
Edinburgh Victoria Street targeted by vandals as police investigate
Police Scotland said it had received a report of the vandalism and inquiries were ongoing.
Victoria Street is popular among tourists and influencers for its colourful buildings and cobblestone pavement.
(Image: Getty Images) It is often cited as an inspiration for the fictional Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series.
Shopkeepers have said that the street, which links George IV bridge and the Grassmarket, has been "wrecked" after the "absolutely mindless" vandalism.
Andrew McRae, who owns three shops on Victoria Street, told BBC News: "I've been doing business in the Old Town for a number of years and I've never seen anything on this kind of scale before with one street being so badly targeted and damaged.
READ MORE: Dog owners warned of 'toxic bacteria' after Scotland heatwave
"Victoria Street is one of the most picturesque and beautiful streets in the city if not Scotland and a great deal of time and effort is spent by the independent business owners to keep it in that condition.
"So to come in to work and see this trail of destruction – I was very shocked and it was very demoralising."
Another shop owner, John Bowman, told the broadcaster: "I was annoyed like everyone else would be when I saw the graffiti. I've had to buy paint to cover it up as it won't clean off.
"It's not good for tourism. The authorities should do something about it but they won't."
Part of the graffiti attack at the weekend saw the 900-year-old St Giles' Cathedral targeted as well as other monuments and stone buildings in the Old Town, which is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Removing graffiti from historical buildings is a difficult task and can require specialist equipment and knowledge to do so without damaging the building.
READ MORE: Warning not to swim in two Fife beaches due to pollution
Stephen Jenkinson, City of Edinburgh Council's environment convener, said: "First and foremost, defacing any building with graffiti is a criminal offence and I'd encourage anyone with any information on the culprits to contact the police.
"This type of mindless behaviour damages the local environment for everyone, whether they be residents or visitors, and wastes time and money on removing it.
"We've invested in a dedicated graffiti team who will be happy to offer advice to private owners on how best to deal with it and, if requested, to remove it (on a cost recovery basis)."

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Scotsman
4 hours ago
- Scotsman
Who is the richest cyclist 2025? Here are the 11 all-time wealthiest professional cyclists
3 . George Hincapie - $40 million Another drugs cheat comes third on our list. American George Hincapie started a record Tours de France, but admitted to doping and was retrospectively disqualified from the 2004, 2005 and 2006 races. Furing his careers he was a key domestique (a cyclist in a road racing team whose role is to help their team leader during a race) for race winners Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador and Cadel Evans in 2011, when both men won the Tour de France. He was also the owner and general manager of UCI Professional Continental team until it folded in 2020. He has a net worth of around $40 million. | Getty Images


BBC News
7 hours ago
- BBC News
Appeal to find Robert Rimmer who has been on the run since 2022
A fresh appeal to find a man who has been on the run since 2022 has been issued by Police said they were "keen to locate" Robert Rimmer who is wanted for drug offences in the 39-year-old is originally from Ashton-Under-Lyne, near Manchester, but has known links to Hull, Cheshire, Liverpool, Blackpool and the Middle force asked anyone who might have seen him to get in touch. Listen to highlights from Hull and East Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here. Download the BBC News app from the App Store for iPhone and iPad or Google Play for Android devices


