Taxi Driver Online

POLICE believe at least 15 Scottish taxi firms are controlled by organised crime and used as a cover for drug trafficking, prostitution and money-laundering, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Secret intelligence files seen by this newspaper show some private hire businesses in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and beyond have been infiltrated by major underworld figures.

Detectives reported that 20% of the private hire firms in the Strathclyde force area – the country's biggest – were "linked with general criminal activity". Officers warned that ten "operated as part of organised crime groups".

The files reveal the spread of Glasgow-based criminal groups into taxi business across the country.

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill, who has declared war on gangster taxis with a tough new legislative clampdown, has already warned of attempts to infiltrate the Edinburgh market.

The intelligence confirms detectives believe a single business with crime links has been attempting to expand its operations in the capital.

The secret files also reveal there are two crime-linked firms in the Central Scotland police area and one each in Dumfries and Galloway and Tayside.

A police source said: "We should all be very worried about this. Do you really want to get into a car from one of these firms?"

Graeme Pearson, a former head of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, said crime-controlled private hire firms were now "almost omnipresent" in parts of Scotland.

Pearson, now a professor at Glasgow University's Institute for the Study of Serious Organised Crime, said the police intelligence confirmed what many people in many communities already knew: that criminals are running at least some of their private hire taxis.

He said: "Almost every taxi in some communities is linked with organised crime."

According to the intelligence files, organised crime groups started moving into the private hire business in the west of Scotland in the early 1990s, mostly to launder money.

Pearson said gangland figures were using the cars "for their own messages". Gangsters were summoning their own cars to deliver drugs and prostitutes, mobilise their enforcers and, increasingly, to keep and eye on communities where they vie with the police and government for authority.

Senior police sources hope rules proposed by the Scottish Government to force private hire firms to license their radio rooms will make it harder for crime groups to move into the taxi markets in Fife, the north and the north-east.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Tackling serious organised crime is one of the Scottish Government's top priorities. Where it infiltrates legitimate business, like the private hire trade, we are determined to take action."

Yeah?

All the customers want is to get home. If the firms get customers home, who cares?



Is this another example of Walter Mitty policing?

And, if they know all this shecht why haven't they done something about it?

Of course, couldn't be because when the bewildered herd are munching their way through this effluent, they take their eye off the ball of police abusing their powers and government robbing us of our rights.

I despair!

[And, if they know all this shecht why haven't they done something about it?

That is what the Dundee taxi trade have been saying in the last couple of days.There is growing unrest and i think the trade should put pressure on the police to let the public now exactly what this private hire firm have been getting up to.Stories in the press like this are tarnishing the image of hard working taxi drivers.

My source tells me that's why Edinburgh is against de-regulation as they don't want the criminals to get a bigger foothold on what they already have.

It's not de-regulation oh and btw, your "source" needs to have a word . . . .

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

Oh please. I didn't realise you were a comedian

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

council insider your site name sounded promising but you have just exposed youself as a wally,not bad for a member of just 3 days,it took a year before i was sussed

So what, isn't the Council run by a gang?

I know I meant de-restriction
My source is ok it's me I always get mixed up

Methinks this is the only source you have.

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IDFIMH

Are you related to Toots?

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Grandad,

If they was related to me they'd have a spicy sauce and be getting muxed ip

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Hmmmmm.

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scott ... -21191737/

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IDFIMH

Who's Toots?

Anyway, I'm not

I am Considering I'm well known for 'blonde moments' I think they may be implying you are a little bit dim

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!