Scotland Organised Crime Report

<h2 class&equals;"super-large semi-loud">Scotland Police identify 650 firms&comma; big and small&comma; as fronts for organised crime<&sol;h2>&NewLine;<p>BUSINESSES ranging from local pubs to multi-million pound empires have been identified among 650 Scottish firms which are fronts for organised crime&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"mh-content-ad"><script async src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;pagead2&period;googlesyndication&period;com&sol;pagead&sol;js&sol;adsbygoogle&period;js&quest;client&equals;ca-pub-9162800720558968"&NewLine; crossorigin&equals;"anonymous"><&sol;script>&NewLine;<ins class&equals;"adsbygoogle"&NewLine; style&equals;"display&colon;block&semi; text-align&colon;center&semi;"&NewLine; data-ad-layout&equals;"in-article"&NewLine; data-ad-format&equals;"fluid"&NewLine; data-ad-client&equals;"ca-pub-9162800720558968"&NewLine; data-ad-slot&equals;"1081854981"><&sol;ins>&NewLine;<script>&NewLine; &lpar;adsbygoogle &equals; window&period;adsbygoogle &vert;&vert; &lbrack;&rsqb;&rpar;&period;push&lpar;&lbrace;&rcub;&rpar;&semi;&NewLine;<&sol;script><&sol;div>&NewLine;<p>The revelation about how deep the criminality is entangled in the economy has been laid bare by Police Scotland and other law enforcement agencies&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>It is the first clear indication of how far gangsters have infiltrated businesses since the new force was launched in April 2013&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div id&equals;"oldsubscontnt">&NewLine;<p>Detectives have listed 150 serious and organised crime groups linked to &&num;8220&semi;seemingly-legitimate businesses&&num;8221&semi; although the final list pooled from 15 partner agencies&comma; including tax investigators the HMRC is not final&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Police announced the new figures&comma; but no name of any individual firm&comma; as they&comma; the Scottish Government and other agencies unveiled a &&num;8220&semi;refreshed&&num;8221&semi; strategy for tackling organised crime&comma; especially relatively recent developments such as people trafficking or cyber fraud&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>They did so amid millions of pounds worth of seized drugs and a stash of confiscated weapons&comma; including an Kalashnikov AK-47 assault rifle and a World War Two-era Sten gun&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But the refreshed strategy makes it more than clear that law enforcement is no longer just pursuing the drugs&comma; guns and cash of gangsters&period; The new document focuses on the wider threat of a corrupted and criminalised business sector&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Detective Chief Superintendent John Cuddihy said&colon; &&num;8220&semi;The refresh of the strategy is about targeting the &&num;8220&semi;enablers&&num;8221&semi;&comma; the finance or transport specialists&comma; because without them&comma; organised crime can&&num;8217&semi;t function&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;We need to turn the enablers in to inhibitors&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Police have long sought to use what they call &&num;8220&semi;legally audacious&&num;8221&semi; tactics to disrupt crime fronts in the commercial world&comma; such as taxi and bus firms&comma; nightclubs and tanning salons&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But senior officers stressed their intelligence database no longer simply included such traditional money-laundering vehicles&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Scottish Crime Campus at Gartcosh&comma; the purpose-built hub now the envy of much of Europe&comma; brings together 16 organisations&period; These have all contributed information of criminal front firms&period;<br &sol;>&NewLine;Mr Cuddihy&colon; &&num;8220&semi;Every day is a school day&period; All of the experts we have within the the crime campus means we no longer see the word &&num;8216&semi;secret&&num;8217&semi; as an inhibitor&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The detective stressed that firms on the list could easily turn over millions and employ scores of workers as major industries &&num;8211&semi; such as landfill and rubbish disposal &&num;8211&semi; come under attack from gangsters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He said&colon; &&num;8220&semi;One of the richest areas is waste management&period; Here are £50-60m contracts up for offer&period; So businesses involved with organised crime will go from small firms or a multi-national&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But Mr Cuddihy stressed that size &&num;8211&semi; some of these firms will have employees who have no idea about the criminal ownership or control &&num;8211&semi; did not make gang fronts untouchable&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Holding a tiny keyring gun &&num;8211&semi; hand-made in Scotland with two 22 rimfire rounds&comma; he pointed at a Kalashnikov&period; &&num;8220&semi;This is just as lethal as an AK-47&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;Equally a big firm does with 100 people doesn&&num;8217&semi;t have to be stronger than a company with just one person&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Assistant Chief Constable Ruaraidh Nicolson said&colon; &&num;8220&semi;Organised crime groups are diversifying&comma; they are looking for whatever opportunity they can get to get involved in a business they can make money from&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;The are every kind of business we you can think of&period; So from from waste management right through to cyber&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Nicolson stressed that the 650 represent &&num;8220&semi;those firms we know about&&num;8221&semi;&period; He added&colon; &&num;8220&semi;We have got them documented and detailed and we have work ongoing to better understand what the involvement is&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;When we get to a point when we understand that better&comma; we will take action&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Justice Secretary Michael Matheson formally unveiled the new strategy yesterday&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>He stressed that exact numbers of companies criminalised would fluctuate&period; He said&colon; &&num;8220&semi;This is extremely important economically&period; Some of these groups are cash-rich and sophisticated organisations and we need to make sure they don&&num;8217&semi;t infiltrate businesses and use them for their own illegal purposes&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Mr Matheson highlighted the importance of the Scottish Business Resilience Centre&comma; which&comma; among other things&comma; offers advice to firms on how to protect themselves from gangsters&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The most recent intelligence map of organised crime in Scotland identified 232 gangs with 3700 individuals&period; Some 70 per cent of the gangs were based in the west&comma; 18 per cent in the east and 10 per cent in the north&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite diversifying in to new areas&comma; about two-thirds of Scottish crime gangs are still in the drugs business&period; As widely reported in recent years&comma; indigenous groups are now competing with Chinese gangs to grow cannabis in country and to import benzocaine as a cutting agent &&num;8211&semi; or even cheap substitute &&num;8211&semi; for cocaine&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The launch of the new strategy was on Thursday at the Crime Campus&period; It came after Mr Matheson had watched an operation to raid on six properties in Fife&period; Five people were arrested and £1&period;5m worth of drugs and £85&comma;000 of cash were seized&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;

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