Tam McGraw was one of Glasgow's most notorious gangsters

Much of it was laundered through legitimate enterprises such as ice cream vans, taxis, pubs, security firms and properties both at home and abroad.

During a criminal career spanning more than 35 years Tam McGraw was feared and hated in equal measures.

He maintained an iron grip at the top of the city’s underworld while appearing immune from the law.

McGraw had the nickname The Licensee among fellow criminals.

To some that was a reference to the Caravel Bar he and his wife Margaret ran on Hallhill Road, Barlanark, for more than a decade.

To others it meant he had a licence to commit crime by the police in return for information on other lawbreakers.

McGraw rarely stood trial and when he did he was usually cleared or the charges were dropped.

Over the years he was linked to the murders of six members of the same family, a double killing, and a multi-million-pound drug smuggling operation.

But McGraw appeared to be Teflon coated, nothing ever stuck.

The police have over the years always denied there was a deal, but McGraw did seem to lead a charmed life.

So, who was Tam McGraw?

He was born in Lennoxtown in 1952 before moving to live in Glasgow’s tough East End.

At an early age he became involved in petty crime and was in and out of young offenders’ institutions during his teenage years.

He and wife Margaret had been childhood sweethearts and they wed at a Glasgow register office in 1971 when McGraw was just 18.

Around this time the couple moved down to London to escape the attentions of the police where they both found work.

While in London, McGraw was said to have become an expert at busting alarms and safes.

He then returned to Glasgow – where he set up the notorious Barlanark Team – who carried out a series of post office robberies across Scotland using McGraw’s skills.

There were also high value break-ins to off sales, warehouses and shops with thefts of anything from sweets to large consignments of whisky.

By then McGraw was beginning to establish a ruthlessness that set him apart from other criminals.

He disbanded the Barlanark Team in the early 1980s and began to focus on his other interests including ice cream vans and drugs.

At that time the vans were a lucrative business in the sprawling housing estates.

Because of a shortage of late opening shops, the vans could legitimately make £200 profit a week (£700 now) selling food, soft drinks, sweets and cigarettes on top of the traditional cones and wafers.

For the more unscrupulous they also provided a means for selling stolen goods and even drugs.

McGraw was attempting to expand his own ice cream van business and along with others had been known to use violence and intimidation to secure the most lucrative rounds for himself.

One ice cream van trader, 18-year-old Andrew Doyle, refused to bow to intimidation.

As a result, he and his family were targeted with horrific consequences.

In April 1984 a mystery man armed with a petrol can mounted the stairs to the family’s top floor flat in Bankend Street, Ruchazie, and set fire to an outside store cupboard at 2am.

Within minutes the early morning blaze had spread through the family home and of the nine people sleeping inside, only three survived.

The tragic victims were Andrew, his father James Doyle, 53, sister Christina Halleron, 25, her 18-month-old son Mark, their brother James, 23 and their younger brother Tony, 14.

At the High Court in Glasgow later that year Thomas “TC” Campbell, 31, and associate Joe Steele, 22, were found guilty of killing the Doyles.

Both were given life with Campbell told he must serve at least 20 years until he could apply for parole.

In March 2004 three appeal judges finally quashed the convictions as a result of hearing new evidence.

It has been alleged over the years that McGraw was responsible for ordering the hit on the Doyle flat.

Though McGraw was questioned about the murders, he never stood trial.

In an interview in 2019, Steele said: “I believe Tam McGraw was involved. I don’t believe he lit the match – but he was behind it.

It was in the 1980s that McGraw is said to have made his entry into the city’s growing heroin trade alongside other criminals such as Arthur Thompson Jnr, son of the city’s crime godfather Arthur Thompson.

Six years later in August 1991, young Arthur, then 31, was shot dead outside his home in Provanmill while on a weekend leave from prison where he had been serving an 11-year term for drug dealing.

A month later two suspects in the murder Joe Hanlon, 23, and Bobby Glover, 31, were found dead in Hanlon’s Ford Orion car outside the Cottage Bar in Glasgow, where they were both regulars.

It was the same day as the funeral of young Arthur and was seen as revenge by his father for his son’s murder.

Rumours has it that McGraw knew more about the killings than he was letting on and some blamed him for their deaths.

In 1993 Arthur Thompson Snr died from a heart attack at his home at the age of 63.

That left the way open for McGraw to be the main man in the city.

By 1996 the Caravel had ceased trading and was bulldozed to the ground.

The couple sold the land to a development company, crushing the pub and making way for 22 homes.

McGraw had grasped a long time ago that while he earned his money illegally, it was smart to invest in a legal business.

In 1998 he stood trial on drug smuggling charges. The long arm of the law had finally caught up with him or so it seemed.

Underprivileged children from Glasgow were being taken on minibus holidays to Morocco and Spain.

The bus, however, was specially adapted, with a raised floor, so that drugs could be stored below it and under the kids’ seats.

Police acting on a tip intercepted the Mercedes bus on a return and 220lbs of cannabis was found.

But again, after a 55-day trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, McGraw walked on a majority not proven verdict.

By the early 2000s McGraw was one of the wealthiest businessmen in Glasgow. He was said to have made £20m just from his legitimate enterprises such as taxi firms and properties.

However, time was running out for The Licensee.

In 2002, he was stabbed near his luxury home in Mount Vernon, only saved by the bullet proof vest he was wearing.

Around that time trusted lieutenant Trevor Lawson, 32, died after being struck by cars as he ran across the M80 towards his home at Denny, Stirlingshire, following a fight in a nearby pub.

That same year Gordon Ross, 37, a loyal pal, was fatally stabbed after being lured from a pub in Shettleston.

And in April 2003, McGraw’s enforcer Billy McPhee, 38, was knifed to death in a pub in Baillieston.

In 2004 the crime lord was declared bankrupt over a £12,700 income tax debt for undeclared earnings.

His lawyer Donald Findlay QC said in court then that McGraw “does not pay tax and he does not like paying tax”.

In July 2007, the gangster died aged 55 at Glasgow Royal Infirmary after collapsing at home from a heart attack.

Official documents lodged after McGraw’s death detailed that he had just £621 in his bank account and a life insurance policy worth £33,508.94.

McGraw was cremated in August and around 1000 mourners gathered at Daldowie Crematorium, near Glasgow.

The minister David Locke told the mourners he could not say whether McGraw was the gangster described in the media.

He added: “A book written about Tam asks ‘was he a man standing on the edge looking over his shoulder? Who was the real Tam McGraw, gangland figure or wise investor? Or was he a friendly family man who loved his family? Did he have a criminal past or was he a businessman who made some wise financial decisions?’”

Margaret passed away at the relatively young age of 66 in 2018 from cancer, more than a decade after the sudden death of her gangland husband.

Many say Margaret was the brains behind McGraw’s rise to power.

She left behind a multi-million-pound family fortune – and it remains a mystery to this day where the money ended up.