15 CAB FIRMS CONTROLLED BY ORGANISED CRIME

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."