Secretive offshore accounts at banks used by the super-rich were trawled in the effort to find murdered Margaret Fleming.
Previously unseen papers show turned to the Isle of Man’s Financial Intelligence Unit (IoM FIU) in 2017 in a bid to find vulnerable Margaret, last seen alive in 1999.
The hunt began after benefits officials visited her carers Edward Cairney and Avril Jones at their home in Inverkip, Renfrewshire, about a new payment claim.
They discovered she’d not been seen for almost 20 years, despite receiving benefits, and alerted police in October 2016.
During the trial, Cairney, 77, and Jones, 58, claimed Margaret, who had learning difficulties, was involved in organised crime in Romania and living in London.
New documents – among more than a million leaked to the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) from the Cayman National Bank and Trust (CNBT) – show the FIU contacted the bank in February 2017.
Staff were asked to search for aliases including Margaret Cruickshanks as well as Cairney and Jones – the carers she had gone to live with after her dad died in 1995. Her body has never been found.
Cairney and Jones were jailed for life in July, to serve at least 14 years, after being found guilty of her murder in June. During the trial at the High Court in Glasgow, Detective Sergeant Karen Boyd said the 13-month investigation also contacted NHS boards, councils, power companies and other banks. She said: “In today’s society it would be difficult to manage without banking in whatever form.”
Jones was also found guilty of falsely claiming £182,000 in benefits by pretending Margaret was alive.
Last month, on the day of Margaret’s 39th birthday, police urged the pair to reveal where
they had disposed of her body.
