Scottish crime boss Steven Lyons is extradited to Spain

This is the moment crime boss Steven Lyons sets foot on Spanish soil – in handcuffs and flanked by armed cops – after his extradition earlier this Wednesday to Madrid.

The 46-year-old was wearing a blue hoodie as he was marched off the plane he was taken to Barajas Airport on from Amsterdam and put into the back of a police patrol car waiting for him on the tarmac.

But the afternoon sunshine must have proved a bit uncomfortable for the Scot – and he had his top folded over his arms and was down to just a T-shirt as he was led through a secure exit at the entrance to the airport terminal where a police van was waiting to whisk him away.

One of the two armed officers escorting him grabbed him tightly by the arm as they walked him briskly to the vehicle.

Lyons’ forced return to Spain came just under a week after he lost his fight to avoid being extradited – and this afternoon Spanish cops delivered the bombshell news Lyons was wanted over his “alleged involvement in a murder in Spain in 2024″.

He was expected to be spending his first night in a Spanish prison cell after appearing before a duty judge in Madrid as part of standard procedure when fugitives captured abroad arrive in the country.

In the coming weeks he is likely to be transferred to a lock-up near Malaga where a judge is probing him on suspicion of money laundering and membership of a criminal gang so he can be quizzed in court in person.

Arrival

Spanish police sources confirmed Wednesday’s flight from Amsterdam with Lyons on it went ahead without any hiccups as the footage of him arriving emerged. One said: “He arrived in Spain earlier today.”

A spokesman for the force subsequently said in a short statement, delivering the murder bombshell even though the court in Malaga said earlier this year it was not probing Lyons over any violent offences involving loss of life: “Delivered to Spain from the Netherlands, the leader of Scotland’s ‘Lyons Family’.

“Officers from the @policia Madrid offices of @Interpol_HQ and SIRENE made the transfer to our county possible, as he was wanted for drug trafficking, money laundering and his alleged involvement in a murder in Spain in 2024.”

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 learned he had lost his bid to block his forced return to Spain last Thursday.

Arrests

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 which has strong ties to the Kinahan cartel.

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 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 the Madrid court Lyons was appearing at this wednesday in a closed hearing is already talking to the one in Malaga.

Jail

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 at a VIP jail north of Madrid this Wednesday night.

Riley was sent to Soto del Real prison around 25 miles from the Spanish capital after arriving at Madrid’s Barajas Airport late on 15 October last year following his extradition from the UK.

He was later transferred to 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.

Investigations

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.

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.

Airport arrest

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 Guardia Civil 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 30 million euros, allegedly using several firms including a food and drinks firm and a rental car company to ‘wash’ dirty money.

During the Guardia Civil 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.