Latest news with #RonMcNaughton
The Herald Scotland
30-06-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Man jailed for fraudulently selling tea received £50k grant
The 55-year-old made £550,000 from the scheme, with the plants actually imported wholesale from Italy. As reported by The Times, his business was given £50,000 in funding by Scottish Edge, which offers grants and loans to start-up businesses. Read More: Mr Robinson was given the funding after applying in 2015, with the organisation announcing the award to "Scotland's only tea plantation which counts Kensington Palace and Balmoral Hotel as customers". Scottish Edge is funded by the Scottish government, the Scottish Enterprise quango, the Royal Bank of Scotland and the Hunter Foundation. Mr Robinson claimed to have grown tea on farmland in Perthshire and Dumfries and Galloway, but had in fact bought Italian tea from an English wholesaler. Ron McNaughton, the head of the Scottish food crime and incidents unit at Food Standards Scotland, said: "His actions caused real financial and reputational harm to individuals, businesses and a developing sector of genuine Scottish tea producers. This outcome is the result of a complex and painstaking investigation involving a dedicated team at FSS and the co-operation of partner agencies and key witnesses. "It demonstrates that those who set out to mislead consumers and defraud businesses will be held accountable.'
Wall Street Journal
25-06-2025
- Wall Street Journal
The Great Scottish Tea Swindle
When Ron McNaughton was asked to investigate an entrepreneur claiming to sell Scottish tea, he had one thought. 'You can't grow tea in Scotland,' the former police detective remembers thinking of a plant normally grown in notably hotter and sunnier climes of China and India.
