Episode 1 of 3: Flag of Convenience (AUDIO ONLY)

Al Jazeera Podcasts. Glasgow, we've seen a lot of gun-related violence. We've seen shootings. We've never seen anything like this. That's Norman Sylvester, a Scottish crime reporter and investigative journalist. He's been covering crime in Glasgow since the late 1980s. And where are we right now? We're walking along Kelvindale Road. It's a long thoroughfare that connects two parts of the west end of Glasgow. And we've arrived at the site of a notorious gangland killing. The modern history of the city, this certainly stands out as almost unique. Take me back to 2000 and what happened here. It was the turn of the century, and at nine o'clock in the evening, it was a summer's night, Frank McPhee was heading home. Frank, the Iceman McPhee, was a known and notorious member of the Glasgow underworld. He's called Iceman for two reasons. One, he came of age driving an ice cream truck during the city's famous ice cream wars of the 1970s. The ice cream truck routes that serviced the city's housing schemes with supplies were worth a fortune and were fought over bitterly and violently. He was also called Iceman because of his reputation as a cold-blooded killer. A seasoned criminal, a hard man, a ruthless man, a man with a propensity for violence. A feared figure, well-connected, having walked on two murder charges. He may have thought that he was invincible, that he was untouchable. When Frank McPhee got home that evening, his wife wasn't the only person waiting for him. A sniper was positioned on the roof of a block of flats, literally 20, 30 yards away. One side of the road is Frank McPhee's pebble-dashed, low-rise home, the front door facing east. On the other side is a Soviet-looking tower block. eight stories high. It's right there. We're looking at it. We're looking at it just now. The gunman was waiting patiently. Open fire. Hit him in the head. We only believe that one shot involved the victim's 11-year-old son. Saw his father fall to the ground. And all the makings of a terrorist-type shooting, a sniper attack. And police wondered if it had been some sort of hitman. It's a professional kill. Very much so. A very daring attempt. You know, it's nine o'clock at night, but it's still quite bright and sunny as it is just now. A daring attempt, a professional kill, military style. One from the true crime archives. Hits like that don't happen these days, right? Don't be so sure. How do you want to be paid? It would need to be cash. It's usually half up front, half when the job gets done. The voice you just heard is an admitted member of one of the most vicious and deadly paramilitary groups in all of Europe. A group responsible for hundreds of deaths. During this secretly filmed sting operation, he offers up options for having a man killed. A menu of murder, with hit-and-run or a stabbing at the lower end. And the premium option, he says, being a sniper-style hit like the one that felled Frank Iceman McPhee. And the scary part is, we know he has the paramilitary connections to make it happen. This is Al Jazeera Investigates. I'm Kevin Hirston. Welcome to the Loch Ness Mobster Episode 1, Flag of Convenience. This is a story about a hit, a proposed murder for hire. A man caught on tape, offering his services and spilling secrets that are almost never aired in public. The man's name is Alan Nessie Nesbitt, a well-known figure in the Scottish criminal underworld. He's at the center of this story, which will take us to Westminster, Belfast, and Glasgow, connecting paramilitaries to politicians and the violent anti-migrant protests that have rocked the UK in recent years. Over the next three episodes, we'll examine not only who this man is, but what he represents. We'll show you how the historical forces that have shaped Northern Ireland both before and after the peace process helped mold this career criminal and proud military member. And as we track his involvement in the British far right and his connections to conservative politics, you'll see why these links have security experts so worried for the safety of the British public. We begin our story on assignment in East Belfast, Northern Ireland on July 11th, 2024. Where are we right now? So we're at the top end of the Newtonards, what they call the lower Newtonards. This is investigative reporter Simon Bozeman. He's been tailing Alan Nesbitt for days, and he's been on stakeout in this Starbucks parking lot for the past four hours. Famous for being a big loyalist area in East Belfast, where you'll see a cacophony of Union flags. Defining terms here for the uninitiated. In Northern Ireland, the two main groups that have been fighting for control for decades are the Loyalist Protestants who want to remain part of the United Kingdom and the Nationalist Catholics who wish to become part of the Republic of Ireland. Alan Nesbitt is a loud and very