Court confiscates just £680 from convicted drug dealer

Ronald Aldred was being pursued by prosecutors for £20,000 in ill-gotten earnings but they were only able to find the token sum in available assets.

However, the Crown Office said that future assets obtained by Aldred – once branded as “extraordinarily dangerous” by a judge – could be seized to make up for the missing cash.

The seizure at the High Court in Edinburgh yesterday sparked calls for the investigation to be kept up on Aldred to ensure he does not “drive off in a BMW” after being released from prison.

Detectives believed Aldred was peddling heroin in Edinburgh and West Lothian after recovering the stash kept at his Kirkliston home in a raid.

The 45-year-old was also jailed for 12 years in 2002 as the ringleader of a gang that took part in a campaign of kidnapping, assault and extortion, which a judge described as being like “something out of a 1930s gangster movie”.

Aldred had been hired by dealers to recover a kilo of stolen cocaine, and at one point the gang tried to put a loaded gun into a victim’s mouth during a vicious interrogation. In 1992, he was jailed for nine years for two attempted murders after launching an attack with a sword and knife at The Royal Nip pub in Leith.