SENIOR police officers are demanding "anti-mafia" agents take control of licensing taxi firms, security companies and nurseries in a crackdown to stop criminal gangs running legitimate businesses.

The controversial proposals would mean a role currently carried out by councils would go to newly-created specialist teams.

With organised crime worth £9.2 billion in Scotland, senior police officers and the Scottish Government have been concerned about how corrupt crime networks are slipping through the local authority net to run legitimate operations with ill-gotten cash.

Taking control of the situation is now under serious consideration by Scotland's leading crime-fighting agency, the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA).

It is looking closely at how Italy and Holland stop gangsters' involvement in areas such as taxis, construction and security.

Detective Chief Inspector Ronnie Megaughin, the head of interventions at the SCDEA, said: "Taxis and private-hire companies are regulated by local authorities.

"It's very difficult to see why some companies with links to criminality are still licensed.

"We need to look at the mechanisms for licensing across Scotland."

Government officials have also been looking at the best way to ensure procurement policies are improved to ensure no public money goes to organised crime.

Serious organised crime groups use semi-legitimate businesses as fronts to launder money and top up the money they make from human trafficking, drugs and counterfeit goods.

In 2009, Scotland's biggest health board decided to give a £2 million contract to a taxi firm previously linked to serious organised crime, despite written and verbal recommendations from Strathclyde Police to stop the move.

NHS Greater Glasgow officially granted the tender to Network Private Hire following months of delays after the police and politicians took the unusual decision to intervene.

DCI Megaughin said: "Italy is subject to the same procurement rules as the UK but they have domestic [law] which allows them in certain sectors to compel people to obtain anti-mafia certification.

"We are looking at the potential for that in the Scottish context.

"In Italy, the director and others from the company need to swear an oath to say they are not subject to any anti-mafia measures – including police investigations. They have to satisfy a prefect – a government official – of their integrity.

"If we look to Europe, the Dutch have introduced legislation which entitles municipalities and local authorities to seek intelligence.

"In Holland, rather than have local authorities making decisions on licensing, they have vetted civil servants doing it. They are working to exclude organised crime from all regulated areas. The government is also looking at tax accreditation."

He added: "This recognises this is not a problem we face alone. Whether it is the mafia or organised crime, the essence is that they have business interests. As soon as they get evidence of mafia associations, they stop the construction or whatever project."

He said world-wide anti-corruption body Transparency International says the UK has a very low level of corruption. But, he said: "Organised crime has been with us for centuries. It has changed and adapted to maximise profits. We need to change too."

Public-sector spending on goods and services across Scotland, in areas such as health and education, amounts to about £8bn per year. Procurement guidelines govern the purchase of these goods and services.

New policies have already tightened up checks on public-sector contracts but senior police want to cut criminal dealings in private-sector contracts too.

"The security industry is still a lucrative business for organised crime because they know they can still tap the private sector," said DCI Megaughin.

"Their roots are deep in the security industry but the Security Industry Authority (SIA) has been incredibly successful. The security industry has had a long-standing issue around intimidation – part of which is about the close proximity of the decision-maker.

"What we are trying to do is divorce the decision from the site where the security will be provided. A large supermarket will obviously have a board to make decisions. What we want is a decision by them that they will only use accredited security. It is about the person holding the purse-strings making the decision. It reduces the viability of intimidation.

"We also need to have a healthy debate about whether police intelligence should play a bigger part within these [contractual] decisions."

The case of millionaire businessman Stephen Donald last year showed how deep-rooted gangs can be. The 56-year-old was a director of a Dundee-based estate agency, a construction company and a publishing company, and had been on the board of a nursery.

But he was arrested over a plan by a gang to flood the city with heroin, and jailed for six years.