proud Loyalist, to be sure. And he's traveled to Belfast to show his support for the cause. We've spotted our man Nessie going into this pub across the way. We've spotted him going into a pub called the Prince Albert Lounge. The reason this is significant is because the Prince Albert Lounge is a known hangout for members of a paramilitary organization known as the UVF, the Ulster Volunteer Force. And just a quick note about the title. It started as an inside joke among the sleep-deprived members of the surveillance team. Nessie morphed into Loch Ness, which morphed into the Loch Ness Monster, and finally someone blurted out the Loch Ness Mobster, which once you hear, you can't really unhear. It became our code word for Nessie, and eventually the inevitable title for this series. Sorry, Scotland. Okay, back to that surveillance van outside the Prince Albert Lounge. It's kind of funny. Above the front door, they've got a thing called Welcome to the Freak Show. I haven't been in there yet because I'm sure they wouldn't particularly appreciate me coming in. Nessie's presence at this pub helps to confirm what we'd been hearing from law enforcement. We know from police sources that he appears on multiple intelligence reports for links to organized crime and links to paramilitarism. militarism we're going to wait here because the objective of what we're trying to do this week is just get some footage of his associates is he here just to socialize is he here just to celebrate the 12th there's a big bonfire tonight which is a huge social event for anybody involved in the loyalist movement do you know there's apparently more British flags in Northern Ireland than the whole of the UK this is Patricia Devlin an investigative reporter from Northern Ireland. One of the Britain First guys called it a patriot's paradise. I wish we'd get a wee bit more sun for somewhere that has described as paradise. Patricia and I are in another loyalist area of Belfast, Sandy Row, right near the city center. At the moment, we're looking at a round tower made of wooden pallets. It's huge, standing over 50 feet tall. It's about the size of a five-story building, but it won't be around for long. That structure there is a bonfire, and on the 11th of July every year, members of the Protestant, Unionist, and Loyalist community come together and light the bonfire to commemorate the Battle of the Boyne. That's what all of this is about, commemorating a battle that happened all the way back in 1690, when about 125 kilometers south of here, a Catholic, King James II, was defeated by the Protestant King William III, William of Orange. The locals call him King Billy, and the bonfires later tonight celebrate his triumphant arrival to these shores, ahead of his famous victory. Bonfire night is now popular with tourists, something that would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago. It's amazing to see because, like, this was a city that, you know, So during the, I think up until the 80s, the city was locked by gates. Starting in the late 1960s, Northern Ireland was at war with itself. Nationalists versus Unionists or Loyalists locked in a 30 plus years long battle known as the Troubles. The Troubles touched every part of Northern Ireland. It didn't only touch Belfast and Derry. There's just horrific things that had happened all over. So I think most people know what the IRA is. but I think less people know that there's this kind of counter IRA organization that's also paramilitary called the UVF. Why did the UVF form and what role did it play during the Troubles? So the UVF has its roots actually back in 1912 when Sir Edward Carson, an Ulster Unionist politician who was against home rule in Ireland, actually formed a movement called the Ulster volunteer force. And that was basically a private army that he had prepped up to carry out civil war. So the UVF starts as a civilian militia, a means of weaponizing violence for political ends. In 1914, World War I puts an Irish civil war on hold, temporarily. The UVF reformed as a division of the British Army. It's famous for its bravery in the Battle of the Somme. While they went off to war, nationalists prepared for Irish independence, which did come in 1921. But it was a partial victory. The island was split into two, and Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom. The long-simmering tensions between the Catholics and the Protestants remained as well. Five decades later, in the 1960s, when direct hostilities returned, so too did the UVF. They were formed with the express intent of killing IRA men. Between 1966 and 1999, the 30 years known as the Troubles, the UVF killed over 500 people. They went on to commit atrocities such as the 1971 McGurk's bar bomb massacre which killed 15 people. It was the worst single atrocity the troubles visited on the streets of belfast the 1974 dublin and monaghan bombings which