As one Belfast police officer put it: “It’s a blessing they’re out of here, but now you guys in Scotland have to deal with it all and I don’t relish your job.”
Adair has long been linked to Ulster’s booming drugs trade as has nearly every other well-known UDA member. Among those who fled the Province were a number of senior loyalist drug dealers. One of the most prominent exiles was nicknamed
“Coco” by Adair because of the cocaine racket he ran. Over the years these men have established firm links with Scottish-based dealers, loyalist sympathisers and gangland figures. Their contacts stretch from towns in Ayrshire such as Irvine and Maybole to the Bridgton area of Glasgow and onwards through Lanarkshire to Falkirk, West Lothian and Edinburgh. They, and the Adair family, have bought property over the years and acquired lucrative slices of the pub trade. Adair is known to have bought a plush Ayrshire home as a bolthole.
It’s been far from plain sailing for Adair followers who have tried to make Scotland their base and that makes White’s claim that the dissidents in Scotland are safe seem rather unrealistic. Sam McCrory, a senior UDA man and Adair supporter, was shot at in Ayr last year as he walked down the street. The Ulster Volunteer Force, a fierce rival of the UDA, and its members despise Adair. The UVF has long-established bases throughout the central belt another reason why the Adair troupe might not find life in Scotland particularly easy. It would be a pleasure for a UVF hitman to take out Adair for the UDA. William Moore, a member of the UVF’s notorious Shankill Butchers gang which butchered Catholics alive in the 1970s has extensive contacts in Scotland. The Scottish police are also going to be crawling all over Adair’s dissidents as they know they are facing chaos on the streets of Scotland.
Adair has long been linked to Ulster’s booming drugs trade as has nearly every other well-known UDA member. Among those who fled the Province were a number of senior loyalist drug dealers. One of the most prominent exiles was nicknamed
“Coco” by Adair because of the cocaine racket he ran. Over the years these men have established firm links with Scottish-based dealers, loyalist sympathisers and gangland figures. Their contacts stretch from towns in Ayrshire such as Irvine and Maybole to the Bridgton area of Glasgow and onwards through Lanarkshire to Falkirk, West Lothian and Edinburgh. They, and the Adair family, have bought property over the years and acquired lucrative slices of the pub trade. Adair is known to have bought a plush Ayrshire home as a bolthole.
It’s been far from plain sailing for Adair followers who have tried to make Scotland their base and that makes White’s claim that the dissidents in Scotland are safe seem rather unrealistic. Sam McCrory, a senior UDA man and Adair supporter, was shot at in Ayr last year as he walked down the street. The Ulster Volunteer Force, a fierce rival of the UDA, and its members despise Adair. The UVF has long-established bases throughout the central belt another reason why the Adair troupe might not find life in Scotland particularly easy. It would be a pleasure for a UVF hitman to take out Adair for the UDA. William Moore, a member of the UVF’s notorious Shankill Butchers gang which butchered Catholics alive in the 1970s has extensive contacts in Scotland. The Scottish police are also going to be crawling all over Adair’s dissidents as they know they are facing chaos on the streets of Scotland.