MI5 ask hood to end gang wars
Agents ask expat crook living in Costas to get clans together
A major criminal based in Spain has been approached by security services in a bid to end the Daniel v Lyons drugs war.
The wealthy expat, who is in his 60s and was once jai led over a massive heroin haul in Glasgow, was asked to broker a truce between the warring families. Both families have been told the approach may have come from Britain’s domestic security service, MI5.
The National Crime Agency ( NCA), described as Britain’s FBI, are understood to have been involved in the extraordinary move to end Scotland’s deadliest feud.
One source said: “The expat criminal was in London on business when he was approached by either the security services or the NCA.
“He was asked to use his inf luence by relaying the message to both sides that the bloodshed in Scotland had to end.
“Unfortunately, it seems not to have had the desired effect. There has been so much violence that neither side seems willing to back down.
“The approach has also instilled a sense of paranoia in both camps about who can be trusted and who is looking at them.” The MI5 intervention is not the f irst time spymasters have focused on organised crime north of the Border.
They launched Operation Shillelagh against Paul Ferris – the first UK gangster ever targeted.
He was put under surveillance in 1996 and was caught with three MAC-10 machine guns and ammunition a year later.
MI5 were so pleased at how well their agents and police worked together that their director Stephen Lander wrote to Home Of f ice permanent under secretary Richard Wilson to tell him about the success.
The agency – usually tasked with fighting threats to Britain’s security – have since attempted to smash organised drug gangs in Manchester and London, including the notorious Adams crime family.
The feud between the Daniel and Lyons clans was sparked in 2001 when a small stash of cocaine was stolen from a house.
The consignment belonged to the Daniels but ended up being sold by the Lyons in Milton, Glasgow.
Their war has claimed the lives of Daniel
The approach has instilled a sense of paranoia in both camps about who can be trusted
enforcer Kevin “Gerbil ” Carroll, 29, and Michael Lyons, 21.
Lyons was killed by two Daniel hitmen using British Army guns in a triple shooting in the city’s Lambhill in 2006.
Steven Lyons, 37, was shot but survived and fled to Spain, where he formed an alliance with a major Irish drugs gang.
Following Carroll’s 2010 shooting outside a suburban Asda supermarket, Billy Paterson, 38, joined pal Steven Lyons in the Costa del Sol.
Paterson eventually surrendered to police and in 2015 was jailed for at least 22 years for Carroll’s murder.
Other incidents have included f ire attacks, the desecration of eight-year- old Garry Lyons’ grave and two shootings outside primary schools.
A car trader was last month jailed over a stash of guns found in his flat, which he was hiding for the Daniel gang.
John McIver, 61, was caught with a Remington self- loading pistol, a sawn- off shotgun and a Winchester shotgun, along with an electric stun gun disguised as an iPhone.
The weapons were hidden in McIver’s home in an area of Possil known as The Jungle – which the Daniels consider their territory.
Police believe the deadly arsenal would have been used against the Lyons clan. Ammunition and a stash of cocaine, cannabis and amphetamine valued at £168,000 were also seized.
McIver pled guilty to 12 charges and was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison at the High Court in Glasgow.
He is a long-term Daniel associate through the used car and scrap trade.
Jailing McIver, judge Lord Mulholland said: “Lethal weapons in the wrong hands can be used to maim or kill. This city has seen a lot of these offences.”
There was a new wave of violence in the war between the families in January last year, when Lyons associate Ross Monaghan was shot in the shoulder minutes after dropping his daughter off at school.
The attack triggered a series of gun and machete attacks on several members of the Daniel family.
Police launched Operation Engagement in a bid to target the two families and associated organised crime gangs in places including Paisley and Edinburgh.
Lead officer Detective Superintendent Kenny Graham vowed to “do whatever we can to dismantle them”. Off icers have a r rested 30 major gangland figures, found 50 stolen cars and seized about 300 mobile phones.
They have also issued more than 100 threat- to- l i fe warnings as part of the multi-million-pound initiative.
It later emerged that police attempted to set up “peace talks” in a proposed meeting between Steven Lyons and Steven “Bonzo” Daniel, who suffered severe facial injuries in an alleged machete attack last May.
A police insider defended criticism of the unprecedented bid by saying it was “part of a range of measures to try to engage with both sides”.
The secretive NCA were set up in 2013 to tackle organised crime – which includes offences related to drugs, human slavery and firearms – in the UK and overseas.
They have a unit based at the Scottish Crime Campus in Gartcosh, Lanarkshire.
MI5 do not respond to media enquiries. An NCA spokeswoman said: “The NCA do not routinely confirm nor deny the existence of investigations, or comment on specif ic intelligence matters.”
instilled a sense of paranoia in both camps about who can be trusted