A total of 36 boats have been fined £140,000 in the last 10 months for entering Scotland's marine protected areas. But campaigners claim the fines are too small and may not be a sufficient deterrent.
The university has continued to argue staff cuts are needed to make ends meet. But a growing cash balance has raised questions about the need for more redundancies, and whether it qualifies for millions in public support.
Gypsy Travellers have been persecuted for centuries. But despite a Scottish Government apology last June for the Tinker Experiment – which tried to assimilate them into settled culture – some claim their cultural rights are still being denied.
For the past year, The Ferret has been working on a major project investigating finance called The Money Trail, and the next part of our series will be published on Sunday with more to come that week.
From dark money, to Scottish Limited Partnerships, to the controversial ownership of land and property, Scotland plays host to a range of illicit finance risks.
So, scrutiny is vital to ensure that money does not flow to Scotland’s politics without careful monitoring, and that individuals, companies and states from around the world cannot store their wealth and dirty money in Scottish land, property and companies without it being a matter of public record.
Lifting the lid on illicit finance issues requires rigorous investigative journalism, and despite legal threats we’ve published more than a dozen investigations to date.
As part of our investigation series, we vetted hundreds of offshore-owned properties with foreign owners, unmasking landowners including a Cairngorms businessman linked to an £800m money laundering and fraud scam, and a Canadian government body with an alleged history of tax avoidance.
Using leaked Paradise Papers files, made available to The Ferret by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, we revealed that the top political donor to two political parties, senior bankers, a House of Lords peer, and football legend, Ally McCoist, were among secret owners of a tax haven firm behind an elite Scottish golf club.
The story prompted renewed calls from campaigners for the UK Government to force overseas British territories to provide public registers revealing the beneficial owners of firms registered there.
We also unveiled the offshore firms, politicians, and billionaires who received hefty taxpayer forestry handouts. They included the King, J.K. Rowling, and some who have broken rules around public subsidies. The top recipient was a Guernsey resident whose spouse admitted leaving the UK for the Channel Isles to avoid tax.
Ahead of the 2024 UK General Election, we analysed thousands of donation records spanning three years, revealing the funders linked to dark money, tax havens, climate change denial, and the blacklisting of trade unionists.
Post-election, we vetted the business and financial interests of all new MPs, revealing the prevalence of landlords, and highlighting the hypocritical investments of politicians. And for good measure, we scrutinised Scottish members of the House of Lords to find out how much they cost the taxpayer, the amount they’ve claimed in expenses, and how active each member has been.
Our next two reports will focus on Scottish Limited Partnerships (SLPs) – legal entities that have proven controversial over the past decade. They are used by thousands of legitimate businesses – but some have been used by money launderers, tax evaders and fraudsters, prompting calls for reform to laws to crackdown on criminality.
Our latest investigation into SLP’s took us to the west end of Glasgow, and Muirhouse, Edinburgh – a housing estate in Scotland’s capital made famous by author and former resident, Irvine Welsh, who immortalised the area in his 1993 novel, Trainspotting.
So, if you want to find out what links working class Muirhouse to the Seychelles and Swiss bank accounts, look out for our special investigation on Sunday.
This work has been made possible by funding from the Joffe Trust. But we want to do more of it so please become a member of The Ferret today and support independent, investigative journalism in the public interest.
Yours,
Billy Briggs and Jamie Mann
The Scottish Government has continued to back Ming Yang’s proposed investment at Ardersier despite national security concerns. It’s now being accused of a “staggering” failure of due diligence on the firm.
Authorities tightened the rules around this Scottish business scheme after years of exploitation for financial crime. Moscow entities – and a man accused of facilitating child sex abuse – are still selling it to clients seeking “financial privacy”.
A string of central Glasgow properties are owned by a company belonging to the head of an investment firm behind a Russian shipping hub. Researchers say the port sustains Moscow’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.
Tensions are high in Glasgow following a series of protests over alleged sex crimes by migrants. Police and anti-racism groups fear extremists could inflame the situation.
