Gangsterism is never acceptable in a civilised society.
For six months in 2025, a personal falling-out between two men cascaded into eighty-four acts of violence across Scotland's central belt — a reminder that organized crime is rarely abstract, but rooted in grievance, loyalty, and the slow accumulation of consequence. Police Scotland's Operation Portaledge brought arrests, convictions, and sentences, while the rival groups themselves appear to have reached some form of accommodation. Yet the brief resurgence of violence in early 2026, and the international trails leading to Dubai, Spain, and Bali, suggest that endings in the criminal world are rarely clean — they are more often pauses, renegotiations, or the quiet shifting of weight from one fault line to another.
- A personal dispute between a Rangers ultras leader and an imprisoned drug dealer ignited eighty-four incidents of fire-raising, machete attacks, and attempted murder across Scotland within six months.
- Over ninety vulnerable people required formal safeguarding plans, measuring how far the feud's violence had reached into ordinary lives beyond the criminal networks themselves.
- Police Scotland executed fifty-five warrants, recovered seven firearms, and secured prison sentences totalling decades — but the Chief Constable acknowledged that law enforcement alone did not end the feud.
- By September 2025 the violence had subsided, with police crediting both their disruption campaign and what appeared to be a negotiated peace struck within the organized crime community itself.
- Ten new incidents erupted in January and February 2026, and international threads — arrests in Dubai, murders in Spain, extraditions from Bali — revealed that the networks behind the feud remain active and mobile.
- The feud's apparent resolution sits uneasily alongside unresolved questions, ongoing investigations, and the deeper two-decade rivalry between the Daniels and Lyons crime groups that formed its backdrop.
In the spring of 2025, Edinburgh became the flashpoint for a gang war that would spread across Scotland's central belt for six months. At its origin was a falling-out between Ross McGill — formerly connected to Rangers Football Club's ultras group — and Mark Richardson, a convicted drug dealer then serving time in prison. What followed was eighty-four separate incidents: fire-raisings, attempted murders, machete attacks.
Police Scotland launched Operation Portaledge in response. Officers arrested sixty-four people, executed fifty-five search and arrest warrants, and recovered seven firearms. More than ninety safeguarding plans were put in place for vulnerable people caught in the feud's reach. The court cases that followed were severe: one man received over eight years for a machete attack on an Edinburgh businessman; four others were sentenced to a combined twenty-five years for fire-raising across Glasgow and Edinburgh. Sentencing one group, Judge Lord Mulholland observed plainly that gangsterism has no place in a civilised society.
By September 2025, the violence had quietened. Police Scotland's report to the Scottish Police Authority described the resolution as "multi-factorial" — crediting both their operational pressure and what appeared to be a negotiated settlement between the rival groups themselves. The calm did not last. In January and February 2026, ten further incidents occurred and five more arrests followed. The investigation remained open.
The feud had also intersected with older, deeper conflicts. The Daniels and Lyons crime groups had been rivals for more than two decades. In May 2025, two senior Lyons figures were shot dead at a beachfront bar in Fuengirola, Spain. A Liverpool man was extradited to face trial for those killings. Steven Lyons, head of the crime group, was arrested in Bali, deported to the Netherlands, and extradited to Spain on charges including drug trafficking and an alleged 2024 murder. Ross McGill himself was arrested in Dubai last September; his whereabouts remain unclear.
The official account holds that the feud is over, and the numbers give it weight. But the January resurgence, the international manhunts, and the unresolved questions about what was negotiated and by whom suggest the structures that produced the violence are still in motion — the feud cooled, perhaps, but not dissolved.
In the spring of 2025, Edinburgh became the flashpoint for a gang war that would ripple across Scotland's central belt for the next six months. What began as a falling out between Ross McGill, who once led the Union Bears—the ultras fan group connected to Rangers Football Club—and Mark Richardson, a convicted drug dealer serving time in prison, would spiral into eighty-four separate incidents of violence and disorder. Fire-raisings. Attempted murders. Machete attacks. The feud covered, as police would later describe it, the length and breadth of the country.
Police Scotland responded with what they called Operation Portaledge, a coordinated effort that would eventually help bring the violence to an end. Over the course of the campaign, officers arrested sixty-four people, executed fifty-five search and arrest warrants, and recovered seven firearms along with various other weapons. They put in place over ninety safeguarding plans to protect vulnerable people caught in the crossfire—a measure of how deeply the feud had penetrated ordinary lives. The scale of the police response was substantial, but Chief Constable Jo Farrell would later acknowledge that the resolution came from multiple sources, not law enforcement alone.
