By Gemma Fraser
Head of content
With 3,000 miles of coastline, stunning countryside, mountains, lochs and handfuls of inhabited islands, Argyll and Bute is as quintessentially Scottish as a shortbread tin.
Each year, the west coast region welcomes more than 2.7 million visitors flocking to experience the culture and heritage across its six main towns, rural villages and 23 islands.
Tourists expect castles, whisky distilleries, and colourful villages. What they don’t expect to find is serious organised crime.
Yet this is why Police Scotland has teamed up with Crimestoppers to launch a new campaign across Argyll and Bute, to help communities spot the signs and feel confident about reporting any suspicions anonymously.
“If organised crime happens in built-up cities, it won’t be exclusive to cities and towns, it will happen in the more remote areas,” says Detective Inspector Michael Lochrie, from Police Scotland’s serious and organised crime team.
“Unfortunately, because of the geography and the lack of a dense population, and lack of CCTV, and lack of other lines of inquiry that you would have in your big cities, it probably makes it more appealing to organised crime groups.”
Although relatively new to L-Division – which covers West Dunbartonshire and Argyll and Bute – Lochrie’s experience leads him to believe that behind the beauty of the area, there lies a darker side.
Drugs, money laundering and “cuckooing” – where criminals take over someone’s home to use as a base for their illegal activities – are taking place right under people’s noses.
Lochrie sees the new campaign as a fact-finding mission to help police identify and understand the bigger picture of what serious and organised crime looks like in the area.
“From my own experience of organised crime, it doesn’t really discriminate – it will be everywhere to varying degrees,” he explains.
“Do we have a really significant drug problem in a certain area, or is it more crimes of violence, or vehicle crime… what is it? And then it allows us to come up with a strategy of how best to support that community.
“We will not know the true picture until – hopefully – members of the public use Crimestoppers, but generally speaking, you will have drug misuse there, and with that you have the snowball effect of crimes of violence if individuals have drugs debts or significant addiction.
“From my own experience of organised crime, it doesn’t really discriminate – it will be everywhere to varying degrees”
Detective Inspector Michael Lochrie
“Those with addictions open themselves up to vulnerabilities in terms of becoming victims of cuckooing, which is a problem throughout Scotland where those who have experienced difficulty – whether it be addiction, financial, or mental health challenges – are often exploited for control of their property by those in organised crime for storing criminal items or operating on their behalf.”
Money laundering is another key focus of the campaign, with the emphasis on making the public aware of what it can look like in a community.
“That money has to go somewhere,” explains Lochrie. “Spotting signs of businesses which don’t seem to operate, people with significant wealth, cuckooing, comings and goings at all times of day and night.”
A Police Scotland report from April to September last year showed 19 crimes linked to people associated with serious and organised crime were recorded in Argyll and Bute, with £37,109 seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Drug possession charges rose 17.5 per cent from 206 to 242, pushing them above the five-year average of 222.
During that period, police used information provided by members of the public to help gather intelligence which led to three properties in Dunoon being searched, with an arrest and subsequent charge brought against a drug dealer.
In Oban, local officers stopped a vehicle which had been highlighted via community intelligence and seized a small quantity of cannabis.
In a separate incident in the town in May 2025, a 24-year-old man was arrested and charged after police discovered a cannabis farm containing more than 150 plants, with an estimated street value of £80,000.
“The majority of information that comes to Crimestoppers is around drug dealing,” Angela Parker, national manager for Crimestoppers in Scotland, tells 1919.
“From a campaigning point of view, we talk about the fact that anyone can become the victim of drug dealers, especially vulnerable people going through a hard time with mental health, addictions, bereavements – and it’s often the most vulnerable people in communities that are targeted by dealers.
“Organised crime is a term that’s bandied about. A lot of people link it to the drug gang wars and feuds that are happening. Obviously that has happened, and it is still happening, but there’s also other, more sophisticated ways that criminals operate.
“The police inform us of what areas they’d like information on, and although we’re not part of the police, we do need to work behind the scenes on what information is needed.”
One of the key messages both Police Scotland and Crimestoppers want to get across to people living in communities within Argyll and Bute is that any information they provide will be 100 per cent anonymous.
“There’s a real place for Crimestoppers guaranteeing anonymity in rural locations, so that’s why we do our best to promote our service in these areas,” explains Parker.
“With Crimestoppers, you don’t have to be a witness, make a statement, or go to court – you can pass on the information on the 0800 555 111 number or fill in the online form and that’s it, you’re done.
“That information is sanitised at our call centre, so any information that could potentially disclose who the source is is all stripped away, and the information is sent off to Police Scotland for them to build an intelligence picture around it.”
Lochrie also agrees that offering complete anonymity for tip-offs will dictate the success of this new campaign.
“We hope that people feel safer as a result of the campaign”
Angela Parker, Crimestoppers
“No matter the level of information that comes in, we as police won’t be able to learn where it’s come from,” he says. “I would probably suggest a lot of people in the community want to protect their community and want to report it, but there’s always that fear of repercussions.
“This is about giving them the power to help themselves and protect their communities without that blowback of having to come physically down to a police station and speak to a local officer, or being seen speaking to the police.
“This is a free hit: tell us as much as you possibly can, if you want to, and then we can take it away.”
At the end of the four-week campaign, all the information will be analysed by police and used to help officers tackle criminal activity in the area.
Lochrie says using this model for gathering community intelligence through Crimestoppers would also benefit other rural areas, such as the Highlands and Islands, Dumfries and Galloway, and Ayrshire.
But what is he expecting from this drive in Argyll and Bute? “Sometimes it’s the complete unknown that can throw you,” he says.
“I would think and hope we’ll get information around the drug dealing element, anybody that’s perhaps considered a victim, in terms of that exploitation, people living outwith their means, vehicle crime, other crimes that are really important to the community but might not necessarily be recognised as mainstream organised crime.
“The main thing is that if there is a genuine threat in those communities, and people are concerned about certain people or groups, that we get them identified so we can start working to address that.”
Parker adds: “We hope that people feel safer as a result of the campaign, and we hope that it will deter some serious organised criminals from operating in these areas when they see this information is publicised.
“Ultimately, we hope we get some good information that could potentially lead to the people involved being arrested and charged, and to make life safer and better for these areas.”
Members of the public can use the secure online form at Crimestoppers-uk.org or call the contact centre on 0800 555 111. No calls or IP addresses are ever traced.
