Posing with Sturgeon, drug dealer handed your cash
A CONVICTED drug dealer has been given taxpayers’ money to fund his drone business.
Kieran Hope, 29, served nine months of a three-year sentence in HMP Grampian after being found guilty of being involved in the supply of drugs in 2014.
About £300,000 worth of cocaine was found a year earlier during a police raid at the Aberdeen city centre flat he was renting.
Two years after being released from prison, Hope founded Air Control Entech (ACE), which uses drones to conduct inspections in the gas and oil industry.
He even met Nicola Sturgeon at the Marcliffe Hotel in Pitfodels, Aberdeen, in May 2016, following
‘Duty to show how money was used’
his release. On Instagram he wrote: ‘Just had a lovely chat with the first minister about driving business forward in the economic downturn.’
ACE was given financial backing by the Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC), which is funded by academia, industry and Scottish and UK taxpayers.
While there are no rules preventing convicted criminals from receiving public money, there are concerns over the organisation’s refusal to disclose how much it gave to the firm. The company has declined to reveal the figure, citing non-disclosure agreements.
The OGTC told STV that ACE ‘was carefully evaluated in line with our process for every investment decision and all conditions have been met throughout’ and that Hope was ‘entirely transparent about his previous conviction’.
Graeme Pearson, a former director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency and a Labour politician, said: ‘I think that where public money is being spent, there is a duty on organisations to show the public how that money was used and where that money was invested.’
As well as ACE, Hope formed sister company the Air Control Global Group (ACGG), which was co-owned with Liston Pacitti, 29.
Pacitti was last year jailed for four-and-a-half years for endangering lives by selling so-called ‘legal highs’ from shops in Montrose and Arbroath. The ACGG was dissolved five months ago.
In a statement, Hope said: ‘I’ve had an overwhelming response from industry peers this week, thanking me for my openness and wishing me well for turning my life around.
‘I truly appreciate the help and support the Scottish Prison Service has given me to rehabilitate and hope to offer my guidance and advice to other young offenders.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We have no involvement in specific funding decisions made by the OGTC, who follow their own due diligence process, nor would we have any input to commercial or contractual decisions the OGTC enter into.’