The jailing of an Irish gangster with links to the Lyons crime family has been served as a warning by the authorities to those who involve themselves in organised crime.
Sean McGovern's Conviction
Sean McGovern, a senior lieutenant in the notorious Kinahan organised crime group, was sentenced to 24 years after he planned, oversaw and directed the murder of an innocent grandfather and the attempted murder of a second man in Dublin. McGovern is also said to be a close confidant of family boss Daniel Kinahan, once described as the most wanted man in the world but now languishing in a jail in Dubai awaiting extradition to Ireland.
Impact on Scottish Crime Gangs
Former Scottish police chief Graeme Pearson believes the reverberations from the McGovern conviction will also be felt in Scotland, where the Kinahans have well-established connections with other criminals, particularly members of the Glasgow-based Lyons crime clan. He says both McGovern's conviction and the detention of Daniel Kinahan in Dubai in April shows that the net is finally tightening on major organised criminals who previously thought themselves untouchable even in their international boltholes.
The head of the Glasgow crime family, Steven Lyons, 45, is also facing extradition to Spain after being deported from Bali and held in Amsterdam on a European Arrest Warrant.
Mr Pearson, a former director general of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency, added: "The experience in Ireland is very similar in Scotland when it comes to organised crime. The conviction of Sean McGovern and arrest of Daniel Kinahan is a good example of a castle of sand eventually collapsing. I have no doubt it will have an impact with the Scottish crime groups who are connected to the Kinahans. They have been monitoring for the last two years the arrests of various members of the Kinahan crime group. That came as a shock both in Scotland and Ireland as the Kinahans were largely seen as totally untouchable and billionaires. The Scottish crime groups have been on edge ever since and realised there could be impacts for Scotland, particularly since the arrest of Steven Lyons in Bali."
Potential Power Vacuum
However, Mr Pearson believes there are still people in Scotland willing to fill the vacuum left by the recent arrests and jail terms because of the vast profits to be made. He added: "There is a queue of people who would want to step in. Many of these groups will come from other nations, such as the Albanians and Turks. This will in turn present a fresh challenge to the police."
Lyons-Kinahan Connections
The Lyons connections with the Kinahans date back more than a decade and are believed to have been forged first in Marbella in the Costa Del Sol and then Dubai. It would later give the Lyons the upper hand in their long-running violent turf war with the Daniel family in Glasgow. In exchange, the Kinahans were said to have secured a lucrative drugs distribution network in Scotland.
Further Scottish connections were made through Robert Kelbie, an alleged Lyons associate and convicted fraudster. Kelbie, from Ratho, Edinburgh, has survived three attempts on his life and in 2021 helped to set up a gym on the Spanish island of Fuerteventura for MTK Global, a now defunct boxing promotion firm linked at the time to the Kinahans.
Investigators also believe that companies based in Scotland have played a leading role in the activities of the Kinahans. Four years ago, US Treasury officials published a list of enforcers they believe to be working for the Kinahans, including John Morrissey, whose Glaswegian wife, Nicola Morrissey, runs the international firm Nero Drinks from a Scottish address. Morrissey is alleged to have provided the Kinahans with a link to Scotland through Nero Drinks, which sold the vodka brand of the same name. The company was formed in March 2018 and at one time sponsored Hamilton Accies football club.
US Treasury officials have also alleged that Nero Drinks was a front company created to hide Morrissey's alleged criminal activity and to launder money. In September 2022, the Morrisseys, who married in a lavish ceremony at Dundas Castle near Edinburgh, were arrested near their luxury home in Marbella. Nicola was given bail and Morrissey was later released after lodging a bail bond of £50,000. The Spanish Civil Guard, which led the operation against Morrissey in 2022, have claimed he helped to launder up to £297,000 a day. His wife is listed as the sole director of Nero Drinks, with her firm registered to offices in Glasgow city centre. According to Companies House, accounts for the firm are long overdue and a motion for striking off has been made.
In April, it emerged the police operation that led to 66-year-old Morrissey's arrest had led in turn to arrests that month in Spain of seven alleged Lyons gang members. The Kinahan crime operation has also been linked to the firebomb attacks and machete attacks seen across Scotland in the last 15 months, via their Scottish counterparts. Targets have been members of the Daniel family and associates of Edinburgh cocaine baron Mark Richardson. Other Scots criminals linked to the Kinahans include Steven Jamieson. The 43-year-old was extradited from Dubai to Scotland in December 2025 and jailed for six years at the High Court in Glasgow in April on drugs charges.
