Arrests, a luxury motorhome and a power couple’s fall: The inside story of SNP police probe
The once “untouchable” SNP is enduring humiliation amid its biggest crisis in decades.
The governing party of Scotland has been tearing itself apart in recent months as its finances come under the spotlight.
Polls have plummeted, arrests have been made, suspects detained, and a luxury motorhome seized as a long-running police investigation picks up pace.
But what is going on?
The SNP is a powerful political operation. It is seen as the dominant face of the Scottish independence cause, and with that position comes cash.
Large numbers of people are willing to donate and become paid-up members of a party they hope and believe will deliver their dream.
The SNP, under Nicola Sturgeon’s watch, boasted of soaring membership figures. It peaked at more than 100,000 – solidifying it as the third largest in the UK.
There was a sense for a long time the SNP hierarchy was untouchable.
The Sturgeon iron-fist operation rarely led to dissent and internal squabbles never really played out in public. The first minister was known for her discipline, but some argued she ran the party on a “need to know” basis where critics who disagreed were quickly side-lined.
Salmond’s ‘wouldn’t end well’ warning
This is a tale of a political power couple. The two at the top of the SNP were married. Ms Sturgeon’s husband Peter Murrell was the chief executive since 1999.
Former first minister Alex Salmond told me in recent months he warned the pair that the relationship would not work professionally and wouldn’t end well.
Politically, under Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell, the SNP was an election-winning machine.
Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell were at the top of the SNP
The pair won every election in Scotland in the 3,000 days they worked together. But they failed to achieve their main mission of securing Scotland’s independence.
Many raised concerns about too few people making all the decisions. Others questioned their strategy and what was really going on behind closed doors.
To appease the SNP faithful, Ms Sturgeon would issue a rallying cry every few years about “kick-staring” the drive towards a second referendum vote.
Where had the money had gone?
The party raised £666,953 through various appeals between 2017 and 2020, saying they would spend the funds on an indyref2 campaign.
But in the subsequent years, audited financial accounts issued via the Electoral Commission revealed a party with far less cash in the bank.
Some supporters had queries after accounts showed it had just under £97,000 in the bank at the end of 2019, and total net assets of about £272,000.
The people who had donated raised concerns about where the rest of the money had gone.
A leaked video of Ms Sturgeon taken in 2021 at a meeting of the SNP’s ruling body appears to show her warning NEC members to be “very careful” about suggesting there were “any problems” with the accounts.
In what looked like an angry exchange, she said: “There are no reasons for people to be concerned about the party’s finances, and all of us need to be careful about not suggesting that there is.”
Around the same time, the SNP’s national treasurer quit – claiming he was not given enough information to do the job.
Douglas Chapman, the MP for Dunfermline and West Fife, resigned after only being in post for a few months.
It was reported at the time that his decision to stand down was linked to a mounting row over the ringfenced independence cash.
Police received formal complaints
Transparency was clearly becoming an issue.
The situation became even more serious for the SNP around that same period when formal complaints were received by Police Scotland.
Detectives began probing fundraising and finances and launched Operation Branchform.
In June 2022, Mr Murrell provided a personal loan of £107,620 to the SNP to help with “cashflow” problems.
His wife then faced awkward questions when the news became public.
She claimed she couldn’t “recall” when she first heard about this large loan involving her partner. The first minister looked uncomfortable and attempted to swiftly move on. It was an eyebrow-raising episode.
Then came the bombshell resignation from Ms Sturgeon, who declared she no longer had the stamina to continue.
The timing took most people by surprise.
The first minister denied it was related to “short-term pressures” and within weeks began her farewell tour of the television studios, including Sky’s Beth Rigby Interviews and ITV’s Loose Women.
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Ms Sturgeon’s interview with Sky’s Beth Rigby
The SNP suffered a bruising and bitter leadership contest which became mired in mudslinging and controversy.
One of the biggest own goals was the saga surrounding the candidates not being given access to how many members were eligible to vote.
