All they wanted was to enjoy a great game of football, or soccer, in peace. Instead, Scottish crime bosses Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Junior were gunned down at Monaghan’s Irish pub in Fuengirola, Spain, after the Champions League final between Paris Saint-Germain and Inter Milan had ended.
It was almost midnight on a Saturday and the pub was packed with tourists and football fans watching French club Paris Saint-Germaine annihilate Italian club Inter Milan with five goals to ‘nil’. The popular place on the Costa del Sol was owned by Scottish gangster Ross Monaghan.
History of violence
43-year-old Monaghan had settled in Spain on what is nicknamed the “Costa del Crime” in 2017. He had fled Scotland after he was shot at twice while dropping his child off at primary school in the city of Glasgow.
Not that Monaghan was a choir boy himself. He had quite a reputation. Though authorities were unable to make a lot of it stick. He was cleared of the murder of Glasgow gangster Kevin “Gerbil” Carroll, who was shot to death in 2010. He was also acquitted of trying to obstruct justice by disposing of the two guns used in the shooting and torching the getaway car.
46-year-old Eddie Lyons Junior, meanwhile, was born into the life. His family has a long history in organized crime and is considered one of the dominant crime families in Glasgow. Lyons and Monaghan were both cleared of being involved in a vicious attack on three men outside the Campsie bar, which resulted in one of the victim’s ears hanging off.
Hit at the pub
Easy as Monaghan and Lyons Junior seemed to be able to evade justice, they were faced with a harder task when a masked gunman entered Monaghan’s pub on Saturday night. Spanish police say the gunman shot one victim in the chest and the other in the chest and abdomen.
The hitman then fled the scene into a waiting car driven by an accomplice.
Crime scene images show a man lying lifeless on his back in shorts and a T-shirt by a drinks and meal blackboard on an outside terrace at the Irish pub. In other images police and paramedics can be seen surrounding the body of one of the victims, thought to be the same man, after he was covered under a blanket.
Scottish gang war
The motive behind the killing remains unclear, though Scottish media report that it might be linked to an ongoing gang war in the Scottish underworld. 31-year-old crime boss Ross McGill is seen as the man behind much of the violence happening since March after rivals stole £500,000 worth of his cocaine.
McGill, a former football hooligan, is then said to have ordered his army of loyal foot soldiers to carry out a wave of firebombings and assaults on anyone connected to the theft or those responsible. McGill is doing so from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, a known safe haven for many of the world’s most powerful gangsters.
Spain used to be such a place as well. Gangsters from all over Europe would flee there to relax and evade underworld wars back in their home countries. That time has long since passed. The violence has followed them to the sunny Spanish beaches and their pubs away from home.
Author: Hydroponify
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