The gang started out at a youth club in the Milton area of Glasgow and turned into an international crime enterprise.
12:00, 26 Apr 2026Updated 12:42, 26 Apr 2026
Steven Lyons is head of the family. (Image: AFP via Getty Images)
The Lyons are one of Scotland’s most notorious organised crime gangs.
The Glasgow outfit started in a youth club after Eddie Lyons Snr took over the management of the Chirnsyde Community Initiative in the Milton area of north Glasgow in 1991. His sons Eddie and Steven headed up a group at the community centre known as the Club Boys.
They became synonymous with violence and drug peddling but a deadly 20-year feud with the rival Daniel clan earned them terrifying infamy. In the early 2000s, the Lyons mob transformed into an international organised crime network headed up by Steven Lyons after he fled Scotland for Spain, and later Dubai.
But the empire came crashing down last month when the crime boss, 45, was arrested in Bali and paraded for cameras. He is being held in the Netherlands before he is extradited to Spain, to face serious organised crime charges, alongside his wife Amanda, who was arrested in Dubai.
A joint police taskforce in Scotland and Spain also conducted dawn raids in properties and businesses linked to the Lyons crew. A number of key arrests were made in the crackdown – part of a two-year investigation named Operation Armorum.
So who are the Lyons clan? Here, the Record takes a look at the history of the crime group and the family tree.
Key Lyons figuresEddie Lyons Snr
Eddie Lyons Snr(Image: Spindrift)
The 67-year-old was known as the Godfather of the L-mob and passed on leadership to Steven as their criminal dealings evolved over the years.
Lyons Snr managed to garner immunity and support as he built his empire. His eight-year-old son Garry died of leukaemia in 1991. Months later Lyons was given the keys to a building to turn into a youth club in the Milton area of Glasgow – and received £1.4m of taxpayers’ money in funding for the ‘community’ project.
His teenage sons Eddie Jr and Steven headed up a group at the centre known as the Club Boys.
In the years thats followed, he managed to dupe police, council officials and politicians into backing his claims of being a respectable member of the community. He even made a brazen appearance on STV to air his views on drugs while pushing narcotics out into the streets.
The local community soon grew tired of the Club Boys and lobbied Glasgow City Council to pull funding. In 2001, a local dad named Thomas McDonnell, whose sons had suffered a terror campaign at the hands of the Club Boys, went to the centre to plead with Lyons to end the violence.
He was stabbed by a mob inside the community centre. Eddie Snr was charged with attempted murder, along with his brother Johnny and sons Steven and Eddie Jnr but they were cleared in court.
The same year one incident would spark a bloody turf war. A stash of cocaine owned by Possil-based crime family “The Daniels” was stolen from a house in Milton. When they discovered the coke was being peddled by the Club Boys, the community centre was petrol bombed and a botched shooting took place.
In 2003, Eddie’s brother Johnny was shot in a gangland attack. The following year he escaped charges after police seized £63,000 in alleged drug money from his home.
Bridget McConnell, head of culture and leisure at Glasgow City Council and wife of Scottish First Minister Jack, recommended renewing the public funding granted to Eddie Snr and it continued for more than a year while violence bubbled over on the streets.
In 2006, Daniel family associate Kevin “The Gerbil” Carroll allegedly used a 4×4 and a tow rope to topple the headstone of Eddie Snr’s son, Garry.
The following month, two men in long black coats, wearing masks and holding handguns walked into the forecourt of Applerow Motors in Lambhill and started shooting.
The MOT centre, owned by Eddie’s brother David, was a bloodbath. The attack claimed the life of 21-year-old Michael Lyons, Eddie’s nephew, and both Steven Lyons and family associate Robert “Piggy” Pickett were injured.
The youth club was eventually closed and Eddie has kept a low profile ever since.
Eddie was convicted of a £250,000 mortgage fraud and received a community payback order in 2010. He was last seen publicly in June 2025 at the funeral of his oldest son Eddie Jnr who was shot dead in the Costa Del Sol.
Thugs from the Daniel clan posted online earlier this year threatening to blow up his home in Cumbernauld.
Steven Lyons
Steven Lyons after being arrested in Bali, wearing a face mask and orange prison outfit and with his hands bound by cable ties(Image: TikTok)
Steven superseded his older brother Eddie to replace his dad as head of the family. After surviving an assassination attempt he fled Scotland for good almost immediately.
Shooters Raymond Anderson and James McDonald were caught and sentenced to a Scottish record term of 35 years each, later reduced on appeal to 30.
Setting up home in the Costa Del Sol, he started mixing with big time players, like the Kinahan cartel. The Lyons mob were soon shifting vast amounts of drugs and Steven found love in Spain with his now wife Amanda.
They moved to Dubai in 2018 where he could run the mob’s enterprises from his luxury bolthole and flew under the radar.
Steven Lyons has spent thousands changing his appearance
Pictures obtained by the Record last year showed Steven’s Dubai makeover fillers, botox and dental treatment.
But when former Union Bears capo Ross McGill, 32, started a new gang war with cocaine baron Mark Richardson and his associates in the Daniel clan last year, Steven became involved and started to supply McGill with information on targets.
