From drug theft to Dubai arrests: How a Scottish gangland feud went global

The arrests of four major Scottish crime figures in Dubai remain shrouded in mystery more than 10 days after they were taken into custody.

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

Police Scotland believe all four are linked to criminality, ranging from drug importation to a fresh wave of gangland violence across the central belt.

The Gulf raids are the latest development in a bloody feud between the Lyons and the Daniel families which has raged for 25 years.

Both gangs are now on their second generation of leaders.

The Lyons crime group is currently headed by Steven Lyons, one of the Dubai four.

It rose to prominence under the leadership of his father Eddie, of Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire.

Jamie Daniel – who became a millionaire after starting out as a scrap metal dealer in Glasgow’s Possil – founded and led the crime clan bearing his name.

When he died from cancer in July 2016 there was no obvious successor but the power vacuum he left behind was eventually filled by his nephew, Steven “Bonzo” Daniel.

The bitter rivalry between the two families is said to date back to the theft of a £20,000 stash of cocaine from a Daniel safe house in the north of Glasgow in 2001.

But in December 2006 it became headline news when Michael Lyons, 21, was shot dead after two masked gunmen walked into his uncle’s MoT garage.

Steven Lyons and an associate, Robert Pickett, were injured in the ambush, which was later described in court as “like a scene out of The Godfather”.

In May 2008, Daniel gang members Raymond Anderson and James McDonald were convicted of the attack and each sentenced to 35 years in jail, which was later reduced on appeal.

A series of tit-for-tat attacks followed, ranging from shootings to kidnappings, but it would be January 2010 before the feud claimed a second victim.

Daniel clan enforcer Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll had arranged to meet drug dealer Stephen Glen outside an Asda store in Glasgow’s Robroyston.

Glen later recalled being told: “You’re working for me now, anybody that doesn’t fall in line is going to get banged.”

Minutes later Carroll, 29, was sitting in the back seat of an Audi A3 in the car park when a Volkswagen Golf screeched to a halt.

As lunchtime shoppers looked on, two gunmen got out and shot Carroll 13 times.

I was the Daily Record’s crime reporter at the time and was sent to a retail park frozen in time. As darkness fell, the first vehicles were eventually allowed to leave the massive police cordon.

But, understandably, no-one stopped to speak about the most public gangland hit ever carried out in Scotland.

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

In May 2015, William “Buff” Paterson, who fled to Spain after the killing, was convicted of murder and told he must serve a minimum of 22 years in jail.

Judge Lord Armstrong told him: “It was not a spontaneous event which happened on the spur of the moment, it was in effect an execution.”

Jamie Daniel’s death, at the age of 58, was the catalyst for the third significant chapter in the story.

It sparked a savage campaign of violence against his associates.

The victims included his successor, Steven “Bonzo” Daniel, who was left with horrific facial injuries after a high-speed car chase through Glasgow in May 2017.

A court 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 tracking device – and passed out behind the wheel.

Two years later, six associates of the Lyons family were jailed after being found guilty of five murder plots.

Lord Mulholland told them: “You sought to turn Glasgow into a war zone for your feud.”

The Dubai arrests also have a link to the case of Jamie “Iceman” Stevenson, who was jailed last year for masterminding a £100m plot to smuggle cocaine from South America in boxes of bananas.

During his trial, he lodged a special defence of incrimination against three men including Stephen Jamieson, one of the four major gangland figures now believed to be in custody in the UAE.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that Jamieson’s present whereabouts were “unknown”.

Last December, the Lyons/Daniel feud was introduced to a wider UK audience as the focus of a six-part BBC Gangster podcast.

At that time, much of the content was historical – but by the summer the producers had reason to commission a new episode.

Until recently, Ross McGill was best known to police as the former head of Rangers Football Club’s ultras fan group, the Union Bears. But after a gangland feud erupted in Edinburgh in March, his name began to appear in the tabloids.

Reports suggested McGill, who once co-ordinated chants on the Ibrox terraces, was now orchestrating the wave of violence across the central belt from his new home in Dubai.

The trigger was a falling out between McGill and Edinburgh-based Mark Richardson – who has connections to the Daniel crime group – over a drug deal said to involve fake bank notes.

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

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

A profile of the victims also began to emerge.

They included individuals linked to the Daniel family, which naturally led detectives to suspect the Lyons clan had a significant hand in events.

