Scottish-registered firms are being used as the corporate fronts for a whole series of websites peddling diet bills labelled a "complete scam" by doctors.
The businesses - all controversial limited partnerships of a kind widely marketed in eastern Europe as zero-tax "offshore companies" - are offering weight loss products on much-criticised long-term deals that can lock slimmers in for months.
READ MORE: Scottish firm behind global 'essay mills' offering to write students' work for cash
The firms are offering a range of debunked diet pills featuring raspberry, green coffee and the tropical fruit Garcinia Cambogia, offering discounted first samples followed by monthly payments.
Professor Mike Lean, the chair of human nutrition at Glasgow University, said: "Basically none of these diet pills work. This is a complete scam exploiting vulnerable people who can spend hundreds of pounds desperately trying to lose weight.
"They are making claims that are untrue. I have had patients who have been locked in to these kinds of deals and lost a lot of money - but not weight. I think the whole diet pill industry should be examined."
A website offering Raspberry diet pills hosted by a Scottish limited partnership
The Scottish-registered firms identified as being behind pill-pushing sites are Alexandra Organisation LP, which runs raspberry diet websites; Worldwide Development LP offering Garcinia Cambogia; Real Support Solutions which sells something called NPC Solutions; and Belmont Corporation LP selling green coffee.
READ MORE: Scottish firm behind global 'essay mills' offering to write students' work for cash
They are all either currently or previously registered at a former draper's shop on the Main Street of the mining village of Douglas, South Lanarkshire.
The shop in Douglas where the pill firms are registered
The Herald last week revealed that the same address was being used by another SLP named by Ukraine's elite anti-corruption police in a prosecution of officials accused of skimming nearly $2m from the export of arms to the Middle East.
READ MORE: Scottish firm behind global 'essay mills' offering to write students' work for cash
This same address is being used by companies offering to write essays for students for cash - dubbed "immoral" on all levels by Scottish universities - and some 2500 others Scottish limited partnerships or SLPs.
There is growing concern that SLPs - already allegedly implicated in the looting of $1bn from Moldovan banks and corruption scandals involving the nephew of the president of Uzbekistan - are being used for serious money-laundering, tax evasion and cybercrime.
Last week Oxfam, the development charity, called for their reform.
BACKGROUND: Scotland's 25,000 "tax haven" SLPs
OPINION: Richard Smith on how SLPs could be reformed
The Herald tried to contact all of the diet pill firms. All of the phone numbers either failed to answer or were no longer operational.
The Alexandra Organisation's website offers subscription to its Extreme Raspberry Diet product. It says the "dietary supplement" brings weight loss "within weeks".
Its blurb says: "Want that sexy body that turns heads? With our proven Extreme Raspberry dietary supplement, you can get that tight and toned figure you've dreamed of quick and easy!"
READ MORE: Scottish firm behind global 'essay mills' offering to write students' work for cash
The website says its products contains raspberry ketones. Prof Lean stresses there was no evidence that raspberry ketones promote weight loss. In 2014, a 24-year-old Scottish woman called Cara Reynolds suffered a fatal heart attack after taking more than 70 raspberry ketones pills she had bought online, although not from any of the suppliers who have identified. Each tablet from the supplier she used contained more caffeine than four cans of energy drink Red Bull. Such products, however, remain on sale over-the-counter.
A website offering Carcinia supplements to get "slimmer and healthier".
In terms similar to those of the other sites, Extreme Raspberry Diet's terms and conditions read: "You will be charged $4.95 for your first bottle, and then 14 days later (if you have not cancelled) you will be charged for $69.95 for another bottle."
All the websites have a similar box to be filled in to get a free trial or a rush order.
The website for NCP Nutrition with typical "rush my trial" form to fill
Alexandra Organisation was incorporated in 2014 but its Companies House filings does not identify its beneficial owners. Belmont Corporation and Worldwide Development also do not show their ultimate partners in documents.
Real Support Solutions LP was also set up in 2014 at 44 Main Street, but has now changed to an address in Edinburgh. It says its products "may" support weight loss. It was formed by two firms with their bases the Seychelles.
The address in Douglas belongs to a local business providing mailbox services which has no knowledge of the activity of the Scottish limited partnerships it hosts.
Additional reporting by Richard Smith and Samantha Croal.
BACKGROUND: Scotland's 25,000 "tax haven" SLPs
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