Bonfire of the evidence? Crime agency accused of burning files before reporting undercover chaos to prosecutors
Fraud report to fiscal under scrutiny
An elite crime-fighting agency has been accused of destroying piles of documents found at a chaotic undercover unit before prosecutors were told of potential fraud.
The now-defunct Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, once billed as Scotland’s FBI, allegedly incinerated files and paperwork after a shambles was exposed in a unit managing the finances of covert operations.
A detective sergeant, asked to take charge of the financial arrangements supporting officers’ undercover identities, raised the alarm after finding piles of unopened mail and unexplained documents. The SCDEA reported the officer previously in charge – who today breaks his silence to say he was in mental turmoil at the time – to the Procurator Fiscal after discovering possible fraud. But, we can reveal, the incineration of documents found in the secure unit at an out-of-town industrial estate allegedly took place within days of the potential fraud being discovered and before prosecutors were alerted. One source said destruction of files found at the offices was ordered within days of senior officers visiting the site on April 7, 2011. A civil case brought by the whistle-blower against her former bosses, heard officers were ordered to buy a garden incinerator and burn the documents at the SCDEA base at Osprey House, next to Glasgow Airport.
In a £1 million legal action, the whistle-blower successfully claimed she had been unfairly scapegoated and forced out of her job.
After being asked to take over management of the undercover unit she found bank cards, credit card statements, passports and cash not linked to any undercover operations. The former officer, known as Mrs K, told the court how, after visiting the unit, which looked “ransacked”, her bosses described it as a “total disaster” and told her “nobody would ever know about this”. She said they then ordered piles of paperwork and documents found there to be destroyed.
Within eight days, the SCDEA had reported the officer previously in charge of the unit, known only as DSG, to the Procurator Fiscal but, according to sources, the documents had already been destroyed. The Crown later decided not to pursue a case against the officer. One source said: “No one knows Picture posed by model