killed 33 people three no warning car bombs went off in dublin city center during friday evening rush hour the bomb in monaghan went off an hour later and just as deadly there was no way they could have been placed without the intention to kill innocent bystanders over the years the uvf grew and it was It's very militaristic. And it wasn't like everybody who was a Protestant was supportive of the UVF or connected to the UVF. This was an extreme right flank of this movement. It was, and not every Catholic supported the IRA, and not every Protestant supported terrorist organizations connected to the UVF. Despite its violent history, the UVF retains a lot of cultural power in the Loyalist community. It's power that will be on full display during the July 12th Battle of the Boyne commemorative marches. So then tomorrow's like the Super Bowl, right? Yeah, yeah, 100% tomorrow's the Super Bowl for Loyalists. Yeah. In Northern Ireland, like, yeah. Yeah. This is Greg, and he's in a flute band, but not just any flute band. UVF, regimental band, they're always the front of the parade, and then after that, it'll be the districts. So when we see your band, what's your band? Can we watch out for you? Well, do you know how you'll know it's my band? We wear a uniform dedicated to the 36th Ulster Division. It's a full tan uniform. It's the exact same uniform the 36th Ulster Division wore during the war. The enduring cultural power of this militant group, the UVF, is undeniable. And you see evidence all over town. There's all these murals. You've got UVF, For God in Ulster, South Belfast 2nd Battalion. Every volunteer will always be a hero of Ulster. No surrender. And this is the Red Hand Commando. You've seen the murals on the walls. Once again, Simon Bozeman. They're treated like heroes here. They're still mythologized. They're still respected. And even if you go into any of these loyalist bars, if we're not known to them, it's a clique that we're not in. That is very attractive to young people, to be part of a gang, to be part of something that's respected by the community. During our undercover conversation with Alan Nesbitt, which we'll explore in much more detail in later episodes, Alan Nesbitt reveals details of his childhood that can help explain his life of crime and his connections to paramilitary organizations like the UVF. He says he was born in Scotland, but grew up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He talks fast, with a thick accent. So we've had an actor read his words verbatim. He tells us that you're born into it. So with these Troubles, are you, you're born into it? Yes, born into it. And what he means by that is if you're born into a Protestant family and you grew up in Belfast during the period that he did, that you're born into the troubles, you're born into becoming a paramilitary or not. Then when you come to a certain age, you join. But it's our way of life. It's our life. Our families have been killed. So there's no ifs or buts or maybe. It's just the way we are. We've lost family, killed by IRA bombs, shootings. So it's personal to us. Our undercover reporter probes him with questions on how the UVF is organized. The unit is run like military. Yes, it's a full army. It's not an official army. It's trained. You have training in shooting and... You can't just give somebody a hang and just say go and make bombs and everything. But in recent years, the myth and the memory of the UVF has come into conflict with the modern day reality. People who live here will tell you way better than I can ever tell you. The UVF wing itself has gone through a huge reputational change over the last couple of decades. In 1998, the famous Good Friday agreements finally saw an end to the fighting and peace returned to Northern Ireland. Good evening. After 30 years of conflict, after thousands of violent deaths, Northern Ireland was given the chance of a new beginning. In the wake of the ceasefire, both the IRA and the UVF decommissioned. These are paramilitary groups. They went through a decommissioning process where they were all meant to have handed their guns back in after the peace process began, but no one believes that. No one believes that these guys don't have access to weaponry. This story is really about what happens to these paramilitary groups after peace. They decommissioned, but they didn't go away. We've seen that loyalism, extreme loyalism, has become reliant on crime. Loyalist gangs such as East Belfast UVF have turned into drug gangs while still using the name of the UVF. So they're criminal gangs wrapping themselves in a flag. As the century progressed, a split emerged, which divided both the paramilitary group and the city itself. So what we have is a kind of splinter now and a bit of a standoff between the East Belfast UVF and what's left of a paramilitary organisation, the UVF. What started as a UVF factional