Indonesia has deported a British national arrested on the resort island of Bali last month for alleged transnational drug trafficking and money laundering in Spain, immigration officials said on Wednesday.
The 45-year-old, identified only by his initials SL, was arrested at Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport last month after arriving from Singapore, after officers noticed he was on Interpol’s wanted list.
He was flown to Jakarta on Tuesday, and then on to Amsterdam, Bali immigration office said in a statement, referring to the man as a “mafia boss.”
“We will not allow Indonesian territory, especially Bali, to become a hideout or operational base for international criminals,” the airport’s immigration head, Bugie Kurniawan, added.
British media identified SL as Scottish crime boss Steven Lyons.
Lyons has been on Spain’s wanted list for about two years, following a murder case there in 2024.
Bali police chief Daniel Adityajaya said Lyons was wanted in Spain as the alleged “leader of a large-scale transnational criminal organisation” engaged in drug trafficking and money laundering.
Untung Widyatmoko, secretary of Interpol’s Indonesia bureau, Lyons is alleged to have led a crime ring that used shell companies for money laundering in Europe and the Middle East, including in Spain, Scotland, England, Dubai, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey.
Widyatmoko said that police in Scotland and Spain had carried out raids in connection with Lyons’ case resulting in multiple arrests with the help of Europol, a European Union law enforcement cooperation hub, and also Turkey, the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.
Scottish media have reported that Lyons survived a 2006 shooting in Glasgow that killed his cousin and later moved to Spain before settling in Dubai.
Last May, his brother and an associate were shot and killed in a suspected gangland shooting at a beachfront bar in Fuengirola, southern Spain.
Lyons arrived in Bali with two companions who are believed to still be on the island, said Bugie Kurniawan of Bali’s immigration office.
He said Spain’s Interpol has identified them as members of the same criminal cartel but they are not on any arrest warrants.
Additional sources • AFP