The Guardian
15 hours ago
- The Guardian
It is one of the deadliest chemicals on Earth – but even Mexico's cartels can't resist the lure of mercury
Mercury is one of the world's 10 deadliest chemicals – once extracted from the Earth's crust, it can take centuries to break down. In 2013, more than 100 countries signed up to the Minamata convention, committing to restrict its production, export and use, and phase it out altogether. Yet while Latin American countries claim to have ended production of the toxic element and controlled its movement across borders, they have simply driven the trade underground. A new report from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has found that mercury production is 'out of control' in Mexico – the world's second largest producer – driven by high gold prices and cartel involvement. Through illicit networks, mercury is being smuggled into South American countries including Colombia, Bolivia and Peru. There, it fuels a gold rush in the Amazon, contaminating rivers, soil and air, and causing severe environmental and social damage. With gold prices at record highs, the mercury trade has become so lucrative that one of Mexico's deadliest cartels has entered the business. Traffickers are smuggling the substance abroad, into tropical forests in large quantities. 'It is absurd that mercury is one of the 10 most toxic substances in the world – yet smugglers are shipping tonnes of it out of major ports without detection just by hiding it in gravel,' says Adam Dolezal, investigations coordinator at the EIA. Over the past decade, illegal mining has soared, creating an environmental crisis. Mounting evidence of a public health catastrophe has led world leaders to agree on phasing out mercury production and banning its export for goldmining. Mexican documents sent to the UN reported a decline in domestic mercury production from 442 tonnes in 2018 to zero in 2020, when the last mines were shut down. But EIA undercover investigators tracked 200 tonnes of mercury from the rainforests of the Amazon, thousands of miles away, to the dusty hills of northern Querétaro between 2019 and 2025. The EIA team identified at least 19 active mines in Querétaro, producing 100 tonnes a year, with no health, safety or environmental oversight. Investigators discovered that the illegal industry not only polluted rainforests but also one of Mexico's most biodiverse regions: the Sierra Gorda biosphere reserve. 'It's a Unesco-protected site that is home to a third of the country's butterfly species, yet mining is daily, largely unregulated, and contaminating rivers used by at least 17 downstream communities. Some soils have mercury levels up to 150 times the safe limit,' Dolezal says. By conservative estimates, mercury from these mines could have produced up to $8bn (£6bn) in illegal gold, and has attracted the attention of Mexican cartels, according to the report. Although the full extent of cartel involvement is unclear, the message to investigators was obvious. 'The Jalisco New Generation cartel exerts a high degree of control in some of the mines,' Dolezal says. 'Our team documented armed control points, surveillance towers and threats of violence. Cartel involvement has industrialised production and in some mines, where mercury is not processed on-site, ore is trucked out in bulk under cartel control.' The investigation led to the seizure of a five-tonne shipment of mercury hidden in gravel bags at the Peruvian port of Callao – the largest ever confiscated in an Amazonian country. The haul revealed the scale of the trade and how easily criminal networks move the toxic chemical abroad. Sign up to Global Dispatch Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features and pictures, curated by our global development team after newsletter promotion Authorities, often more focused on halting the flow of cocaine through Latin America, would probably not have detected the illegal mercury shipment without the EIA tip, says Luis E Fernández, executive director of the Center for Amazonian Scientific Innovation (Cincia), which joined the operation. Once across the border, criminal organisations extract the mercury from rock before sending it to the Amazon. In Colombia, the business is controlled by the same armed groups that run gold trafficking. Unlike deforestation, which leaves visible scars, mercury pollution is invisible. Starting as a grey sludge, it travels undetected for hundreds of kilometres in rivers. Indigenous groups, including the Yanomami in Brazil, suspect the toxin has disrupted the rainforest's balance. Their first warning was dead fish washing up, threatening their food supply. Later, they noticed an increase in the number of babies born with missing limbs and developmental problems. Now, they realise they are victims of vast mercury dumping into their rivers. 'We don't know the full effect, but we know there is no cure,' says Dario Kopenawa Yanomami. 'Experts have already told us the mercury will remain in the water and soil for at least 10 years. It's very worrying.' Illegal mining in the Amazon has risen by 50% in six years (between 2018 and 2024), and experts consider its impact devastating for the world's most biodiverse ecosystems. A study in Yanomami territory found that local communities are highly exposed to mercury through fish consumption, according to safety levels established by the World Health Organization. These communities rely on fish as their primary source of protein. Although species low on the food chain may contain traces of the toxin, predators that eat hundreds or thousands of fish annually concentrate it at dangerous levels. The toxic metal is especially harmful to children, causing neurological disorders, learning disabilities, and visual and motor problems. The same study found mercury present hundreds of kilometres upstream from the mines, suggesting even isolated groups are being poisoned. 'Illegal goldmining is one of the greatest evils that afflict riverside communities and Indigenous populations in South America,' says Antenor Vaz, a specialist at an Indigenous people's rights group, who was not involved in the report. 'The indiscriminate use of liquid mercury contaminates numerous waterways, the food chain from these waters and all the populations that depend on this source of food and water.' Unless Latin American countries take the international mercury trade seriously, it will not stop, the report's authors say. They call on Mexican authorities to regain control of Querétaro's mines from organised crime and shut them down, and urge greater information sharing, the use of artificial intelligence to combat smuggling and the closing of loopholes in the Minamata convention. 'The silence or absence of states in fighting these crimes does not mean neutrality,' Vaz says. 'It means complicity.'