Multi-million pound profit for crime gangs
Police face task of tackling nearly 200 syndicates and seizing assets
NEARLY 200 serious organised crime syndicates are operating in Scotland, some of them as multimillion pound ‘businesses’.
New police figures reveal there were 176 criminal networks at the end of last year, with seven of them each reported to have assets ‘estimated in excess of £10million’.
Of these, 49 new groups emerged for the first time last year – with one of them even resuming its activities after being deemed to have disbanded.
And cross-Border authorities such as the National Crime Agency are aware of a further 37 gangs not based in Scotland but ‘impacting on communities’ here.
Police chiefs say the overall number of Scottish-based gangs has reduced from 201 at the start of last year to 176. The force has managed to stop gangsters winning public sector business contracts worth about £192million but failed to meet a key target for seizure of gangsters’ ill-gotten gains.
The release of the new figures follows suspected gangland incidents including an attack earlier this month in a residential street in Cardowan, Lanarkshire, which left a trio of men injured and two vans burnt out.
In May last year, hitman William Paterson was jailed for life for the ‘brazen’ murder of gangland figure Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll, executed in a hail of bullets amid terrified shoppers at the crowded Asda car park in Robroyston, Glasgow.
In September last year, children fled in terror after a man was injured
‘Strengthening their footprint’
in a shooting near a primary school in Bishopbriggs, near Glasgow.
In a report to a meeting of the Scottish Police Authority in Stirling, Police Scotland Chief Constable Phil Gormley revealed that within the Fife division 205 gangland arrests were made during 2015-16.
A seizure under the Proceeds of Crime Act in Cairnryan, Dumfriesshire lead to an investigation into the business interests of a family based in Fife.
The family was ‘found to have connections and associates across the UK, generating substantial income and assets that were concealed to evade tax and other legitimate charges’.
In the North-East division under Operation Halberd, financial investigators ‘have identified assets in excess of £380,000 believed to be linked to drug-dealing’.
During 2015-16, £79,875,841 of assets were seized but this fell short of a £100million target. At the same time gangsters were ‘deprived of access to £191.75million worth of legitimate enterprise contracts’.
Assistant Chief Constable Ruaraidh Nicolson has said the business ethos of many of the main players in organised crime has developed and some syndicates have even merged to ‘strengthen their footprint within a selected market’.
Earlier this year, Justice Secretary Michael Matheson said that ‘through our serious organised crime strategy, Scotland’s agencies have successfully disrupted criminal groups at home and mitigated threats from overseas using worldwide networks’.