One week ago, at 11:30pm on Saturday 31 May, a man stepped out of a car in Fuengirola on the Costa del Sol, arrived at an Irish beachfront bar packed with tourists and shot two men dead at point-blank range.
This was no hot-blooded rampage. This was a professional job. A cold, calculated mafia-style execution, and – shockingly – the seventh shooting on the Costa del Sol in just 45 days.
Dressed in a black jacket and shorts, with a white T-shirt wrapped around his face and a baseball cap pulled over his eyes, the gunman killed 46-year-old Eddie Lyons Jnr on the outside terrace.
The Mail now understands that Lyons was on a ‘lads golfing holiday’ with more than a dozen friends and had gone to Monaghans bar to watch the Champions League final which had ended just moments earlier.
As Lyons’ dumbstruck friends knelt over his body desperately looking for signs of life, the killer then marched purposefully into the bar as terrified revellers threw themselves to the floor.
‘I thought I was hearing fireworks at first,’ recalled one man who had been watching the Champions League final on the bar’s big screen. ‘But then I saw the noise was coming from someone firing a gun.’
Once inside, the gunman locked eyes on the barkeeper himself – 43-year-old Ross Monaghan – and shot him in the abdomen. Monaghan collapsed. The shooter adjusted his aim and squeezed the trigger again – nothing. The gun had jammed.
CCTV footage released earlier this week by Spanish police shows the moment that a desperate Monaghan attempts to crawl away to safety, with a deathly red stain seeping across his otherwise pristine white T-shirt.
But despite his assailant’s weapon malfunctioning, the flame-haired Monaghan must surely have known the game was up.
Gangsters Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr are believed to have been murdered in a deadly double assassination in Spain
It was. A volley of four further shots and he crumpled to the floor. The assassin fled around the corner to a waiting car that sped up the winding dual carriageway eastward towards neighbouring Benalmadena, purposefully avoiding toll booths on the parallel highway.
Back in the bar and an unnamed British nurse rushed inside where she found a truly horrifying scene: ‘He was lying on the floor and was still alive but his breathing was laboured,’ she revealed of Monaghan. ‘There was nothing I could do. I just held his hand, stroked his hair and waited for the emergency services.’
When paramedics did arrive, Monaghan and Lyons were both pronounced dead, their bodies covered and eventually taken away in an ambulance along the same road down which their killer had not long fled.
The deceased pair were soon revealed to be no ordinary British expats. Monaghan and Lyons were notorious gangsters affiliated to the Lyons family – one of the most violent organised crime gangs in Scotland – and with rap sheets almost as long as this sun-kissed stretch of coastline.
When the Mail visited earlier this week, Monaghans bar remained closed, its glass doors locked, lights off and chairs neatly tucked under tables.
And yet, despite the horrific events of last weekend, the bars either side of Monaghans, which include the popular Irish haunt ‘Fibbers’ and the proudly British ‘Pub Royal’ (which boasts the royal coat of arms above its entrance) were teeming with holidaymakers.
It appeared to be business as usual on the beachfront. When the Mail spoke with drinkers basking outside Fibbers in the 30c midday heat, one Scottish man – who asked not to be named – told us: ‘These things happen. You’re not gonna stop me having a beer on my holidays just cause some pups[people] got popped next door.’
Yet some have speculated that last weekend’s shooting marks a dramatic escalation in a more than 25-year-old feud between the Lyons family and their sworn adversaries, the Glasgow-based Daniel family.
These fearsome gangs, both of whom preside over billion pound empires founded on drugs, counterfeiting, car theft and racketeering.
Footage showing the moment Ross Monaghan’s killer chased him round the Costa de Sol pub before the assassination
Emergency services at the scene of the shooting. Police Scotland have tried to pour water on allegations that the recent cold-blooded murders in Spain were ‘planned from within Scotland’
The authorities are now braced for potential revenge attacks with one unnamed Spanish official warning that the latest assassinations could spark ‘all-out war’.
Indeed, just minutes after the murders, a million pound villa in the Scottish county of Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, was firebombed.
Police Scotland have tried to pour water on allegations that the recent cold-blooded murders in Spain were ‘planned from within Scotland’ and has insisted there ‘is currently no intelligence to suggest the deaths of these two men in Spain are linked to the recent criminal attacks in Scotland’.
