Spanish authorities have confirmed that a man has been arrested in the UK in connection with the killings of two Scottish gang members on the Costa del Sol.
Ross Monaghan, 43, and Eddie Lyons Jr, 46, were fatally shot at Monaghan’s pub in Fuengirola, Málaga (Andalusia) on 31 May. Both men were affiliated with the Lyons family, a well-known organised crime syndicate operating out of western Scotland. ALSO READ: Spanish police investigate drugs link after two Scots shot dead on Costa del Sol.
The two were watching the Champions League final with friends at the beachside bar when they were gunned down.
According to the BBC, the arrest took place in Liverpool, where Merseyside police detained a suspect under an international arrest warrant issued by Spanish authorities. While no official statement has yet been released by Spanish police, The Times newspaper quoted a police source commenting about the arrest:
‘The specialist UDYCO Costa del Sol police group [Organised Crime and Drugs Unit], which is leading the investigation, has identified this man. As they couldn’t find him in the places where they thought he could have been in Malaga, they asked a court in Fuengirola, which has opened a judicial investigation into the shootings, to issue an international arrest warrant for this man. Police in the UK have arrested the man in Liverpool.’
No information has been released so far regarding the arrested individual’s nationality or age.
The suspect is expected to be extradited to Spain, where authorities intend to question him over the double murder. During the attack, Lyons Jr was shot once outside the bar, in view of witnesses, while Monaghan was chased into the pub and killed inside.
The assailant initially escaped on foot before being picked up by a getaway driver in a vehicle parked nearby. The car then sped east along the N340 dual carriageway toward Benalmádena.
Any extradition will require approval from a UK court, and the process could be prolonged if the suspect contests the request.
In the wake of the shootings, Police Scotland released a statement clarifying that there was no intelligence suggesting a link to any on-going gang feud in central Scotland, despite initial media reports suggesting that there was.
The investigation is being led by UDYCO, working under the supervision of a judge based in Fuengirola.
Monaghan, a career criminal who fled Scotland for Spain after a failed attempt on his life outside a Glasgow primary school in 2017, was tried but acquitted in 2012 for the murder of the notorious gangster Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll in a supermarket car park in 2010.
In another case from August 2017, Monaghan and Lyons Jr were cleared of charges relating to a street assault on three men outside the Campsie bar in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire.
This recent double murder occurred just weeks after the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old British man in Calahonda, a 15-minute drive from Fuengirola toward Marbella. That killing took place at around 8pm on 21 April, when the man was shot dead in what police believe was a targeted assassination after a football match.
The attackers fled in a car that was later found burned out. Authorities suspect the murder was related to drug-gang activity, though no arrests have yet been made.
The victim, believed to be from Liverpool, has not been officially named.
At the time, it was reported that this incident marked the fourth shooting on the Costa del Sol that month. The area has seen a spike in violent clashes between rival gangs, with various international criminal organisations known to operate in the region.
Just four days before the Calahonda shooting, a 34-year-old man was hospitalised in Marbella after being shot outside a nightclub in the resort.
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