Cops target bus firms
Graeme Pearson, former chief of SCDEA, praised the move by Strathclyde Police to investigate bus companies, which he says offer opportunities to organised crime to earn cash
Police believe gangsters are muscling into small bus companies in and around Glasgow.
Detectives today confirmed they have launched an investigation to see just how much influence organised crime groups have over the industry.
Senior officers are determined to stop criminals gaining the same foothold in the bus industry as they have in the private hire taxi and security trades.
Some crime figures are said to see buses as “big taxis” that they can use to launder cash earned from drugs, prostitution or extortion.
Detective Inspector Joe McKerns, one of Strathclyde Police’s top experts in organised crime and businesses, yesterday said: “There is information that there are bus companies that are linked to organised crime.
“We have launched an intelligence-gathering operation to find out the nature and extent of that involvement. This is part of a wider exercise to find out the scope of organised crime in other businesses too.
“We do not want to see organised crime gain a foothold in the bus industry, or in any other. We intend to severely disrupt any effort they make to infiltrate legitimate businesses.”
Mr McKerns works for Strathclyde’s Force Tasking and Interventions Unit, a new body that is taking a close look at ways in which detectives can hit organised criminals where it hurts: in the pocket.
His unit works closely with the national Scottish Crime and Drugs Enforcement Agency, licensing bodies and other government watchdogs looking at ways to frustrate efforts by crime gangs to move in to legitimate businesses.
Their aim is to make it harder for crime groups to launder their earnings.
But dishonest bus companies have an easy way to hide dirty money: they can create “phantom passengers”.
Few checks are ever carried out on how many people actually board a bus.
So a dodgy operator could, sources said, simply lie about how many tickets it had sold. By exaggerating its income from fares, a firm could flush drugs cash through its books.
The new interest in buses by Strathclyde police is to be welcomed
Graeme Pearson, professor at Glasgow University’s Unit for the Study of Serious Organised Crime
Graeme Pearson, the former chief of the SCDEA, has seen numerous otherwise legitimate businesses used in this way. Now a professor at Glasgow University’s Unit for the Study of Serious Organised Crime, he said Strathclyde were right to look at the bus industry.
He said: “To some people a bus is just a big taxi. It offers the opportunity to both launder money and to earn income that benefits organised crime.
“This new interest in buses from Strathclyde Police is to be welcomed.”
Officers have previously carried out similar intelligence-gathering operations in the private hire taxi trade.
Scottish police forces last year discovered that at least 15 firms were effectively controlled by organised crime groups, both to launder money and to courier drugs.
The report, which has been seen by The Evening Times, also revealed 20% of private hire firms in the Strathclyde area were “linked with general criminal activity”.
Law enforcement sources claim that some of the gangland figures behind the private hire trade are also interested in the bus and coach industry.
Insiders stressed that major corporate bus operators were largely immune to the threat from organised crime.
But organised crime groups have traditionally sought to control businesses that have high cash turnovers, including tanning salons and nail parlours, to try and conceal drugs money.
Senior crime-fighters have also warned that they are using the recession to try to muscle in other businesses, including law firms and locksmiths, that could be useful to them.
Earlier this month it emerged Strathclyde believed a number of children’s nurseries had been taken over by gangland figures to launder cash.
They were thought to be creating “ghost children” – rather like phantom passengers – who were paying hundreds of pounds a week in cash in fees despite not actually existing.
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher de-regulated buses in 1986. Since then a large number of private firms, some big, some small, have taken over routes across the city, long replacing the old orange council double-deckers that plied city streets. All the new firms have to be licensed by the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland.
George Mair, who heads the Confederation of Passenger Transport in Scotland, yesterday said the bus industry enjoyed a good public reputation.
He said: “We’d welcome any investigation that would ensure that reputation is enhanced.”
http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/edit ... -1.1027723
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