The serenity of the United Arab Emirates came crashing down when he was chucked out of Dubai alongside McGill and cocaine dealer Steven Larwood. He flitted between Bahrain and Qatar in an attempt to stay near his wife and kids before he was arrested in Bali last month on an Interpol Red Notice.
Lyons was paraded around for photographers after being captured and flown to Amsterdam. He is being held in the Netherlands and is expected to be extradited to Spain to face money laundering charges.
Spanish police said they had been working on an international investigation into Lyons with partner agencies for more than two years.
Amanda Lyons
Amanda Lyons wife of Steven Lyons was also arrested(Image: Facebook)
Amanda Lyons, 38, is the daughter of heroin dealer Ricky Hayes and spent much of her childhood living with her dad on the Costa Del Sol.
He began his criminal career selling heroin in Glasgow’s Easterhouse, running a network of street dealers including Derek ‘Deco’ Ferguson – who would go on to become Scotland’s most wanted fugitive.
She met Steven in Marbella after he fled Scotland.
Amanda Lyons worked as a nail technician and make up artist.(Image: Facebook)
Amanda worked as a make-up artist at the Golden Tarts salon in Marbella, styling TOWIE celebrities before giving birth to the couple’s first child in 2016. A source told the Record her glam pals from the salon believed she had moved to the United Arab Emirates to set up a family but they were stunned when she was detained at Dubai Airport at the end of last month.
After the arrest, cops in Spain and Dubai have said Amanda was a member of the Lyons criminal network.
Her sister Rebecca Hayes was arrested in Spain as part of the wider police operation.
Eddie Lyons jnr
Eddie Lyons jnr and Ross Monaghan(Image: Daily Record)
Eddie was at the centre of the feud with the Daniel clan and cheated death when he was shot twice. He suffered serious injuries when he was blasted at close range in 2006 by Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll in Bellshill.
Gerbil was shot dead by Lyons associates in 2010 but the violence continued and Eddie was shot in the stomach on his doorstep in Cumbernauld two years later.
Eddie and his pal Ross Monaghan later appeared in court but were cleared of a vicious street attack on three men outside a bar in East Dunbartonshire which took place in April 2016. The trial collapsed when two of the alleged victims said they had no memory of what had happened to them.
Two men were killed at the scene outside Monaghans in Fuengirola (Image: X)
The 46-year-old remained on the fringes of the gang before he was gunned down alongside Monaghan, 43, at a boozer in Fuengirola on 31 May, 2025.
A gunman burst into the bar and shot the pair to death as they watched the Champions League Final. Police Scotland insist the murders were nothing to do with the gang war but Spanish cops have blamed the Daniel clan.
They were laid to rest at a joint funeral in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, in July.
(Image: Alasdair MacLeod/Daily Record)
Liverpool man Michael Riley was arrested in connection with the deaths last year. He was extradited to Spain and is now in jail awaiting a murder trial.
David Lyons
David Lyons died of a heart attack(Image: Daily Record)
Owner of Applerow Motors, David survived the shooting which killed his nephew Michael after taking cover. Ten days later, he received a ‘ransom note’ delivered to his home.
It said: “The boys owe me £25,000 and I want what’s owed to me. It’s for drugs. They all know what it’s about. The money doesn’t matter to me as it’s got to be paid to the piper. I don’t want the police, the boys, not even your wife, knowing about it. If you keep them out of this then all your lives can go back to normal as we are all losing money through this.
“If you have any tricks for my pickup man then all the deals are off. Remember to keep your mouth shut. No cameras, no surveillance, as the pickup man doesn’t know nothing so he’s no use to you. Drop off, 4pm Saturday. I’ll draw you a map and X will mark the spot.”
Years after the shooting, David lost his licence to carry out MOT tests when police claimed he was “involved in serious and organised crime, including trafficking and supply of class A drugs”.
Officers had urged vehicle inspection agency VOSA to strip him of the licence as part of a strategy to target the business interests of suspected criminals.
Protesting innocence, David threatened to put £40,000 of his own money on the line to take Strathclyde Police to court and prove it.
He died at University Hospital Monklands in 2022, aged 63, after falling outside his home in Cumbernauld.
Debbie Lyons
Debbie Lyons was found dead in Milton, Glasgow, on Tuesday(Image: UGC)
Debbie was the sister of Eddie Lyons Snr. Having struggled with drugs for 30 years, she was described as a “lost soul” and was found dead at her home in the Milton area of Glasgow in 2020.
Paul Lyons
Paul Lyons
The son of David Lyons, Paul was jailed in 2010 for the road rage killing of van driver Mark Fleeman, 32.
He chased down his victim on the M74, hitting speeds of 100mph, after a night out. Dad-of-two Mr Fleeman died at the scene after Lyons rammed his van, causing it to leave the road and overturn.
Lee Allsup, Mr Fleeman’s 17-year-old passenger, also suffered life-changing brain and leg injuries.
In January 2023, he was let out of prison to attend his dad’s funeral, flanked by three prison guards. As well as placing a rose in his dad’s coffin, Paul also gave a speech as part of the eulogy.
He was attacked in prison later that year by Peter Allen but refused to pin the blame on him. Allen is serving a life sentence for stabbing a man 142 times and leaving a knife lodged in his eye socket.
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