Crime boss Steven Lyons will be extradited to Spain to face organised crime charges, a hearing in the Netherlands has decided. The head of the Lyons crime clan appeared in a blue hoodie and jeans for the hearing at Amsterdam District Court today. The 46-year-old, who was sat beside an interpreter and flanked by three armed guards, was told by the judge he would be sent to Spain imminently.
Arne Kloosterman, his lawyer, previously claimed Lyons' capture and deportation in Bali earlier this year was similar to 'a kidnapping'. His legal team contested his extradition to Spain and said the decision of Spain's Guardia Civil to transfer him from Indonesia to the Netherlands was outside of Spain's authority and jurisdiction.
Lyons has been held in a high-security prison alongside other notorious cons since April. He was booted out of Dubai in September after authorities in the UAE probed his links to organised crime. He flitted between neighbouring Gulf states before travelling to Bali at the end of March where he was detained on an Interpol Red Notice. Indonesian cops paraded him in an orange jumpsuit on the island. From there, he was repatriated on a flight from Denpasar to Jakarta and then placed on a flight to Amsterdam.
Spanish police claimed they had 'smashed' the Lyons' operation following the arrest of multiple associates of the gang. Officers from the Spanish Civil Guard used battering rams to force entry to multiple properties and businesses in a spate of pre-dawn raids on the Costa Del Sol. A total of 14 of Lyons' foot soldiers were arrested in four countries, with 20 people still currently under investigation. The arrests came as part of Operation Armorum, which has also seen police in Turkey locate and freeze high-value assets linked to the Lyons network.
Electronic devices, large amounts of cash, company documents, high-end watches and cryptocurrency wallets were seized as part of the probe. Officers from Police Scotland simultaneously arrested eight men at addresses in Glasgow, Bellshill, Cumbernauld, Gartcosh, Caldercruix, Coatbridge and East Whitburn on March 27. The men all appeared in court charged with a variety of offences, including organised crime. Spanish investigators claim Lyons, who had reportedly been on Spain's wanted list for two years, laundered upwards of around £26 million.
Police in Spain also carried out a raid on the Spanish pub where Lyons' brother Eddie Jnr and Ross Monaghan were assassinated last year. The Fuengirola pub was one of the 18 places the Civil Guard targeted. The bar reopened under a new name Irish Rovers after the incident, linked by Spanish cops to a turf war between rival gangs in Glasgow, the Daniel and Lyons gangs. Alleged hitman Michael Riley is currently being detained at Teixeiro Prison in Spain's north-west region of Galicia after being cuffed in Liverpool and extradited in June last year.
Lyons' wife was also nicked in the Middle East in the ongoing international probe to derail a drug trafficking network and the ongoing turf war in Scotland. Amanda Lyons was arrested at Dubai Airport just days after her husband was detained in Bali. She was apprehended by UAE officers after being flagged up as a wanted person by the Interpol.