The party had previously denied a newspaper report claiming it had lost 30,000 members in recent years.
After a humiliating climbdown the SNP finally conceded the story was true. Red faces all round.
Amid growing claims of secrecy, which threatened to plunge the leadership race into chaos, Mr Murrell quit as the long-standing boss. His Saturday morning departure overshadowed his wife’s final moments in office.
In the end, Humza Yousaf narrowly defeated Kate Forbes to become Ms Sturgeon’s successor.
His premiership stalled before it even began.
Read more:
Sturgeon and Murrell: The downfall of SNP power couple in less than 150 days
Nicola Sturgeon says SNP crisis beyond her ‘worst nightmares’
Who is at the centre of the police investigation into the SNP?
It quickly became public “the Murrells” had failed to disclose to the new first minister that the party he now leads had been without auditors for its financial files. Accountants, who had worked for the SNP for a decade, quit last year.
Withholding this vital information from so many senior figures in the nationalist ranks caused further embarrassment and added fuel to the fire of “cover-up” claims.
Then came the biggest bombshell of all. Mr Murrell was arrested.
Uniformed officers swarmed the Murrell/Sturgeon house on the outskirts of Glasgow. A white evidence tent was erected on the front lawn.
Police Scotland officers at the home of Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell
The search was part of a probe into the SNP’s funding and finances
Detectives released their “suspect” without charge after almost 12 hours of questions. Ms Sturgeon later described this as her “worst nightmare”.
The scenes were unthinkable just a few short months ago. The house of Scotland’s political power couple raided and searched for more than 30 hours.
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Sturgeon: Last few weeks ‘very difficult’
The following day I, and every political journalist in Scotland, were invited to the first minister’s official residence in Edinburgh for a briefing with Mr Yousaf.
We entered the same room where Ms Sturgeon had made that infamous resignation speech a few weeks before.
This time the lectern and rows of chairs were replaced with sofas in a circle with tea, coffee and cakes at the edge of the room.
Mr Yousaf arrived, rolled up his sleeves and answered every question from reporters before camera crews were summoned to record interviews for TV, including Sky News.
This was a far cry from the Sturgeon regime and was clearly a deliberate strategy to send out a signal of resetting relations.
Over the following days, the Sunday newspapers revealed a picture of a large, luxury motorhome being seized by detectives outside of the Fife home of Mr Murrell’s 92-year-old mother. It was thought the vehicle could be worth more than £100,000.
The chaos was set to continue. What on earth did a political party need a campervan for?
First Minister Humza Yousaf didn’t know about the SNP motorhome until he became party leader
I confronted Mr Yousaf about when he became aware the motorhome was an “SNP asset”.
He confirmed it was owned by the party and had been kept in the dark about it until he became leader.
It led to further questions about the extent of the police probe on the party’s finances.
The SNP accounts for 2021 include new “motor vehicles” worth £80,632 after depreciation among the party’s assets. There has been no confirmation whether this figure is a reference to the luxury campervan.
Those accounts were signed off by the national treasurer Colin Beattie.
He became the second “suspect” to be arrested by Police Scotland, two weeks after Mr Murrell.
Mr Beattie, who has overseen the SNP’s finances for almost two decades, was released without charge pending further investigations.
Former SNP treasurer Colin Beattie was arrested and later released as part of the police probe
When questioned by reporters, the 71-year-old first said he had no knowledge of the motorhome before later clarifying he was aware.
A bizarre episode in the SNP soap opera.
Mr Yousaf is attempting to get a grip of the party’s governance, but the polls paint a grim picture for his immediate electoral fortunes.
Is that the cost of excessive control by a closed circle run by Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell? Sir Keir Starmer certainly hopes so.
An oil tanker seized by the US off the Venezuelan coast on Wednesday spent years trying to sail the seas unnoticed.
Changing names, switching flags, and vanishing from tracking systems.
That all came to an end this week, when American coast guard teams descending from helicopters with guns drawn stormed the ship, named Skipper.
A US official said the helicopters that took the teams to the tanker came from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford.