Nevertheless, former director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency Graeme Pearson said earlier this week: ‘I don’t think that you could overestimate the impact that will arise from the deaths of these two men.
‘Both Lyons and Monaghan have been part of organised crime and criminality in Scotland for well over a decade.’
Today, the Mail examines the ugly feud that may have preceded the deaths of Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr, and raises a shocking new theory as to why the pair may have been targeted.
It’s a story that takes us from the high-rise apartment blocks of Dubai to the opium fields of Pakistan and the seedy bars of this Spanish resort beloved of retired British gangsters.
The Daniel and Lyons clans rose to prominence in the late 90s in the sink estates of Possil, Milton and Lambhill in the deprived northern suburbs of Glasgow.
But their feud truly began in 2001 when some £20,000 worth of cocaine belonging to the Daniels was stolen during a party at one of their ‘safe houses’ in Milton.
The Lyons were blamed – and battle lines were drawn.
Monaghans bar, where the killings occurred. When the Mail visited earlier this week, the bar remained closed, its glass doors locked, lights off and chairs neatly tucked under tables.
Fred Kelly in Fuengirola looking over the Costa Del Sol. The double-murder at Monaghans was only the latest in a spate of seven shootings to have taken place on the Costa del Sol in less than two months
Over the ensuing five years, the rivals traded blows with shootings, firebombing and beatings. Then, in 2006, everything changed with the desecration of the tombstone of 8-year-old Garry Lyons – son of clan leader Eddie Snr – who died from leukaemia in 1991.
Allegedly, the headstone was uprooted by a tow rope attached to a 4×4 believed to have been driven by a man called Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll – the chief enforcer for the Daniel family, then headed up by Steven ‘Bonzo’ Daniel.
As far as the Lyonses were concerned, a line had been crossed. In November that year, there was a failed attempt on Carroll’s life outside what was believed to be his mother’s home outside Glasgow.
Three weeks later and the tit-for-tat exchanges escalated again when two Daniel-affiliated mobsters carrying British Army guns walked into an MOT garage in suburban Glasgow owned by David Lyons – and shot two other members of the Lyons family: Steven, Eddie Snr’s son, and Michael, Eddie’s nephew, along with their friend Robert Pickett.
21-year-old Michael died while the others survived with life changing injuries. Police suspected Kevin Carroll of ordering the hit but never charged him.
At the High Court in Glasgow in 2008, two acquaintances of Carroll’s were found guilty of the shooting and each ordered to serve a minimum of 35 years in prison, later reduced on appeal.
The presiding judge described the murder as a ‘cold-blooded, premeditated assassination,’ while the court heard the culprits wore trench coats and ‘old man’ masks making the attack feel like ‘a scene from The Godfather.’
Steven Lyons – who survived the attack – fled to the Costa del Sol, marking one of the most pivotal moments in this extraordinary saga. For it was here, in Marbella – a 20 minute drive from Fuengirola – that he became acquainted with members of the infamous Irish gangster clan the Kinahans.
According to Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay – who spoke to the Mail this week and previously worked to expose organised crime in Glasgow – a quid pro quo was arranged whereby Lyonses gave the Kinahans – whose drug empire is estimated to be worth £1 billion – free rein to flood Scotland with narcotics – so long as they were the ones dealing it on the streets. Until that point the Daniels had been dominating the trade, but this deal changed everything.
‘The Costa Del Sol is a criminals’ playground,’ he told the Mail. ‘And the Lyonses formed an allegiance with the Kinahans so strong they are practically a Scottish-Irish cartel.’
In 2010, with the likely support of the all-powerful Kinahans, the Lyons family decided it was finally time to avenge the desecration of Garry’s tombstone. 29-year-old Kevin Carroll, enforcer for the Daniels, was shot dead in broad daylight on January 13 as he sat in the back of an Audi A3 outside a busy Asda supermarket in Glasgow.
But who pulled the trigger? The prime suspect was none other than Ross Monaghan, who last week was himself shot dead at his eponymous bar in Fuengirola.
The deadly tit-for-tat appears to continue.
Monaghan was arrested for the killing of Carroll only to be acquitted in May 2012 due to a lack of evidence.
His card, however, was marked. In 2017, he was shot in the shoulder minutes after dropping his young daughter off at school. The gunman had concealed his weapon in a child’s pram, posing as another parent on the school run.
