Once one of the wealthiest businessmen in Glasgow, he owned numerous businesses including security companies and taxi firms as well as properties throughout Scotland and Ireland with an estimated worth of £10 million.
Although in and out of approved schools and Borstals during his teenage years, he was involved in setting up the small Bar-L team, based around the Barlanark area of Glasgow and specialising in armed robbery.
He and the others managed to evade police for some time before eventual arrest in a failed robbery of a social club outside Glasgow, as he loaded several crates of alcohol into his van.
[citation needed] Also identified as a figure involved in the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars in 1984, McGraw was attempting to expand his own ice-cream van business and had been known to use violence and intimidation to secure the most lucrative rounds for himself.
[4] In 2002, he was attacked by unidentified assailants less than a mile from his East End home and stabbed several times, suffering wounds to his arms, wrists and buttocks.