rivalry erupted into the rudderless and violent criminality that Alan Nessie Nesbitt has come to represent. Okay, I'm here at Sandy Row Bonfire. This thing should be going up soon. It's finally getting dark. And it's about midnight, so it is late. So people are staying up for this. Loyalism has become very fractured since peacetimes. There's people everywhere. All the streets are completely packed. Back during the Troubles, if you ask any expert on the UVF how many people were members, you'd have a few hundred. Now you're talking about a few thousand. Okay, the bonfire is now lit. So you have to ask yourself why there are now multiply more members of the UVF than there were 20 years ago. Because there's more money in drugs than in patriotism. More money in drugs, more money in smuggling, more money in people, more money in protection. And in the last decade, the movement splintered. The UVF splintered, and the people suffered. Everyone standing by me, like, their faces are so burned. And I just have never seen a fire like this. Certain factions within the UVF, protection rackets from their own people, drug dealing in their own communities, and violence against their own communities. It got worse and worse until one day in 2019... This thing is tipping over. Oh, my God. People are going to go crazy. Oh, it looks like this thing is going to fall. Something happened that threatened to break the UVF in two. Oh boy. We'll explore how our Loch Ness mobster, Alan Nessie Nesbitt, who signed up to fight for the Loyalist cause in Northern Ireland, got drawn into the great fracturing of the UVF, and how killing for a cause could have made way to murdering for money. That's after the break. It's the morning of July 12th, the most important day on the calendar for Loyalists. It's passed on from father to son, commemorating the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. At Belfast City Hall, thousands gather to witness the procession of Orangemen with their bowler hats and sashes, and the uniformed bands with their drums and their flutes. And these guys, okay, so we got all blue jackets, guys out front are wearing kilts, and the band are wearing royal blue with dark trousers. Suddenly, I spot someone I know. I can see the UVF regimental band, East Belfast. This is Greg's band. They're wearing military-style, like, World War I outfits. I'm going to catch up with them. The crowd is friendly. Lots of kids, lots of adults, eager to talk, and quick to mention how much things have changed in Belfast. As long as the future's in the hands of the younger generation, then the future looks bright. The only subject more popular than the Battle of the Boyne was the weather, which on this July day was windy and about 10 degrees Celsius. Yeah, the weather has been terrible here. It's just been gray every day. I'm back with investigative reporter Patricia Devlin. I'm wearing a winter coat while I'm walking next to you with, like, an Eskimo hood. As these marchers go by, they're moving in lockstep, but it does belie a fracturing of this community and specifically a fracturing of the UVF, which is really, I think, sort of emphasized by what happened to Ian O'Gall. So Ian O'Gall was a father of two from East Belfast, and on the night he was murdered in January 2019, he had been standing just meters away from his front door, praying with a pastor on the street. Ian O'Gall was a former UVF guy himself. He's from East Belfast, but closer aligned to the UVF branch called Raven Hill, which has had an anti-drug bent that put it at odds with the East Belfast Battalion, which had grown increasingly powerful on the profits of drug sales. The feud boiled over one night at the pub. And this was actually over a dirty look given in a bar by Ian's son to a member of the UVF. Ian's 21-year-old son was attacked by a drug dealer associated with the East Belfast Battalion. Ian and a few family members rushed to the bar and got his son out safely. But after that, Ian was a marked man. And what followed was an 18-month intimidation campaign where Ian O'Gall was intimidated out of his place of work. Men smashed up his place of work and they told his employer that if he were to return, they would return. He was left jobless. His family and him were called to a kangaroo court. They were told that the decision had been made to break Ian's arms and that of his son's. They said they did nothing wrong. And that really sealed Ian O'Gall's death warrant, sadly. On January 27th, 2019, Ian and his son Ryan got into a fight with someone connected to the East Belfast Battalion outside a chip shop. And after that altercation, they returned home. Ian Ogle left his house. As his family say, he probably sensed what was going to happen. Five armed and masked men set out to find and kill Ian Ogle. To protect his family, he went to the end of the street. And that's when he met his pastor and