Police are investigating more than 1,000 alleged instances of fraud as part of their huge probe into SNP finances.
The Sunday Mail can reveal that detectives are focussing on an Amazon account used to buy everyday items which could be linked to party funds.
Police are conducting a second round of interviews of several people who have already been spoken to as witnesses.
And we can also reveal the £110,000 motorhome seized by police from the driveway of former First Minister’s Nicola Sturgeon’s mother-in-law was purchased from the Erwin Hymer Centre Travelworld near Birmingham before being driven 300 miles to Dunfermline by two men in early 2020.
Operation Branchform is centred on whether SNP funds were used to buy everyday items.
A source said: “There has been an Amazon account which may have been linked to SNP funds and purchases from that account are being looked at very closely.
“There are over 1000 individual items that the police are looking at as potential instances of fraud and go back a number of years.
“Goods range from quite expensive items to relatively cheap everyday products but the point is that all of these things together could add up to a very serious criminal allegation.
“Companies and political parties cannot just spend money any way they want, there are rules about how people are paid and there are obviously huge tax implications as well.
“Everything needs to be properly accounted for legally and that is what the police are looking at here.
“It is an ongoing inquiry, just because there hasn’t been any more arrests doesn’t mean nothing is happening, quite the opposite is true.
“A team of specialist officers are working on this full time, going through all of the accounts and matching entries up with what has been paid for via SNP bank accounts and then looking at where individual items that have been purchased have ultimately ended up.
“Officers are now going to be going back to several people they spoke to as witnesses and re-interviewing them armed with the evidence that has been collected.”
It emerged last week Police Scotland consulted the National Crime Agency (NCA) about Operation Branchform.
The London based crime-fighting unit specialises in serious organised crime and money laundering across the UK.
The Sunday Mail first revealed the SNP police probe in early 2021.
It followed complaints that £600,000 of donations which were supposed to be “ringfenced” for a future independence referendum had disappeared.
Two months later, the SNP’s Chief Executive Peter Murrell – husband of Nicola Sturgeon – gave the party a £107,620 interest free loan, which was not disclosed to the Electoral Commission until a year later.
Murrell was forced to resign after lying to the Sunday Mail about party membership numbers.
Last month he and the party’s ex-treasurer Colin Beattie were arrested and questioned as suspects in the fraud probe before being released without charge.
Sturgeon, who has not been questioned by police, has pledged fully cooperate with police.
The Glasgow home she shares with Murrell was searched for two days at the same time as officers raided SNP headquarters in Edinburgh removing dozens of boxes of documents.
The same day police seized the luxury motorhome from outside the home of Murrell’s mother in Fife.
The motorhome dealership in Stafford, who sold the vehicle, refused to comment.
A Erwin Hymer Centre Travelworld dealership spokesman said: “Unfortunately, due to customer confidentiality, we are unable to assist with this inquiry.”
The latest revelations come after we told how money left to the SNP in wills was being investigated as well as the purchase of everything from pots and pans to luxury pens, jewellery and other household items including a fridge freezer.
Police are also seeking burner phones and sim cards.
First Minister Humza Yousaf has admitted he has seen a list of items on a warrant that police either have seized or want to trace.
The bequests are being investigated alongside the whereabouts of over £600,000 donated to “ring-fenced” referendum funds. About £400,000 of that money is understood to be of particular interest to detectives.
More than £1million in cash gifts has been given to the party by late supporters since 2021.
Scottish Labour’s Deputy Leader Jackie Baillie said: “The plot thickens and thickens. This investigation goes to show how pervasive the culture of cover-up is at the heart of the SNP. Scotland deserves so much better than intrigue and sleaze from the SNP.”
Scottish Conservative party chairman Craig Hoy said: “The sheer number of alleged offences being investigated here is what you might expect from a probe into an organised crime syndicate, not a political party.
“No wonder the Police Scotland investigation is so long and painstaking.
“Everyone who is questioned in relation to this has a duty to cooperate fully so that the police can get to the bottom of this increasingly murky SNP scandal.”
Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine said: “Scotland needs a government who are focused on tackling long waits in the NHS, the cost of living crisis and preventing sewage pouring into our rivers, not one looking over their shoulder in case there is another knock on the door.
The SNP has said they are not paying legal fees for former chief executive Murrell.
But the party is understood to have engaged lawyer Stuart Munro, whose expertise includes “white collar crime” and who represented the former administrator of Rangers Football Club in a major fraud prosecution.
A spokesman for Police Scotland said: “As the investigation is ongoing we are unable to comment further.”
The SNP said: “These issues are subject to a live police investigation.
“The SNP have been co-operating fully with this investigation and will continue to do so.”
Amazon declined to comment.
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