The USS Gerald R Ford (in grey) off the US Virgin Islands on 4 December. Source: Copernicus
The sanctioned tanker
Over the past two years, Skipper has been tracked to countries under US sanctions including Iran.
TankerTrackers.com, which monitors crude oil shipments, estimates Skipper has transported nearly 13 million barrels of Iranian and Venezuelan oil since 2021.
And in 2022, the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed Skipper, then known as Adisa, on its sanctions list.
But that did not stop the ship’s activities.
Skipper pictured from the Venezuelan shore. Source: TankerTrackers.com
In mid-November 2025, it was pictured at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela, where it was loaded with more than one million barrels of crude oil.
Skipper (R) loads up with crude oil at the Jose Oil Export Terminal in Venezuela. Source: Planet
It left Jose Oil Export Terminal between 4 and 5 December, according to TankerTrackers.com.
And on 6 or 7 December, Skipper did a ship-to-ship transfer with another tanker in the Caribbean, the Neptune 6.
Ship-to-ship transfers allow sanctioned vessels to obscure where oil shipments have come from.
The transfer with Neptune 6 took place while Skipper’s tracking system, known as AIS, was turned off.
Read more:
Everything we know about dramatic ship seizure
Is this what the beginning of a war looks like?
Skipper (R) and Neptune 6 in the Caribbean Sea during an AIS gap. Source: European Union Copernicus Sentinel and Kpler
Dimitris Ampatzidis, senior risk and compliance manager at Kpler, told Sky News: “Vessels, when they are trying to hide the origin of the cargo or a port call or any operation that they are taking, they can just switch off the AIS.”
Matt Smith, head analyst US at Kpler, said they believe the ship’s destination was Cuba.
Around five days after leaving the Venezuelan port, it was seized around 70 miles off the coast.
Moving in the shadows
Skipper has tried to go unnoticed by using a method called ‘spoofing’.
This is where a ship transmits a false location to hide its real movements.
“When we’re talking about spoofing, we’re talking about when the vessel manipulates the AIS data in order to present that she’s in a specific region,” Mr Ampatzidis explained.
“So you declare false AIS data and everyone else in the region, they are not aware about your real location, they are only aware of the false location that you are transmitted.”
When it was intercepted by the US, it was sharing a different location more than 400 miles away from its actual position.
The distance between Skipper’s spoofed position on AIS (towards the bottom right hand corner) and its real position when seized by the US. Source: MarineTraffic
Skipper was manipulating its tracking signals to falsely place itself in Guyanese waters and fraudulently flying the flag of Guyana.
“We have really real concerns about the spoofing events,” Mr Ampatzidis told Sky News.
“It’s about the safety on the seas. As a shipping industry, we have inserted the AIS data, the AIS technology, this GPS tracking technology, more than a decade back, in order to ensure that vessels and crew on board on these vessels are safe when they’re travelling.”
Dozens of sanctioned tankers ‘operating off Venezuela’
Skipper is not the only sanctioned ship off the coast of Venezuela.
According to analysis by Windward, 30 sanctioned tankers were operating in Venezuelan ports and waters as of 11 December.
About 30 sanctioned tankers are currently operating in Venezuelan waters. Source: Windward Maritime AI Platform
The tanker seizure is a highly unusual move from the US government and is part of the Trump administration’s increasing pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
In recent months, the largest US military presence in the region in decades has built up, and a series of deadly strikes has been launched on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.
In the past, Mr Ampatzidis explained, actions like sanctions have had a limited effect on illegally operating tankers.
But the seizure of Skipper will send a signal to other dark fleet ships.
“From today, they will know that if they are doing spoofing, if they are doing dark activities in closer regions of the US, they will be in the spotlight and they will be the key targets from the US Navy.”
The Data X Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Donald Trump wants you to know that there is one leading reason why he is bearing down militarily on Venezuela: drugs.
