Laurence Dollimore
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THIS is the Scottish expat gangster who remains on the run after escaping from an Alicante prison 32 years ago – when his plot to smuggle €100m of Colombian cocaine fell to pieces.
In 1990, Julian Chisholm, a deep-sea diver turned drug trafficker, somehow convinced the feared Cali cartel to trust him with at least half a tonne of the Class A drug.
Attention has been drawn to the case thanks to the new BBC documentary Cocaine and the Klondykers – a three-part series that takes a look at one of the biggest drug busts in UK history.
Expert sketch artist Hew Morrison has created an age-progressed facial composite of Chisholm (pictured above, right), in the hopes that someone in Spain or beyond may recognise him.
Chisholm, from Perthshire, quit his job in the oil industry in the North Sea in the 1980s, before moving to southern Spain and launching his criminal career.
While he successfully smuggled cannabis into Europe and Scotland, he wanted a bigger piece of the pie, and turned his attention to cocaine, aka ‘white gold’.
The drug was all the rage throughout the 1980s after becoming a hit among the rich and famous.
Writer Iain F Macleod tells BBC Alba: “Half a tonne of gold was worth £7m or £8m… Half a tonne of cocaine was worth £100m.”
Chisholm successfully pitched his plan to the Cali cartel, which essentially consisted of at least half a tonne of cocaine being picked up by a freight ship off the coast of Trinidad in the Caribbean.
It then sailed to the Scottish coast, where two fellow Scots were ordered to use a dinghy to ferry the bales of cocaine to Clashnessie, a small beach on the rugged north west Highland coastline.
However, on the night of the operation in December 1990, the orders from their Spanish captain came despite them being caught in a category 10 storm.
A lot of the cocaine was lost to the rough conditions, with one fisherman later finding more than €1million worth floating in the water.
The Scottish smugglers managed to get to shore and stashed away the drugs before calling Chisholm, who arranged for an orange van to pick them up.
If stopped by police, the plan was to tell them they were transporting radioactive material from the nearby Dounreay nuclear power plant – with fake paperwork prepared to back up the ruse.
However, unbeknownst to them, they were being heavily monitored by police, and a chance sighting of the orange van by an on beat copper sparked a call to higher ups.
The licence plate was checked and it was revealed to have been rented by the gang, leading police to immediately seize the vehicle and arrest the two smugglers.
Customs investigator Graham Dick said: “We were always thinking this was going to be a cannabis importation and when the van was opened we had these black bags. The total was half a tonne of cocaine.”
Chisholm was later arrested in Spain and was sent to the notorious Fontcalent prison in Alicante.
Chisholm was awaiting extradition to the UK when a decision was made to transfer him.
When the transfer van arrived to pick him and another prisoner up, guards said it was too large to fit through the entrance, insisting the pair would have to be walked out.
Somehow, while being escorted outside, they managed to escape from their cuffs and run into the desert. Chisholm has not been seen since and remains a wanted fugitive.
