Kingpin Jamie Stevenson pictured meeting Glasgow fruit trader at swanky Spanish hotel on Valentine's Day

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Top cops have hailed the “Eureka moment” that ultimately sealed the fate of crime kingpin Jamie Stevenson.This photo shows Stevenson at ease in a meeting at the Melia Hotel in Alicante, Spain, in February 2020.The crime lord, 59, was oblivious to the reality that the innocuous snap would be the first piece of the jigsaw that would obliterate his £100 million drug smuggling operation.Intelligence reports suggested that respectable appearing Glaswegian fruit trader David Bilsland had been corrupted by gangsters and was potentially planning something big.That had sparked the birth of Operation Pepperoni in December 2019 - which turned out to be one of the most important organised crime investigations in the history of Police Scotland.Detectives in Scotland tracked Bilsland’s movements to Alicante on Valentine’s Day, 2020, before asking Spanish counterparts to case the popular hotel, favoured by British tourists.And they were stunned when the man popping up in the photo with the bent fruit merchant was none other than Jamie Stevenson.A few months later it emerged that French cops had cracked the encrytpted EncroChat system, used by major crooks to run their secret operations.And after many months of intense analysis the evidence from the EncroChat made a case against Stevenson and his cronies that would be impossible to defeat in court.Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Ferry, head of organised crime at Police Scotland, said the revelation of Stevenson at the meeting with Bilsland was a game changing moment.He said: “He had to be meeting someone of some significance.

We knew that.“Bilsland had booked a strange trip, which was very short and involved no luggage.“And we were aware of deals he was setting up involving bananas