How a Scottish gangland feud went global

The arrests of 4 main Scottish crime figures in Dubai stay shrouded in thriller greater than 10 days after they have been taken into custody.

Steven Lyons, Ross McGill, Stephen Jamieson and Steven Larwood have been held within the United Arab Emirates since 16 September.

Police Scotland imagine all 4 are linked to criminality, starting from drug importation to a contemporary wave of gangland violence throughout the central belt.

The Gulf raids are the newest improvement in a bloody feud between the Lyons and the Daniel households which has raged for 25 years.

Each gangs are actually on their second era of leaders.

The Lyons crime group is at present headed by Steven Lyons, one of many Dubai 4.

It rose to prominence below the management of his father Eddie, of Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire.

Jamie Daniel – who grew to become a millionaire after beginning out as a scrap steel seller in Glasgow’s Possil – based and led the crime clan bearing his identify.

When he died from most cancers in July 2016 there was no apparent successor however the energy vacuum he left behind was finally stuffed by his nephew, Steven “Bonzo” Daniel.

The bitter rivalry between the 2 households is claimed thus far again to the theft of a £20,000 stash of cocaine from a Daniel protected home within the north of Glasgow in 2001.

However in December 2006 it grew to become headline information when Michael Lyons, 21, was shot useless after two masked gunmen walked into his uncle’s MoT storage.

Steven Lyons and an affiliate, Robert Pickett, have been injured within the ambush, which was later described in courtroom as “like a scene out of The Godfather”.

In Could 2008, Daniel gang members Raymond Anderson and James McDonald have been convicted of the assault and every sentenced to 35 years in jail, which was later diminished on enchantment.

A sequence of tit-for-tat assaults adopted, starting from shootings to kidnappings, however it could be January 2010 earlier than the feud claimed a second sufferer.

Daniel clan enforcer Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll had organized to fulfill drug seller Stephen Glen exterior an Asda retailer in Glasgow’s Robroyston.

Glen later recalled being instructed: “You are working for me now, anyone that does not fall in line goes to get banged.”

Minutes later Carroll, 29, was sitting within the again seat of an Audi A3 within the automobile park when a Volkswagen Golf screeched to a halt.

As lunchtime consumers seemed on, two gunmen obtained out and shot Carroll 13 instances.

I used to be the Day by day Document’s crime reporter on the time and was despatched to a retail park frozen in time. As darkness fell, the primary autos have been finally allowed to depart the huge police cordon.

However, understandably, no-one stopped to discuss probably the most public gangland hit ever carried out in Scotland.

Carroll’s significance was later highlighted in courtroom when it emerged detectives investigating the taking pictures had compiled a list of 99 potential suspects.

In Could 2015, William “Buff” Paterson, who fled to Spain after the killing, was convicted of homicide and instructed he should serve a minimal of twenty-two years in jail.

Decide Lord Armstrong instructed him: “It was not a spontaneous occasion which occurred on the spur of the second, it was in impact an execution.”

Jamie Daniel’s demise, on the age of 58, was the catalyst for the third vital chapter within the story.

It sparked a savage marketing campaign of violence towards his associates.

The victims included his successor, Steven “Bonzo” Daniel, who was left with horrific facial accidents after a high-speed automobile chase by way of Glasgow in Could 2017.

A courtroom later heard a graphic account of how he was attacked with bladed weapons after he crashed his Skoda Octavia – which had been fitted with a monitoring system – and handed out behind the wheel.

Two years later, six associates of the Lyons family have been jailed after being discovered responsible of 5 homicide plots.

Lord Mulholland instructed them: “You sought to show Glasgow right into a battle zone in your feud.”

The Dubai arrests even have a hyperlink to the case of Jamie “Iceman” Stevenson, who was jailed final 12 months for masterminding a £100m plot to smuggle cocaine from South America in bins of bananas.

Throughout his trial, he lodged a particular defence of incrimination towards three males together with Stephen Jamieson, one of many 4 main gangland figures now believed to be in custody within the UAE.

The Excessive Courtroom in Glasgow heard that Jamieson’s current whereabouts have been “unknown”.

Final December, the Lyons/Daniel feud was launched to a wider UK viewers as the main target of a six-part BBC Gangster podcast.

At the moment, a lot of the content material was historic – however by the summer time the producers had cause to fee a brand new episode.

Till just lately, Ross McGill was finest identified to police as the previous head of Rangers Soccer Membership’s ultras fan group, the Union Bears. However after a gangland feud erupted in Edinburgh in March, his identify started to appear within the tabloids.

Studies recommended McGill, who as soon as co-ordinated chants on the Ibrox terraces, was now orchestrating the wave of violence throughout the central belt from his new residence in Dubai.

The set off was a falling out between McGill and Edinburgh-based Mark Richardson – who has connections to the Daniel crime group – over a drug deal mentioned to contain faux financial institution notes.

McGill’s relative anonymity contrasted with Richardson, who was jailed in 2018 for his position in what detectives described as Scotland’s most sophisticated crime gang.

In April, the assaults unfold from the capital to Glasgow and the violence escalated from deliberate fires to terrifying assaults.

A profile of the victims additionally started to emerge.

They included people linked to the Daniel household, which naturally led detectives to suspect the Lyons clan had a big hand in occasions.

