Scottish crime boss Steven Lyons arrested in Netherlands after Bali deportation
Spanish Civil Guard dismantled the Lyons drug network, with 14 arrests across four countries. Glasgow gang leader Steven Lyons was detained after deportation from Indonesia.
Spanish police dismantle Lyons gang network across Europe and Middle East
Spanish authorities have dismantled a major criminal drugs organisation led by members of the Glasgow-based Lyons family, bbc.co.uk reports. The country's Civil Guard announced 14 arrests across four countries and confirmed that 20 further individuals are under investigation.
Steven Lyons, 45, a Glasgow crime boss, was arrested in the Netherlands after being deported from Bali on Tuesday. He had been taken into custody on 28 March following his arrival in Indonesia from Singapore. A Civil Guard spokesperson told BBC Scotland that Lyons is expected to arrive in Spain within two to three weeks, though the timeline could lengthen if he chooses to contest extradition.
Lyons had been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice. He was detained on the same day his wife, Amanda, was arrested in Dubai.
Operation Armorum
The arrests form part of Operation Armorum, a three-year investigation conducted in collaboration with Police Scotland. As part of the operation, police in Turkey located and froze high-value assets linked to the Lyons network. Eighteen raids were carried out in the past week, concentrated mainly on the Costa del Sol and in Barcelona.
Seized during the operation were electronic devices, large sums of cash, company documents, high-end watches and cryptocurrency wallets.
The Civil Guard described the Lyons organisation as having built "a complex money laundering network based on shell companies and international financial transactions, managing millions of euros derived from drug trafficking." It added that the clan's capacity to operate simultaneously across Spain, the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, while forging alliances with other major criminal networks, had made it "one of the most significant players in contemporary European organised crime."
Deportation from Bali
Indonesian authorities placed Lyons on a flight out of the country on Tuesday. The local Ngurah Rai Immigration Office, confirming the move, described him as a "mafia boss and Interpol fugitive." Bugie Kurniawan, head of the office, said: "We will not allow Indonesian territory, especially Bali, to become a haven or base of operations for international criminals."
Two decades of gang conflict
Lyons heads the Lyons group, which has been locked in a feud with the rival Daniel group for more than 20 years. In December 2006, he survived a shooting at his uncle's MOT garage in Lambhill, north Glasgow. His cousin died in the incident. Lyons subsequently moved to Spain before relocating to Dubai, where he developed ties to the Kinahan crime group.
His brother, Eddie Lyons Jnr, and associate Ross Monaghan were shot dead at a beachfront bar in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol last May. Michael Riley, 44, from Liverpool, has been accused by Spanish police of carrying out the murders. Riley had initially challenged extradition, but the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed in October that he had consented to being taken to Spain to face prosecution. A Spanish National Police detective said in the days following the double shooting that the suspect was a member of the rival Daniel gang.
Police Scotland have maintained there is nothing to suggest the murders in Spain are linked to the ongoing gang war or that the killings were planned in Scotland.
Source: The Sun