He was once one of Scotland's most feared men during a criminal career which saw him walk free from a murder charge before being jailed in the infamous Belmarsh Prison for gun-running.
But ex-mobster Paul Ferris turned his life around and has avoided a life of crime for more than two decades - after being spooked by an MI5 investigation into his gangland activities.
The former enforcer, 60, had links to notorious London hoods Ronnie and Reggie Kray and was a trusted associate of Glasgow's 'Godfather', crime lord Arthur Thompson. He also followed Thompson's lead by forging links down south.
But his activities in England led to him being locked up in the 1990s for gun-running. And Ferris has since revealed that it was that very case - and the probe that saw him jailed - that eventually caused him to leave the criminal world behind.
Ferris, now an author, discovered that his gun-running was brought to an end thanks to an MI5 operation, with the security service tailing him. He found out about the surveillance when his lawyer brought boxes of documents to Belmarsh.
Speaking to the Record in 2023, the ex-hood said: “When I saw all the MI5 stuff on it – when you’re involved in criminality, you don’t think you come to the attention of these people.
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“What I saw, what I heard and what I read, I thought, ‘I’ll get on with my sentence, I’m putting my hands up, and I’m going out and I’m going straight’.”
Ferris was one of Thompson's key allies during the 1980s, but the pair fell out resulting in a bloody feud. The Godfather's son, Arthur Junior, was executed outside his dad's home in Provanmill.
Ferris was found not guilty of the murder after a trial at the High Court in Glasgow in 1992. Ferris' criminal career featured in 2013 film The Wee Man, with Martin Compston playing the former enforcer.
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