The court cases that followed revealed the brutality embedded in the feud. Arran Reid received eight years and four months in prison after admitting to a machete attack on an Edinburgh businessman with ties to Richardson. Four men were sentenced to a combined twenty-five years for a series of fire-raising attacks in Glasgow and Edinburgh. A man who petrol bombed a beauty salon in the capital at the start of the feud was jailed for seven years and four months. Judge Lord Mulholland, sentencing the fire-raisers, offered a stark observation: gangsterism has no place in a civilized society.
By September 2025, the violence appeared to be subsiding. The feud had exhausted itself, or perhaps—as police suggested in their official report—the rival groups had simply resolved their differences. The report to the Scottish Police Authority noted that the downturn in activity was "without question multi-factorial," crediting both the police disruption efforts and what amounted to a negotiated peace within the organized crime community. But the calm would not hold. In January and February of this year, gang-related violence flared again, producing ten more incidents and leading to five additional arrests. The investigation remained ongoing.
Meanwhile, the broader criminal landscape that had spawned the feud continued to shift. Ross McGill, the figure at the center of the original dispute, was arrested by police in Dubai last September, though his current whereabouts remain unclear. The feud itself had intersected with a much older rivalry—between the Daniels crime group and the Lyons, a feud that had simmered for more than two decades. In May of last year, two senior members of the Lyons organization, Eddie Lyons Junior and his associate Ross Monaghan, were shot dead in a beachfront bar in Fuengirola on Spain's Costa del Sol. Police Scotland maintained there was no evidence linking those murders to Operation Portaledge or suggesting they had been planned in Scotland. Yet the international dimensions of the case only underscored how these networks operated across borders. A Liverpool man, Michael Riley, was extradited to Spain to face trial for the shootings. Steven Lyons, the head of the Lyons crime group, was arrested in Bali in March, deported to the Netherlands, and extradited to Spain last month on charges of drug trafficking, money laundering, and an alleged murder in 2024.
The official narrative holds that the feud has ended. The numbers support it: eighty-four incidents, sixty-four arrests, convictions secured, sentences handed down. But the resurgence of violence earlier this year, the ongoing international manhunts, and the unresolved questions about who negotiated what and why suggest that the underlying tensions remain. The feud may have cooled, but the criminal structures that produced it are still in motion.
Citas Notables
The cause of that downturn was without question multi-factorial, including the resolution of differences within the serious and organised crime community.— Chief Constable Jo Farrell, Police Scotland
Gangsterism is never acceptable in a civilised society.— Judge Lord Mulholland, sentencing fire-raisers in the feud
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why did this particular feud matter enough for police to mount such a large operation?
Because it wasn't contained. Eighty-four incidents across the central belt—that's fire-raisings, attempted murders, machete attacks. It was spilling into ordinary neighborhoods, affecting people who had nothing to do with the original dispute. Over ninety people needed safeguarding plans just to stay safe.
The report says the feud ended through "resolution of differences." That's a careful phrase. What does that actually mean?
It likely means the two sides negotiated something. Whether that was a truce, a payment, a territorial agreement—the police report doesn't say. But it suggests the violence stopped not because one side won, but because they came to terms.
Yet violence flared again in January and February. So the resolution didn't hold?
Not entirely. Ten more incidents, five more arrests. It suggests the underlying grievances weren't fully resolved, or new ones emerged. The feud may have cooled, but the structures that created it are still there.
McGill was arrested in Dubai. Richardson is in prison. So the two men at the center of this are now removed from the picture?
McGill is, though his whereabouts are unclear now. Richardson was already inside when the feud started. But removing the figureheads doesn't necessarily end the networks they built. The violence continued without them.
What about the Lyons and Daniels feud that intersected with this? Are those separate?
They overlap. Some of the attacks targeted members of the Daniels group, who are rivals of the Lyons. But the Lyons feud is older—two decades—and it's playing out internationally now, with murders in Spain and extraditions. This operation was focused on the McGill-Richardson dispute, but it touched a much larger criminal ecosystem.
Do you think it's really over?
The official answer is yes. The incidents have dropped sharply. But the resurgence in January and February, the ongoing international cases, the fact that these networks are still operating—it suggests the peace is fragile. You can arrest people and recover weapons, but you can't arrest the conditions that created the feud in the first place.