Taxi pair pocket pounds 1.2m profit.

Byline: By NORMAN SILVESTER

TAXI bosses Stevie Malcolm and Thomas Wallace banked more than pounds 1.2million last year from Scotland's largest private hire firm.

Car dealer Wallace, 49, and millionaire tanning salon tycoon Malcolm, 40, raked in pounds 600,000 each from Glasgow Private Hire Taxis Ltd.

Accounts published last week show the firm made pounds 2.5million between November 2002 and November 2003 - pounds 50,000 a week.

Malcolm - the man behind the Tan Ko salon chain - and Wallace, joint shareholders and directors, awarded themselves a 48 per cent pay rise.

The firm was formed in the late 1990s after Malcolm bought Mac Cars from Margaret McGraw, wife of millionaire gangland boss Tam 'The Licensee' McGraw, and others.

The firm now deny any business links with McGraw.

In February, we revealed one of their controllers was a convicted drug dealer and that one man was dealing heroin from a cab registered to a Glasgow Private Hire driver.

Six years ago Wallace was a vital witness at Scotland's biggest drugs-smuggling trial where the accused included McGraw.

Wallace's evidence helped clear McGraw, while convicting The Licensee's brother-inlaw John Healy.

Wallace, who lives in a pounds 1.5million mansion in Miln-gavie, near Glasgow, claims he was only called to give evidence because he had sold cars to the suspects.

He resigned as a director of Glasgow Private Hire Taxis in June - though he is still a major shareholder.

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Quids in: Malcolm