Crime boss Steven Lyons is due to sleep in a Spanish prison tonight after being extradited from the Netherlands. The 46-year-old Scot was flown to Madrid this afternoon accompanied by Spanish police who travelled to the Netherlands to collect him.
In line with standard procedure he was brought before a duty judge in the Spanish capital who was expected to remand him last night to a local jail ahead of his scheduled transfer in the coming weeks to Malaga where a judge is probing him on suspicion of money laundering and membership of a criminal gang.
Extradition from Amsterdam
Spanish police sources confirmed today's flight from Amsterdam with Lyons on it went ahead without any hiccups. One said: "He arrived in Spain earlier today."
Lyons was held in Holland at the start of April on a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Malaga judge after being put on a plane to Holland following his deportation from Bali. He opposed extradition after his lawyer likened the deportation to a “kidnapping” during a hearing in June before three judges at Amsterdam District Court. Lyons learnt he had lost his bid to block his forced return to Spain last Thursday.
Operation Arborum raids
His detention followed a series of end-of-March raids in Scotland and on the Costa del Sol resulting in the arrests of more than a dozen people as part of Operation Arborum against the Lyons Gang. The seven arrested in Spain, who include Lyons’ sister-in-law Rebecca Hayes, are also being investigated on suspicion of money laundering and membership of a criminal organisation by the same judge who made Steven Lyons a wanted man.
The crime boss’s glamorous moll wife Amanda, 38, was held at Dubai’s airport at the request of Spanish police who remain confident she will also end up in custody on the Costa del Sol after being extradited along with her husband. A well-placed source said today the Madrid court Lyons was appearing at in a closed hearing is already talking to the one in Malaga.
Likely prison transfer
If he follows in the footsteps of Michael Riley, the man accused of killing his brother Eddie Lyons Jnr and pal Ross Monaghan outside a Fuengirola pub in May last year, Steven Lyons will end up tonight at a VIP jail north of Madrid. Riley was sent to Soto del Real prison around 25 miles from the Spanish capital after arriving at Madrid’s Barajas Airport late on October 15 last year following his extradition from the UK. He was later transferred to cramped Alhaurin de la Torre prison near Malaga, the same place Lyons is likely to end up at eventually so he can be quizzed in person by the judge leading the ongoing money laundering probe after a spell at a lock-up in Madrid.
Riley, 45, was moved to Teixeiro Prison in Spain’s north-west region of Galicia a 10.5 hour drive from Alhaurin de la Torre, in anticipation of Steven Lyons’ extradition. The reason for the transfer has not been officially disclosed, but is thought to be part of a pre-emptive security move to neutralise the problems that could occur if he and Lyons end up together.
Legal process and background
Under Spanish law suspects can be held for up to four years on remand, although a two-year extension after the initial two years of incarceration are up has to be approved by a judge at a special hearing. Judicial investigations of the sort Lyons is at the centre of in Spain can take several months if not years to complete.
Steven Lyons is the head of the Lyons clan, which has been involved in a bloody feud with the rival Daniel group for more than 20 years. After Michael Riley’s arrest for the murder of Steven’s brother and pal, Spanish cops organised a press conference where Malaga-based police chief Pedro Agudo Novo claimed Riley was about to flee his UK bolthole for a “paradise island tax haven” when he was held on an international arrest warrant in the UK. He also said the man accused of shooting dead the mobsters at Monaghan’s Irish pub Monaghans Fuengirola, was a member of a rival Scots gang he named as the Daniel crime clan. Police Scotland insisted afterwards they had “no intelligence” to suggest the killings were linked to the turf war there.
The pub dad-of-two Ross owned and was shot dead inside moments after his 43-year-old gang pal was killed with a bullet to the neck on the terrace outside, has now reopened under the new name Irish Rover.
Arrest in Bali
Lyons was arrested on March 28 after arriving at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport from Singapore Indonesia’s immigration system flagged him through an Interpol Red Notice issued at Spain’s request. His Bali airport detention came shortly after a joint Scottish-Spanish operation targeted alleged members of the Lyons crime group in a series of simultaneous raids in Bellshill, Glasgow, Gartcosh, Whitburn, Caldercruix, Cumbernauld, Coatbridge, Barcelona and the Malaga area.
After his detention on a European Arrest Warrant in Amsterdam on April 8, the Spanish Civil Guard described the Lyons gang as a “highly sophisticated criminal organisation characterised by violence”. They said: “The Civil Guard, as part of an operation called Armorum, have smashed the structure in Spain of the so-called Lyons Clan, one of the most violent criminal organisations that have originated in Scotland in the last few decades. The detainees include S.L, the leader of this organisation mainly dedicated to drug trafficking and money laundering, as well as the commission of violent crimes of all types. The operation has concluded with the arrest of 14 people in different countries. The authorities have also acted in Indonesia with the support of the Civil Guard where SL was arrested and subsequently flown to Holland and a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Spanish authorities executed.”
Police have estimated the Lyons gang laundered more than EUROS 30 million (POUNDS 26 million), allegedly using several firms including a food and drinks firm and a rental car company to ‘wash’ dirty money. During the Civil Guard raids in late March more than 100 grisly photos of punishment beatings and torture linked to the Lyons gang were found at a flat in Fuengirola. They were later shared with police in Scotland so they could help to try to identify the victims pictured in the gory snaps.
