The Scottish Government has become so alarmed about shell firms being used as fronts for everything from cyber-scams to the wholesale looting of banks – usually limited partnerships or SLPs advertised as “zero-tax offshore companies” across eastern Europe –that the Sunday Herald can reveal that last week Finance Secretary Derek Mackay wrote to his UK counterparts urging a crackdown.

International gun-runners are using Scotland to launder their profits, Mafia watchers in the former Soviet Union have said. Organised criminals are increasingly exploiting secretive and obscure Scottish shell firms as fronts for everything from cyber-scams to the wholesale looting of banks.

Last month one Scottish company was accused by Ukraine’s elite anti-corruption bureau of skimming profits from state arms exports to the Middle East.

Another, despite being officially dissolved, won a bid to hire armed men in the war zone of eastern Ukraine.

Read more here:  heraldscotland.com