POLICE who detained four men investigating the alleged fraudulent takeover of Rangers by Craig Whyte are also probing events before and after the purchase of the club by the consortium headed by former chief executive Charles Green.
Three of the four held by police are David Grier, Paul Clark and David Whitehouse from Duff & Phelps, the company that was appointed administrators after the business fell into insolvency under the reign of Whyte from May 6, 2011 to February 14, 2012.
Clark and Whitehouse, who were appointed as joint administrators, are alleged to have negotiated the purchase by Charles Green's Sevco consortium of Rangers assets in June 2012 with £5.5 million, believed to be in the form of a loan.
The Sunday Herald can reveal that a report sent to the procurator fiscal in Glasgow over the affair before the detentions related to alleged "incidents" between January 2010 and November 2012, a period which covers over a year before Craig Whyte took the reins at Rangers but also up to five months after the Charles Green consortium bought the assets.
Of the five identified in the report, Whyte is the only one not yet detained. A warrant has been issued for his arrest and he is believed to be abroad. Green is not one of the five named in the report.
Whyte is alleged to have completed the purchase of the club by selling off the rights to three years of Rangers season tickets to London-based agency Ticketus to raise £24m. It is believed that most of that was used to pay off the club's £18m debt with Lloyds Banking Group, a condition of the club sale.
In October last year, Rangers' auditors Deloitte flagged up Whyte's legal battle over ownership, saying it was a key uncertainty hanging over the Ibrox business. Rangers have consistently said Whyte's claims have no merit.
Duff & Phelps was at the centre of a misconduct and conflict-of-interest probe by the Insolvency Practitioners Association after complaints about its appointment as Rangers administrators.
But in June 2012, the IPA cleared them after a "thorough investigation" which concluded the company had "complied with the relevant guidance".
The former Rangers administrators said three of their staff were held for questioning over work done while they were employees of MCR Partners, before its takeover by Duff & Phelps in October 2011.
Duff & Phelps spokesman Marty Dauer said: "We believe that our work for Rangers was conscientious, thorough and properly performed in every respect. Duff & Phelps has actively co-operated with all relevant investigating authorities throughout this process. In addition, we have provided thorough reports on our role in the administration of Rangers Football Club to the Court of Session and the Insolvency Practitioners Association."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article