Civil Guard Take Down Feared Scottish Drugs Gang
Spain´s Civil Guard have announced the successful dismantling of one of “the most violent Scottish criminal organisation in recent decades,”
The Civil Guard made 14 arrests across Spain in coordinated raids on properties on the Costa del Sol and Barcelona as well in conjunction with the EU´s Europol and international Interpol which coordinated raids in some 20 properties in Scotland, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Spanish authorities had earlier issued a European Arrest Warrant for the detention of Steven Lyons who they’ve dubbed the “leader of this criminal group,” and who is currently detained in the Netherlands after being extradited from Indonesia.
Lyons’ partner has also been arrested at Dubai International Airport (UAE), and is alleged to be an active member of the criminal organisation.
According to the Civil Guard press release ‘Operation Amorum’ was launched more than three years ago to tackle the criminal network based on Costa del Sol, from which they say Lyons coordinated a large part of his illicit activities “on a global scale.”
The Civil Guard claim the Lyons Clan emerged in Glasgow in the 1990s, and over the decades have evolved from a local family crime network into a transnational criminal organisation with branches in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The Spanish police then alleged that the organisation developed a complex money laundering network based on shell companies and international financial transactions, managing millions of euros from drug trafficking while “operating simultaneously in several countries, including Spain, the United Arab Emirates, and Turkey.”
They also claim that, over three decades, they forged alliances with other major criminal networks and became “one of the most significant players in modern European organised crime.”
Lyons moved to Spain after surviving a 2006 shooting in Glasgow that killed his cousin, Michael Lyons, and maintained a “low criminal profile”.
Lyons later settled in Dubai, where Spanish detectives allege that he continued to direct operations for the Clan and “weave alliances” with other criminal organisations, including the notorious Kinahan Crime Cartel.
Last year, his brother and an associate were killed in a suspected gangland shooting at a beachfront bar in the muncipality of Fuengirola in Malaga province.
The presence of these clans in Spain had already been the subject of previous investigations, and in 2021 the Civil Guard arrested the leader of the Irish Hutch clan, known as the Monk.