In one incident, a 72-year-old woman and a 12-year-old boy were attacked at a house in Milton in the north of Glasgow.

A 54-year-old man was also seriously injured outside his home in Edinburgh.

As the number of incidents spiralled, videos and threats were posted on social media under the banner of Tamo Junta.

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

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

Lyons had settled there after initially leaving Scotland for Spain, soon after being injured in the 2006 garage shooting.

But in the space of a few weeks the attacks put some of the country’s leading underworld figures and their associates back under the police spotlight.

Steven Lyons’ criminal alliances include ties to the Dubai-based Kinahan crime group.

He is understood to have forged a relationship with founder Christy’s son, former boxing promoter Daniel Kinahan, while living in the Costa del Sol.

Stephen Dempster, producer of Kinahan: The True Story of Ireland’s Mafia, told BBC Scotland’s Scotcast that by the mid-2010s the Lyons group had become bigger and wealthier by tapping into the cartel’s global network.

The BBC journalist also said the UAE was an attractive destination for major criminals.

“There is a level of freedom in Dubai. You can spend your money. There is property to be bought,” he said. “It’s also a place with light touch financial regulation.”

For the most part, Steven Lyons’ business was largely conducted in the shadows – but one night in Spain changed everything.

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

Both men were pronounced dead at the scene.

As the news of their deaths reached Scotland the following morning, there was a genuine sense of shock at the murders.

Eddie Jnr, 46, and Monaghan, 43, were major players in the Lyons crime group. The pair, who were cremated following a double funeral, had both survived previous attempts on their lives.

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

Monaghan stood trial for Carroll’s murder before the case against him collapsed in 2012. Five years later, he was shot outside a Glasgow primary school.

There was a natural suspicion that the murders were linked to the violence which had played out in Scotland over the previous two months.

But on 3 June, Police Scotland said there was currently nothing to suggest the shootings were related to the ongoing gang war, which it is investigating under Operation Portaledge.

This chimed with the observations of some law enforcement sources who said the double hit marked a significant escalation from events in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In an unexpected twist, a Spanish detective later told reporters that a Liverpool man, arrested in connection with the murders, was a member of the rival Daniel gang.

Police Scotland responded by maintaining its original position – that it wasn’t aware of any evidence the shootings were linked to the feud, or had been planned from Scotland.

Later in the month, Chief Constable Jo Farrell said detectives were building intelligence to target the leaders of the groups involved.

Her message to anyone directing violence in Scotland from a foreign country was: “We’ll be coming after you.”

Asked what could be done if someone was based in Dubai, Farrell said officers were working closely with the Crown Office and the National Crime Agency “to see if we can get those people back from those countries”.

In the weeks that followed, officers made further arrests under Operation Portaledge – taking the total to 57 – but there was a sense that the momentum was slowing.

And then came the swoop in Dubai, which caught the force by surprise.

BBC Scotland News understands the four men were targeted in connection with alleged offences in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

But to date there has been no official confirmation from the Gulf about the arrests, let alone why they were made.

A week on, all Dubai Police would say, via email, was: “We cannot share this information due to confidentiality.”

Given the information vacuum, what happens next is unclear.

But the recent extradition to Ireland of gangland murder suspect Sean McGovern raises the prospect that Lyons, McGill, Jamieson and Larwood could return to Scotland.

Radha Stirling, founder of Detained in Dubai, said the UAE had recently been co-operating with extradition requests and arresting wanted people more frequently than it had in the past.

“While the UK will almost certainly push for extradition, it remains to be seen whether such a request will be granted,” she said.

The London-based human rights lawyer said the UK had historically declined extraditions to the Emirates due to the risk of human rights violations, unfair trials, discrimination and torture.

“It would be disheartening if the removal of alleged fugitives to Britain put ordinary citizens at increased risk of being sent the other way,” she added.

BBC Scotland News tried several avenues to obtain information about the arrests.

We received no response from the Dubai government, the UK embassy in Dubai, or the UAE embassy in London.

A spokesman for the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office would only say that it was in contact with the family of one British man in the UAE and the local authorities.

Many unanswered questions remain and what happens next is anyone’s guess.

But the fate of the Dubai four will be watched with interest by Gulf-based organised criminals who, until last week, believed they were untouchable.