Ian Douglas McAteer[1] (born November 1961)[2] is a Scottish former gangster who was a prominent figure in the Glasgow and Liverpool criminal underworlds during the later 20th century.

[5] Investigative journalist Graham Johnson records McAteer's career as beginning in 1979, when he started to forge links with Glasgow's main drug barons.

Aside from drug dealing, McAteer reportedly became involved in arms trafficking, debt collection and protection, and laundered money through his successful used car business.

[9][14] On 28 February 1998, following both McAteer and Bennett's release from prison, the latter was killed in a daylight attack on Glasgow's Royston Road, incurring 57 stab wounds.

[9][15] Later in 1998, McAteer was arrested in Merseyside on suspicion of shooting a man at a set of traffic lights in Glasgow: the incident had occurred mere yards from the site of the Bennett murder.

[16][17] On 30 October, Selkirk was shot five times at Crosby Marina in North Merseyside, while his children waited for him in a nearby car; a plastic bag filled with dog excrement – a sign of "contempt" – was found in his right hand.

[4] According to Observer crime correspondent Tony Thompson, McAteer threatened to shoot multiple police officers as well as anyone who testified against him: at least two criminals were given new identities under the witness protection program in return for their testimony.

[8] Liverpool criminal David Baker received a four-year sentence for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, for asking an associate to provide McAteer with a false alibi.

[18] Ferris found it implausible that McAteer, whom he described as being "so cautious as to be almost paranoid", would implicate himself in such a way, and concluded that Selkirk was killed by Irish criminals due to unpaid debts.