they prayed together. And that's where he was murdered. Killed while praying with his pastor. Butchered in the street with knives. I want to provide some information with regards to the attack on Ian. Jason Murphy of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, the PSNI, speaking in the wake of the killing. He was attacked in Cloughham Place just before 9.30 on Sunday evening by a group of at least five men. Those men fractured his skull, they stabbed him in the back 11 times and left him to die in the street. I can confirm that one line of inquiry is that Ian's murder was carried out by men who are associated to the UVF. Now, this was a huge shock. Ian's murder caused huge ruptures within that community. And it's still being felt today. And it's still being felt today. I was speaking to Ian the week before it happened. This is Greg again. He's not just a proud loyalist, a drummer in the UVF regimental band, but, and this shows you what a small town Belfast is, he's also a close family friend to Ian Ogle. You grew up on the street, right? Yeah, literally. Ian saw me grow up as a child. Greg looked up to Ian, admired him both as a man and as a leader in the community. Ian was a good fella. He was actually one of the ones trying to bring the two communities together. The site where Ian died is now a shrine, with flowers and signs and prayers. Welcome to Loyalist Cloughham Place, unbowed, unbroken, justice for East Belfast. This is this big picture of Ian Ogle. He's got his UVF tattoos. And it says, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his family. Greg has seen the effect Ian's death has had on the community and Ian's family, especially Ian's kids. Now they don't have a dad. He didn't get to see his grandkids grow up because of a bit of bitterness between each other. And the guys who killed him were just basically a drugs gang. Yep, literally. What's clear is that even for staunch loyalists, even for people in the UVF regimental band like Greg, Killing Ian like this crossed a line. And after years of tension, this was the final straw. You don't bring knives to a punishing beating. You know, if you look into punishing beatings years ago, they were never done like that. And you were beat black and blue. That was it. You were able to get up and walk. You weren't left bleeding your guts out. This is an area ruled by an iron fist by the UVF. It's a working class area. For years, they have dealt drugs. They have intimidated members of their community. for one of their own to be murdered in such a brutal way, it was the start of something that East Belfast UVF, I don't think, saw coming. More than 1,000 people attended Ian's funeral procession in defiance of the East Belfast Battalion. People coming out onto the street saying justice for Ian Ogle. Now, what followed Ian Ogle's murder was intimidation in that community. women and young men coming out and speaking about being forced to run drugs, being threatened by loan sharks, being told to carry out acts of crime to pay off debts, this started to come out. In the years ahead, people in this part of Belfast would start to confront what the UVF, and particularly the East Belfast Battalion, had become. This perverse irony that a group that was formed to protect Protestants is now actually preying on Protestants in their own community. Absolutely. In peacetimes, there's been more Protestants killed by the UVF than Catholics. But it's people within their own communities that are suffering, and nothing seems to be done about it. The fear of this old UVF remains. The raison d'etre of the UVF was to protect its people. This man is a former member of the UVF. We're not using his name. The existence of paramilitaries today is actually a front for criminal and drug activity. All they're interested in is making money, selling drugs, and they do that under a flag of convenience. And that flag of convenience is the name of the Ulster Volunteer Force. He says the main branch of the UVF, based on the famous Shankill Road in West Belfast, is to blame for what the East Belfast Battalion turned into. It created a monster it could no longer control. The UVF leadership failed and its duty to actually take action against the East Belfast UVF. They were used as a group to facilitate the importation of narcotics. That brought in a phenomenal amount of money. Serious, serious amounts of money. But at the end, that just got too big. The Ian Ogle murder was a turning point. Eight men and one woman have now been sentenced for offences related to his murder. Eventually, there was no other choice but to move against it. And they did move against it, and they stood them down. East Belfast leadership are no longer in charge. They've scattered, right? They haven't disappeared either. They're scattered, and they're not all together. But at the same time, there's still elements within that community