It is, he has said repeatedly, that country’s part in the production and smuggling of illegal narcotics into America that lies behind the ratcheting up of forces in the Caribbean in recent weeks. But what if there’s something else going on here too? What if this is really all about oil?
In one respect this is clearly preposterous. After all, the United States is, by a country mile, the world’s biggest oil producer. Venezuela is a comparative minnow these days, the 21st biggest producer in the world, its output having been depressed under the Chavez and then Maduro regimes. Why should America care about Venezuelan oil?
Money latest: Urgent warning over tumble dryers
For the answer, one needs to spend a moment – strange as this will sound – contemplating the chemistry of oil. Crude oil is, as the name suggests, quite crude. It’s an organic compound, the product of ancient organisms that have been compressed and heated up under the earth’s surface for hundreds of millions of years. And as such, crude oil is subtly different depending on the conditions under which those organisms were compressed.
In some parts of the world, crude oil comes out of the ground as clear, flowing liquid. Sometimes it is green. Sometimes it is heavy, thick gloopy stuff. Oil producers have a word for these differing varieties: light, medium and heavy.
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Venezuela accuses US of ‘piracy’
US imports
And here’s the first thing you need to know. Most of America’s refineries are set up to process the heavy stuff. In other words, if America is going to keep its cars fed with gasoline, it needs heavy, gloopy crude. And since it costs many, many billions of dollars to overhaul refineries, no-one particularly wants to do that anytime soon.
Read more:
Why did the US seize tanker off Venezuela?
But the second thing you need to know is the vast majority of that oil produced in America, thanks to the shale revolution, is light crude. In other words, America’s refineries are not compatible with most of the oil America produces.
US oil map
The upshot is that for all that America theoretically pumps more crude oil than it would ever need out of its own territories, it is still totally dependent on trade to meet its demands for heavy oil. Most American crude is exported overseas. And America imports well over 6,000 barrels of oil a day to feed its refineries in Texas and Louisiana with the heavy stuff they can digest.
All of which brings us to Venezuela, because it is, alongside Canada and Russia, sitting on the world’s biggest reserves of heavy oil. Right now, most American oil comes from Canada but were Donald Trump keen to wean himself off Canadian crude, he is well aware there is a vast resource of it sitting on the other side of the Caribbean for all those Texas and Louisiana refineries.
World
‘Venezuela has already been invaded’ says Nobel Peace Prize winner Machado when asked about Trump intervention
Venezuela’s Nobel Peace Prize winning opposition leader has said her country has “has already been invaded”, when asked whether she would support a US invasion.
Speaking at a news conference in Oslo after being awarded the famous prize, Maria Corina Machado replied: “Look, some people talk about invasion in Venezuela and the threat of an invasion in Venezuela and I answered Venezuela has been already invaded.
“We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents. We have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime.
“We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken over 60% of our populations and not only involved in drug trafficking, but in human trafficking in networks of prostitution. This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas.”
The 58-year-old engineer continued: “Where do those funds come from? Well, from drug trafficking, from the black market of oil, from arms trafficking, and from human trafficking. We need to cut those flows.”
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Maria Machado speaks in Oslo
Read more:
Peace prize winner makes appearance
Venezuela’s opposition leader greets crowd
It comes after news of the US seizing an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, in the latest push by the Trump administration to increase the pressure on the government in Caracas.
America has built up the largest military presence in the region in decades and launched a series of deadly strikes on boats it claims were drug-smuggling in the Caribbean.
Ms Machado made her return to the public eye in the early hours of Wednesday morning from the balcony of the Norwegian capital’s Grand Hotel, after covertly travelling to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
She didn’t make it to Oslo in time to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in person, after an extraordinary day shrouded in uncertainty over her whereabouts.
It was accepted on her behalf by her daughter Ana Corina Sosa.
The opposition leader has dedicated her prize in part to US President Donald Trump, who has said he himself deserved the honour.
Ms Machado has aligned herself with hawks close to Trump who argue that Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has links to criminal gangs that pose a direct threat to US national security, despite doubts raised by the US intelligence community.
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