Glasgow gang leader ordered to pay £52,000 back from drug profits
A Glasgow gang leader's been ordered to hand over £52,000 as a settlement was reached in proceedings to claw back drug profits.
A Glasgow gang leader's been ordered to hand over £52,000 as a settlement was reached in proceedings to claw back drug profits.
Alexander Donnelly, 60, is currently serving 10 years in prison after directing others in a £200,000 heroin supply operation.
The judge who jailed Donnelly, Lord Boyd of Duncansby, told him: "The trafficking of drugs is a vile and evil trade but it is one you have followed for many years."
Prosecutors brought an action to confiscate crime earnings from Donnelly following his latest offence.
During a brief hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh before Lord Bannatyne defence counsel Gordon Jackson QC, for Donnelly, said that a settlement had been reached.
Advocate depute Barry Divers told the court that Donnelly's benefit from general criminal conduct should be recorded at £82,000 and a confiscation order made for £52,785.
The figure included £22,970 recovered during a police operation.
Donnelly was previously made the subject of a confiscation order, which at the time was the biggest made in Scotland, when a court ordered him to hand over £270,000 in 1997.
He was jailed for 54 months for drugs the previous year and in 2006 was imprisoned again for 10 years.
Donnelly was freed early from the latter sentence but within six weeks of his release on supervision was back in his "old business" in 2011.
He later admitted directing serious organised crime during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow in 2014.
The court heard that Donnelly had directed another in the purchase and supply of heroin. The other man was later arrested by police in Cumbernauld, in North Lanarkshire, and two kilos of heroin worth pounds 210,000 was found in a car boot.
In December 2011 Donnelly was seen handing over a package to a woman in the Balornock area of Glasgow. The package was seized by police and found to be pounds 22,970 in cash linked to criminal activity.
Following his latest conviction Donnelly was made the subject of a reporting order requiring him to inform police of financial details.