Four arrests have been made relating to business activities at Ibrox .
It is unclear if the probe is into Craig Whyte’s £1 purchase of the club from Dave Murray in 2011 or the asset sale of the liquidated club a year later.
In an operation co-ordinated by Police Scotland arrests were made by Thames Valley Police, Cheshire Police and Surrey Police who carried out searches on a number of properties before the arrests were made.
A Police Scotland spokesman said: “Four men have been detained as a result of the ongoing investigation into the alleged fraudulent acquisition of Rangers Football Club.
“Around 6am on Friday, Police Scotland officers, assisted by officers from Thames Valley Police, Cheshire Police and Surrey Police, attended a number of addresses in England and detained four men.”
The investigation is believed to relate to the £5.5m sale of assets from Rangers to Sevco 5088 prior to the club going into liquidation.
That deal involved the five star Ibrox Stadium and the state-of-the-art Murray Park Academy of Stars.
Administrators Duff and Phelps managed the operation but complications set in when Sevco Scotland emerged and took over from Sevco 5088.
Six months later the assets of the club were valued at £25m in a public share issue while Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and hundreds of other creditors including Strathclyde Police, the ambulance service, newagents, taxi firms, florists and face painters lost out.
A decade earlier the same assets had been valued at over £100m in the Rangers accounts with Charles Green boasting about the deal he had pulled off.
In the lead up to the December 2012 share issue Green told STV: “We’ve got a valuation from an independent source on the properties that values them now at in excess of £80m- I’ll give you a copy of that.
“Previously, under previous regimes, the properties were valued at in excess of one ‘undred million. This isn’t Charles Green over-egging, Grant Thornton audited them to over an ‘undred million.
“We’ve got a valuation that’s not two weeks old of over £80m and you are now telling me that Charles Green is over valueing Rangers at £25m!”
It’s believed that none of those arrested this morning are connected to Celtic Football Club, Glasgow City Council, the Co-op Bank or the Vatican.