Drug dealer's cash helps fund £200k city youth projects

Published on Friday 6 February 2009 09:01

COMMUNITY projects are set to benefit from more than £200,000 in assets seized from a convicted drug dealer after he was forced to sell his house.

George "Dode" Buchanan was ordered to pay out the cash under the Proceeds of Crime Act after a judge last year ruled he was "a dealer in controlled drugs" who profited from the illegal trade.

Now the money is set to fund projects such as youth sports, mobile CCTV police vans, child outreach schemes, and anti-drug dealing campaigns.

Leith Athletic Football Club are among the groups in Edinburgh who may pick up funding after they applied to the Scottish Government for help in creating an all-weather pitch for youngsters.

The Crown Office confirmed that it had received the money from the sale of Buchanan's house in Gilberstoun, Brunstane, following a private sale.

The property had been due to go up for public auction yesterday afternoon after failing to sell at a fixed price of 325,000 after six months on the market. But it is not known who bought the home or whether Buchanan will continue to live there with his wife, Marie.

Buchanan had to sell his Range Rover, Mercedes, Mini Cooper and Ford Focus, and was ordered to sell the family home to make up the remaining 126,750.

Buchanan was jailed for 12 years in 1987 for being involved in one of the Capital's biggest heroin hauls, and served eight years.

Investigators from the Civil Recovery Unit sought to seize as much as 400,000 after telling the court that there was a "financial black hole" in the family's income which did not match their assets.

In 2004, Buchanan stood trial again accused of heroin dealing between 1998 and 2003, but he was acquitted.

A Crown Office spokesman said: "The outstanding money has now been paid by George Buchanan."

Groups like Leith Neighbourhood Action Unit (18,616), the Edinburgh City Youth Cafe (15,857), the Leith Acorn Centre YMCA (12,319) and the Pilmeny Development Project (2080) have all been boosted by the CashBack for Communities scheme.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "We are taking the ill-gotten gains off serious organised criminals and reinvesting them in our communities to make a real difference to the lives of our young people.

"It is fitting that crooks' cash is funding youth projects as well as youth football, rugby and basketball and arts and culture projects. We are showing our youngsters that there is more to life than drink, drugs and offending."