Taxi Driver Online

TAXI PAIR POCKET £1.2M PROFIT

TAXI bosses Stevie Malcolm and Thomas Wallace banked more than £1.2million last year from Scotland's largest private hire firm.

Car dealer Wallace, 49, and millionaire tanning salon tycoon Malcolm, 40, raked in £600,000 each from Glasgow Private Hire Taxis Ltd.

Accounts published last week show the firm made £2.5million between November 2002 and November 2003 - £50,000 a week.

Malcolm - the man behind the Tan Ko salon chain - and Wallace, joint shareholders and directors, awarded themselves a 48 per cent pay rise.

The firm was formed in the late 1990s after Malcolm bought Mac Cars from Margaret McGraw, wife of millionaire gangland boss Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw, and others.

The firm now deny any business links with McGraw.

In February, we revealed one of their controllers was a convicted drug dealer and that one man was dealing heroin from a cab registered to a Glasgow Private Hire driver.

Six years ago Wallace was a vital witness at Scotland's biggest drugs-smuggling trial where the accused included McGraw.

Wallace's evidence helped clear McGraw, while convicting The Licensee's brother-inlaw John Healy.

Wallace, who lives in a £1.5million mansion in Miln-gavie, near Glasgow, claims he was only called to give evidence because he had sold cars to the suspects.

He resigned as a director of Glasgow Private Hire Taxis in June - though he is still a major shareholder.

But they run a good operation up in Glasgow no one can take that away from them.

Mr Malcolm also runs the Paisley Cab Co here in Renfrewshire.

It's the only private hire company here in the large town of Paisley (make of that what you will) but other smaller ones operate in surrounding towns

The convicted drug-smuggler John Healy is the one linked to the Marrs in Dundee.

Dundee taxi operator David Coutts has/had his taxis with the Marrs firm in Dundee.

Coutts was involved with the licensed trade in Estonia, as is SNP transport spokesman Kenny McAskill.

McAskill was the one who bleated that delimitation would bring the criminals into the taxi trade.

Small world, innit?

I cannot stop laughing, Nige , the e-mail you wrote is better than your Beckham jokes.

and you lads from Bonnie Scotland well you could teach the triads a thing or two!

I wonder how many of those operators would be deemed 'fit and proper', if they had to adhere to the same rules as operators in England?

I mean in some English areas operators have to have CRB checks.

certainly not Halifax or Plymouth,
following the T.V exposures no licences were pulled.

and Halifax had loads of evidence to do so.

Glasgow connection,supposed to be looking at the Dundee 203020 company.
Supposed to be ploughing up to £500,000 into the business.
Maybe Dundee Scott may have the info.
Looks good.

And??

and,
what?

dont play around Nige these are gangsters!

What have I said wrong now? All I said was they run a good operation up there in Glasgow. Geoff, they have top of the range kit like Auriga, good motors and a call centre we can only dream of having. Whats wrong with that??

I think it's about time they actaully published the licensing review that has been going on for years.

Yes, the one with the Ice-cream man on.

But then again, as one of the issues they were considering was restricting PH numbers, maybe it's best they don't.

_________________
IDFIMH

Nigel,
I hope the way you fund your buisness and the way they do is 2 different things, despite our differences I have never suspected you being dishonest fund wise.

now just to make you think,

why has Glasgow got such a big firm with monopoly?

why do councils bar tinted windows?

after that Nige I value lots my life and your life.

we will have to chat on the chat machine sometime.

Geoff

Geoff,

The company in Glasgow DONT have a monopoly. There are other companies that have large fleet with the next largest around 500. There are over 3000 private hire vehicles in the City of Glasgow so having 600 in a fleet is not a monopoly.

There is a Hackney fleet of approx 930 cars out of 1400 plates.

As for someone allowing a fleet to get that big, well you should look at other Cities that now have hackney or private hire fleets which are 500 or more cars.

regards
RadioMan

davie coutts or councillor coutts was working abroad for a while and was also hiring out both his hack plates the council knew this and made a half hearted attempt to retrieve them , the reason they didnt pull them was he was availaible to jump on a plane to answer any question regarding his taxi investment, the situation now would be totally different, after returning he and steve cashley were involved in the running of handy taxis, buisness manager, and something to do with advertising but i cant remember someone reading this might, anyway both done a bun
k and formed 505050 and put leaflets through all hack owners letter boxes claiming they would take contracts from both handys/ teles and neither seem to have materialised, the word is davie was spending money that wasn,t his and was puntted, he is now with 203020 and has a merc supporting his plate,larry duncan if you remember him has dissapeared from taxi,ing but his cab is run by 203020,and is included in their advertised cab numbers, dundee is unlike any other town i know apart from having only 45 private hire compared to 500 hacks,up untill last year, its also one of the few citys that nobody even gangsters can take over because of the sheer numbers of ops who will fight back ,even if it means working the street all will stick together, 203020 might buy handys/ teles but they wont own the cabs or their owners there is too much water under the bridge for that,dundee cabbies will continue to thrive regardless....