that exist. They still exist in their criminal activity, but they're no longer doing it under the sanction of the leadership of the UVF. Okay, we're on the Newtonards Road. Which brings us back to the man at the center of our story, Alan Nessie Nesbitt, who's visiting from his home in Glasgow. We just got word that Nessie is coming down the road and he's heading to a bar called the Great Eastern. As movements in Belfast relate that he's involved with a group of individuals to have been expelled by the brigade staff of the Ulster Volunteer Force. We're told that he's in a black hoodie, and we're going to see if we can spot him. The place we're looking for is on the right, right next to the mural with UVF fighters and balaclavas withholding AKs. Walk about and I can see him. You want to walk? I don't think we should walk. The bars he frequented during his trip, the Great Eastern, the Prince Albert Lounge, we're told that they aren't places that just anyone would want to go into. I think this might be him coming up. The individual who he seems to have contact with is an individual who has been stretching forth that drug empire. They've been making contacts in Glasgow. They've been making contacts in York, northeast, and in the greater London area. And that's what we're exploring in this series. What happens to paramilitaries when the fighting stops or their membership is revoked? They don't go away. They move on. In some cases, members like Nessie move into organized crime, where he's no longer just a threat to Irish Republicans, he's a threat to everyone. If you ask any member of the PSNI what the East Belfast wing of the UVF is, they'll say it's a violent organized crime gang. It's not a paramilitary, sectarianism, religious organization anymore at all. Long gone, goodbye, see you later. Now it's drug smuggling, people smuggling, intimidation. organized crime gangs, dealing with Albanians, dealing with whoever will send them money and sell them drugs. And if anyone gets in the way, murdered. And so now we know who and what we're dealing with. This man who we've caught on tape offering to arrange a hit for us. He's not just a criminal. He's not just a member of a paramilitary organization. It's even worse than that. He's associated with the East Belfast Battalion, An offshoot so violent, so notorious, that it was expelled by the mainline UVF. In short, he's a very dangerous character. We put our findings to all of those featured in this podcast. They did not respond to our inquiries. Next time on Al Jazeera Investigates, our investigation moves to Nessie's home in Scotland, and why it's a more natural setting for this story than you might think. The West of Scotland being what was really the loyalist version of Boston were probably sending £20,000 to £30,000 a week over to support loyalist paramilitaries, explosives and guns. And perhaps you're wondering how we met this very dangerous character, Nessie, in the first place. Well, it was through his connections to a very well-known right-wing political organisation in the United Kingdom. They can start cutting people's faces off, they can stab someone, they can shoot someone, they can kill someone. The group's founder claims Nessie and his friends can be hired out as political muscle. We want our country back! A scary prospect in the wake of the violent protests that have rocked the UK in recent years. This episode was written and produced by me, Kevin Hurtin, with Simon Bozeman and Craig Pennington, who is also our audio editor. Additional editing help from Manny Panaritos. Clean Cuts does the final sound mix. Rafi Mustafa is manager of investigative programs for Al Jazeera English. And Mohamed Al-Hamadi is our director of programs. We will see you next time. Have you ever had the strange feeling, we've been here before? I've always resisted this idea that history repeats itself. But the problem is, is it does. I think history is like a map. You know, if you don't understand history, You're like someone stuck on a mountain without knowing which way to go. And history allows you to understand where you are and who you are. That's the way we should look at the past. What is there in the past that we can pluck out and plant again? I'm Mohamed Hassan and this is Deja Vu, a podcast that connects our turbulent times to history's most pivotal moments. It's a kind of an interesting dance that happens of all of these different figures. This is only a fraction of the great history that we lost, but we did not lose anything. Join me for real conversations with historians and public thinkers who unravel the past and challenge what we think we know about today. There is so much from the past that has still the capacity to tell us how to make our way through the modern world. And we must not reject that knowledge anymore. Deja Vu from Al Jazeera. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.