Police probe drugs money in Premiership

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Detectives who raided Newcastle, Portsmouth and Rangers football clubs this week believe that crooks are exploiting the game's notoriously lax finances and using the tens of millions of pounds in transfer cash and agent payments as a perfect cover for their illegal activities.

Scroll down to read more:

Raid: Computers being removed from Portsmouth's offices this week

A police source has told Sportsmail that the inquiry, which is likely to last up to 18 months, is not related to corruption in the game.

"This is all about organised criminality latching on to the Premiership gravy train to turn bad money into good," said one detective.

"There is so much money going into and out of certain individuals' bank accounts that it would be easy to slip through a few dodgy payments.

"But what is worrying is that a lot of the cash is coming from the proceeds of drugs and other crimes across the UK."

Details of the City of London police inquiry will stun football's powerbrokers — already reeling from a series of allegations about transfer bungs.

So far just one arrest has been made — a 61-year-old man from Manchesterwas questioned on suspicion of money laundering and was released on bail.

The police probe was sparked by the bungs investigation led by Lord Stevens.

It is understood that he also uncovered suggestions that criminals are targeting football to launder cash and his team immediately alerted police.

Further arrests and raids are likely to follow Monday's raids in which 40 plain clothes officers carried out co-ordinated searches.

But the probe has been greeted with dismay by many in the City of London force.

They are already struggling to cope with the huge workload generated by the inquiry into allegations of race fixing which is expected to culminate in a series of high- profile court cases.