In a single incident, a 72-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy have been attacked at a home in Milton within the north of Glasgow.

A 54-year-old man was additionally significantly injured exterior his residence in Edinburgh.

Because the variety of incidents spiralled, movies and threats have been posted on social media below the banner of Tamo Junta.

The gang is reportedly led by McGill, who goes by the nickname Miami.

This tactic is believed by legislation enforcement sources to have created tensions with Steven Lyons, who had been content material to maintain a low profile in Dubai.

Lyons had settled there after initially leaving Scotland for Spain, quickly after being injured within the 2006 storage taking pictures.

However within the area of some weeks the assaults put a number of the nation’s main underworld figures and their associates again below the police highlight.

Steven Lyons’ prison alliances embody ties to the Dubai-based Kinahan crime group.

He’s understood to have cast a relationship with founder Christy’s son, former boxing promoter Daniel Kinahan, whereas residing within the Costa del Sol.

Stephen Dempster, producer of Kinahan: The True Story of Ireland’s Mafia, instructed BBC Scotland’s Scotcast that by the mid-2010s the Lyons group had grow to be greater and wealthier by tapping into the cartel’s world community.

The BBC journalist additionally mentioned the UAE was a pretty vacation spot for main criminals.

“There’s a degree of freedom in Dubai. You’ll be able to spend your cash. There’s property to be purchased,” he mentioned. “It is also a spot with mild contact monetary regulation.”

For probably the most half, Steven Lyons’ enterprise was largely carried out within the shadows – however one night time in Spain modified every little thing.

On 31 Could, a lone gunman walked right into a beachfront bar in Fuengirola and shot his brother, Eddie Lyons Jnr. The suspect then pursued Eddie’s good friend, Ross Monaghan, inside and opened fireplace.

Each males have been pronounced dead at the scene.

Because the information of their deaths reached Scotland the next morning, there was a real sense of shock on the murders.

Eddie Jnr, 46, and Monaghan, 43, have been main gamers within the Lyons crime group. The pair, who have been cremated following a double funeral, had each survived earlier makes an attempt on their lives.

Eddie was shot and wounded in a 2006 assault which was believed to have been carried out by Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll.

Monaghan stood trial for Carroll’s homicide earlier than the case against him collapsed in 2012. 5 years later, he was shot outside a Glasgow primary school.

There was a pure suspicion that the murders have been linked to the violence which had performed out in Scotland over the earlier two months.

However on 3 June, Police Scotland said there was at present nothing to counsel the shootings have been associated to the continuing gang battle, which it’s investigating below Operation Portaledge.

This chimed with the observations of some legislation enforcement sources who mentioned the double hit marked a big escalation from occasions in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In an surprising twist, a Spanish detective later instructed reporters {that a} Liverpool man, arrested in reference to the murders, was a member of the rival Daniel gang.

Police Scotland responded by sustaining its unique place – that it wasn’t conscious of any proof the shootings have been linked to the feud, or had been deliberate from Scotland.

Later within the month, Chief Constable Jo Farrell mentioned detectives have been constructing intelligence to focus on the leaders of the teams concerned.

Her message to anybody directing violence in Scotland from a overseas nation was: “We’ll be coming after you.”

Requested what might be executed if somebody was based mostly in Dubai, Farrell mentioned officers have been working intently with the Crown Workplace and the Nationwide Crime Company “to see if we will get these folks again from these nations”.

Within the weeks that adopted, officers made additional arrests below Operation Portaledge – taking the whole to 57 – however there was a way that the momentum was slowing.

After which got here the swoop in Dubai, which caught the drive abruptly.

BBC Scotland Information understands the 4 males have been focused in reference to alleged offences within the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

However thus far there was no official affirmation from the Gulf in regards to the arrests, not to mention why they have been made.

Every week on, all Dubai Police would say, by way of electronic mail, was: “We can not share this info resulting from confidentiality.”

Given the knowledge vacuum, what occurs subsequent is unclear.

However the latest extradition to Eire of gangland murder suspect Sean McGovern raises the prospect that Lyons, McGill, Jamieson and Larwood may return to Scotland.

Radha Stirling, founding father of Detained in Dubai, mentioned the UAE had just lately been co-operating with extradition requests and arresting needed folks extra often than it had up to now.

“Whereas the UK will nearly definitely push for extradition, it stays to be seen whether or not such a request will probably be granted,” she mentioned.

The London-based human rights lawyer mentioned the UK had traditionally declined extraditions to the Emirates as a result of danger of human rights violations, unfair trials, discrimination and torture.

“It will be disheartening if the removing of alleged fugitives to Britain put strange residents at elevated danger of being despatched the opposite means,” she added.

BBC Scotland Information tried a number of avenues to acquire details about the arrests.

We acquired no response from the Dubai authorities, the UK embassy in Dubai, or the UAE embassy in London.

A spokesman for the International, Commonwealth & Improvement Workplace would solely say that it was in touch with the household of 1 British man within the UAE and the native authorities.

Many unanswered questions stay and what occurs subsequent is anybody’s guess.

However the destiny of the Dubai 4 will probably be watched with curiosity by Gulf-based organised criminals who, till final week, believed they have been untouchable.