Scotland's Most Wanted - Jamie Stevenson.

JAMIE STEVENSON

Jailed in April 2007 for more than 12 years for money laundering, the Iceman used cash from drugs to buy luxury watches and set up a taxi firm.

Investigators recovered nearly £600,000 in cash and 55 luxury watches worth £307,000.

Stevenson was snared after a massive surveillance operation.

The net was closing on the Iceman and the detective sergeant was preparing the ground for a European arrest warrant to be issued.

Wilson said: "After we took £400,000 off Stevenson's associates, he fled to Holland where he remained for three to four months.

"The purpose of my briefing was to make arrangements for his arrest.

"We had been working with the Dutch and Spanish from the early days of Operation Folklore and this was the endgame."

Two months later, Stevenson was arrested at his home in Burnside.

But as cops swooped in Glasgow, Wilson was in Amsterdam to observe the gangster's rented flat being searched by Dutch police.

Folklore, which also nailed John "Piddy" Gorman, was the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency's most successful operation.

And it is but one example of how Europol helps join the dots in complex transnational investigations.

Wilson said: "Europol did a lot of the analysis and identified a lot of the cross-overs.

"They gave us the opportunity to speak to the Spanish and the Dutch.

"There was a lot of assistance given by both of these countries.

"It was a Scottish inquiry but Europol helped to bring it together."

Four years on, Wilson is now SCDEA UK liaison officer at Europol. And in his first interview since taking up his post in The Hague, Wilson told how:

Dealers go to producing countries to source cocaine and heroin.

Purity levels are less than 10 per cent as dealers maximise profits. Scots gangsters can't compete with ruthless crooks from eastern Europe. Internet crime and hi-tech frauds such as card-skimming pose massive challenges for law enforcement.

Wilson, the main point of contact for the SCDEA and Scotland's eight police forces, said: "There are 27 states in Europol and, any time we have an inquiry involving another member state, it comes to me.

"Sometimes it can be as basic as previous convictions or intelligence but it can be a lot more complicated in terms of background checks."

Wilson has handled 170 inquiries from the SCDEA and 12 from Strathclyde Police since moving to Holland in January. About 90 per cent involve drugs and money-laundering.

He has noticed a dramatic change in drugs crime since he first became involved in intelligence-gathering. Wilson said: "In 2002, our main dealers were going down to the south of England, to Liverpool, London or Manchester to get their supplies.

"Over the last couple of years, we have had a number of cases involving Scottish-based criminals who have travelled directly to South America.

"Scottish criminals are also going to Spain and Holland where they are going face to face with Colombians supplying cocaine and Turkish crime groups supplying heroin.

"They are dealing direct with the suppliers which means they are getting it at a much cheaper rate."

The Caribbean has also become a regular meeting place for coke deals.

Wilson added: "On the heroin side of things, we have links from Scotland to Pakistan and Afghanistan where the heroin is coming from."

This has had ramifications for the drugs sold on Scotland's streets. Wilson said: "They been adulterated at every stage of the supply chain.

"Cocaine coming out of South America is probably 88/90 per cent pure. By the time it makes it to west Africa or Spain, it will be adulterated. Once it gets further up through Europe, it is adulterated again.

"When it gets to Scotland's streets, it is less than 10 per cent.

"The big concerns is what it is being adulterated with. It is not being adulterated in nice clean labs."

The emergence of eastern European gangsters is also a cause for concern.

Wilson said: "Crime groups from Albania, Serbia and Romania can be extremely ruthless.

"Some of them are former soldiers and Scottish criminals would struggle if they went up against them."

Earlier this year, there was a crackdown on the Georgian mafia in Spain and Austria. But eastern European gangs filled the vacuum. Wilson said they are also moving in on the rest of Europe's cocaine market - previously controlled by the Spanish.

Europol is also perfectly placed to monitor the explosion in synthetic drugs, which are mainly produced in Holland and Belgium.

Wilson said: "People don't really know what they are taking. There are long-term risks to many of the drugs."

Online crime is another challenge, with identity theft booming.

Wilson said: "Criminals take advantage of the fact there is so much movement of people in Europe.

"Another massive crime is cards being skimmed at ATMS.

"Devices are put on ATMS and, when people put their card in, this device allows people to clone it, then use it."