logo
episode-header-image
Nov 2024
28m 29s

Always Cheat & Always Win: Episode 419

Always True Crime
About this episode

Roderick McLean said it was important to 'always cheat: always win'. A larger than life character, McLean, known as 'Popeye', was sent to prisom when police and customs officers captured a gang of eight drug smugglers off the Caithness coast. During the raid customs officer Alastair Souter was killed when he fell and was crushed between a customs cutter and the gang's boat. The drugs haul netted three tons of cannabis, valued at £10 million.


McLean, the gang leader, was convicted and sentenced to 28 years in prison. But there is so much more than this to the story - not everything is quite as it seems.


Find out more about the UK True Crime Podcast:

https://uktruecrime.com


Support me at Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/UKTrueCrime


Sources

https://www.uktruecrime.com/2024/11/25/always-cheat-always-win/



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Up next
Aug 22
Monthly Bonus Episode - 'True Crime Round-Up' August 2025
Welcome to episode eight in the series of my monthly chats with Stuart from @britishmurders. As usual, we look at crime stories that made headlines in August 2025, covering local, national, and international headlines.This month, for the second consecutive month, Stuart decided n ... Show More
54m 8s
Aug 19
A Charming Stranger: Episode 457
The story this week comes from a small town in South Wales. It is a story about trust misplaced, lives shattered, and the devastating cost of chasing a dream that was never real. Find out more about me and the UK True Crime Podcasthttps://uktruecrime.com Hosted on Acast. See acas ... Show More
30m 9s
Aug 13
A Crime With No Motive : Episode 456
This week, we head to the Yorkshire city of Doncaster, where 19 year old Rebecca Stephenson was struggling with drug addiction and leading a very chaotic lifestyle when she vanished. Tragically, her body was soon discovered not far from where she had disappeared by a man walking ... Show More
27m 48s
Recommended Episodes
Jun 2021
S4 Ep6: Jimmy Fratianno (Part 1)
In 1946, a young man by the name of Jimmy Fratianno moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angeles, California. Fratianno had spent most of his life immersed in crime, crossing paths with several well known mobsters. Fratianno would soon become a made man in the Los Angeles crime fami ... Show More
27m 15s
Apr 2024
Kyle Byrtus ////// 753
Kyle Byrtus ////// 753 Part 1 of 1   www.TrueCrimeGarage.com On August 15th, 2013 a body was discovered by an electrical worker in a developing area called Lehigh Acres.  Later it was learned that this was the body of 25 year old Kyle Byrtus.  The victim had been tied and killed. ... Show More
50m 58s
Dec 2016
Case 40: John Newman
In the 1980s and 1990s, the Sydney suburb of Cabramatta was a hotbed for criminal activity. Heroin use was rife and users flocked to the area looking for their next fix. As was to be expected, the drug epidemic resulted in an increase in violent crime, including gangs, home invas ... Show More
1h 2m
Feb 2025
The Mobster Who Ruled Hawaii & His Brutal Revenge Quest
Michael Miske came from a broken home through years of petty crime to lead a gang of lost boys in Honolulu, cornering its drug scene and befriending cops to build an empire of pain in the Aloha State. But when Miske’s son slammed his car into a truck and died, it sent the kingpin ... Show More
1h 2m
Feb 2025
The Dixie Mafia: Gone South w/Jed Lipinski
The Dixie Mafia terrorized the southern US for decades before authorities were finally able to bring them down. Starting off as a loose collective of career criminals who specialized in burglaries and robberies, they grew more organized after starting to use the infamous Biloxi s ... Show More
57m 11s
Apr 2025
The 'Ndrangheta's Notorious Kidnapping Gang Wars
Today the ‘Ndrangheta, Calabria’s clan-based Mafia, is one of the world’s richest and most powerful drug trafficking organizations, worth an estimated $55 billion. But it wasn’t always like that. From the 1960s, as European politics went mad, the group glommed onto a new fad taki ... Show More
52m 23s
Sep 2024
Episode 678: Scottish crime boss Jamie ‘Iceman’ Stevenson to spend life behind bars following Encrochat bust
A Scottish crime boss looks set to spend the rest of his days behind bars after pleading guilty to a £76 million cocaine shipment - which he’d boasted would be the big one. Instead Jamie Iceman Stevenson was caught on Encrochat plotting the operations of his drugs business and de ... Show More
21m 50s
May 2023
“U Rat” | 4
The Kinahan gang receive a lot of unwanted attention after the murder of Paddy Doyle on The Costa Del Sol. Spanish police close in on the gang, as wiretaps reveal the extent of The Cartels intricate money laundering systems. After a large sum of money goes missing, things between ... Show More
51m 38s
Jul 22
Australia's Gangster King of Sin: Abe Saffron
Abe Saffron rose from wartime wheeler-dealing to become the king of Sydney’s underworld, a man whose appetite for sex, money and scandal was unmatched by any other Aussie gangster in the swinging Sixties. Saffron paid everybody off, brought Sinatra to Sydney, and hosted Sinatra. ... Show More
1h 1m
Sep 2024
The Legend of Bum Farto and the Florida Keys Cocaine
Something about Bum Farto, Key West’s fire chief, stunk. And it wasn’t just his red suits, bling and lime green company car. By the early 70s Florida’s farthest-flung outpost was a lawless drug enclave. And Bum was smack bang in its center. ((NOTE: This isn't just our best episod ... Show More
47m 13s