Police want to have dozens of cabs operated by a Glasgow private hire firm taken off the roads as part of an ongoing campaign to link the company with organised crime gangs.
Objections have been lodged by Strathclyde Police against Network Private Hire securing licences for 44 cars, with the local authority to decide today whether to allow Network to run the vehicles.
The company has routinely said it is being victimised by the police because of former associates of the business when it was under different ownership.
The move comes as it emerged Network saw an increase of 25% in the amount of work it gets from the NHS.
Network already has £2 million worth of work taking patients to and from Glasgow hospitals, a contract which led to an unprecedented intervention by Strathclyde Chief Constable Stephen House and later police statements that they were disappointed by the NHS decision.
Black taxi operators withdrew their services to the NHS in protest at the Network contract.
In April Strathclyde Police successfully argued that a convicted criminal who was a shareholder until last July was continuing to profit from the company.
They said James Baxter, 49, was still receiving £5000 a week from the firm and read details of an incident in which Baxter and an accomplice forced their way into a nightclub where a steward was then shot by the second man.
Police are expected to argue that Baxter may still be profiting from the business.
Despite refusing Network its licence in April the council has since given it additional business ferrying vulnerable children to school.
A Network spokesman said: “There is no evidence nor has there ever been that Network are involved with, have or have had links to organised crime in the five years that the current owners have been in charge.”
Ross Blyth, an ex-council official now working for Network, claimed his firm was able to carry out the NHS contract at half the cost of the previous operator.
He said: “The previous contractor was either overcharging or doing unnecessary trips.”
