-trial plea deal at the High Court in Glasgow.
The Connor trial heard data from his mobile phone had ‘pinged’ at masts near the fires and properties he had been watching. James Donnelly, 68, told jurors he had bought the Falkirk property at auction after it was seized during a proceeds of crime action.
He said a neighbour told him who had previously owned it but he had no concerns until it was set alight as he slept. He said he was ‘in shock’ when police found plastic jerry cans in the garden and told a jury he later sold the damaged house at a huge loss.
The trial heard he had noticed a ‘suspicious’ Range Rover vehicle in the area in the days before the fire. Donnelly told a jury he later sold the house at a huge loss.
Jurors also heard Connor had shown a woman CCTV footage of an explosion at CeCe’s and told her one of the men in the video had already been caught by police. Construction worker Connor did not give evidence during the trial but two other men were previously jailed for their roles in the CeCe’s attack.
David Purvis, 27, was sent to prison for 16 months last May while Alexander Bill, who set himself alight during the attack, was handed 27 months in March 2022. CCTV caught Purvis holding open a letterbox of the salon to allow Bill to pour liquid through it from a plastic jerry can before it was set alight sending a huge fireball into the air.
Yesterday, Stevenson was jailed for 20 years after he orchestrated a plot to smuggle cocaine worth £100m from South America in boxes of bananas. Five other members of his gang were jailed for a total of 29 years.
Connor, of Glasgow, was convicted of two charges of wilful fireraising and a further charge of conspiring to set fire to various properties and vehicles in Falkirk, Airdrie, Glasgow and Blantyre.
Sheriff Colin Dunipace told him: “These are crimes of the utmost seriousness and the fact that they were carried out at the behest of others on Encrochat makes them all the more sinister.”
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