Fearing for his life, Monaghan moved out to Fuengirola just weeks after the hit. Here he later opened his bar and was joined on the Costa del Sol by close friend and fellow miscreant Eddie Lyons Jnr, who himself had been subject to a failed assassination attempt 18 years ago by Kevin ‘Gerbil’ Carroll.
One thing is clear. Many people wanted Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr dead. But why now?
In an extraordinary twist, underworld sources have suggested that the pair may have been targeted for assisting a third man with a series of attacks against Daniel family members across Edinburgh and Glasgow in recent months.
He is one Mr Ross ‘Miami’ McGill, a relative small-fry in the crime world but who has leapt to police attention after allegedly ordering a string of hits across Scotland from his base in Dubai. McGill’s gang are understood to go by the name Tamo Junto (TMJ), which means ‘We are Together’ in Portuguese.
31-year-old McGill – who infamously once led the ‘ultras’ section of Rangers football club fanbase known as the Union Bears – fell out with the Daniels after mobsters working for the family paid him with half a million pounds worth of fake bank-notes in a drug deal.
His group, TMJ, have since posted a string of videos of their misdeeds on the internet including one from April which depicted the aftermath of a firebomb attack on a garage belonging to a blood-member of the Daniels clan.
In the video, a member of TMJ reveals: ‘We are urging everyone in Scotland on the streets and those incarcerated to join us in the fight against… the Daniel family.’
The question now is: were Monaghan and Lyons gunned down for passing information to McGill which he used to target Daniel family members?
As the police scramble for answers, others have put forward their own theories. This week one of Monaghan’s relatives came forward to insist the Daniels were not behind the killings, instead suggesting that gang rivals based abroad could be responsible.
Others claim Ross Monaghan had a £250,000 bounty on his head over a feud with a Spanish cartel linked to the south of England. The cartel had reportedly warned about the contract on Monaghan’s life shortly before he was gunned down.
Complaining of ‘narco-terror’, Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay told the Mail: ‘Both of these individuals were active participants in the deadly turf war that has been raging across Scotland since 2001 and has caused untold misery to innocent people.’
Attempts have been made by Scottish police to crack down on organised crime. Notably, in 2017, Operation Engagement led to the arrest of 30 people associated with the Lyons gang, as well as the seizure of 50 stolen cars and around 300 mobile phones. Two years later, six known Lyons associates were jailed for a total of 104 years for attacks on the Daniels family.
Back in Fuengirola, the city is still seeking to move on from last weekend’s fatal shooting. Perhaps most alarmingly of all, however, is that the double-murder at Monaghans was only the latest in a spate of seven shootings to have taken place on the Costa del Sol in less than two months.
On April 21, an unnamed 32-year-old British man – believed to be from Liverpool – was shot dead at 8pm as he left a five-a-side football match with friends in a town 15 minutes from Fuengirola. Police are treating the shooting as gang-related.
The latest murders are currently being investigated by Spain’s National Police Anti-Drug and Organised Crime Unit, which is headquartered on the Costa del Sol.
While police are remaining tight-lipped about their investigations, one person who has taken up the fight is the exasperated Mayor of Fuengirola, Anna Mula. She told reporters: ‘We live in a world and at a time where crime knows no borders. In places like the Costa del Sol, we’re seeing developments that, as they spread, inevitably affect us.’
Javier Salas, the central government’s representative in the neighbouring city of Malaga, hit back at Mayor Mula by assuring the public: ‘I have no doubt that the person who caused the two murders, who arrived and left the pub on foot with his face covered, will be identified and located, as happens in 90 per cent of the cases that occur in the province of Malaga.’
However, for many of the over 300,000 tourists who visit Fuengirola each year, these words will do little to quell growing fears.
This week, the Mail spoke with Violet, 72, reclining on the beachfront in Fuengirola in a bejewelled bathing suit – admitted she and her husband had ‘deliberately chosen deckchairs a little further away from the street,’ and that they although they hadn’t wanted to cancel their holiday. She added: ‘Just because we’re in Spain, it doesn’t mean we don’t need to look after ourselves and our belongings…’
And as well they might, for as local police in Fuengirola brace themselves for yet further potential gangland violence, how long before innocent holidaymakers are caught in the crosshairs of a gangland whose tentacles may now reach hundreds of miles beyond the backstreets of Glasgow where it began all those years ago?
