A SUPERGRASS from Radlett who made almost £58 million from drug smuggling and money laundering was ordered to hand over just £69,840 of his ill-gotten gains on Friday, January 17.
Michael Michael, 47, was head of a gang which brought 110kg of cocaine and 19,000kg of cannabis worth £132 million into the UK from France and Spain.
But he now has an underworld contract on his head after he shopped his entire gang, including his mother and wife Lynn, 43, who worked drug mules.
Michael's evidence resulted in 34 convictions of people working for him, including former Page Three girl, Tracey Kirby.
Kirby, 34, and other couriers smuggled cash, hidden in the spare wheels of cars, out of the country.
Michael's help to the Crown resulted in his 24-year sentence being cut to just six years, when he was jailed in December 2001.
Michael and his wife and children are now living abroad under the witness protection programme.
Judge Michael Carroll told Woolwich Crown Court: "The court does find he has benefited by way of drug trafficking offences the figure of £57,902,483 and 58 pence.
"The asset figure available to the court is £69,840.96, so I make a confiscation order in respect of that sum."
The judge ruled that Lynne Michael benefited to the sum of £36,500, but as she had no assets she was ordered to pay just a penny.
After police arrested Michael at an industrial unit in Hatfield, in April 1998 he informed on 49 associates.
One of the men he exposed was robber-turned-dealer Mickey Green, 60, a villain with links to the notorious Adams family and to M25 road rage killer Kenny Noye.
Green, known as the Pimpernel, is thought to have amassed a personal fortune of £100 million from the drugs trade.
Green was extradited from Spain but Customs decided to drop charges against him and he is free again.
Greek Cypriot Michael, who trained as an accountant, brought the drugs into the UK by car, a coach dubbed the "happy bus" and a tanker.
The consignments were then unloaded at an industrial estate in Hatfield.
Michael first became a police informer while awaiting trial for mortgage fraud in the late 1980s.
After he was convicted in 1993, Michael met Green in southern Ireland and they discussed setting up a drugs smuggling network.
But on April 25, 1998, the criminal empire crumbled when Customs and Excise officers raided the Hatfield industrial unit used by Michael and his right-hand man, lorry driver Mark Hooper.
During the "knock" officers recovered 2.9 tonnes of cannabis resin, 16kg of cocaine, four guns and £800,000 cash.
Cocaine packages were hidden in the diesel tank of a French-registered Audi, and cannabis was stashed in cardboard boxes within a 20 foot lorry container.
The street value of the drugs found at the raid alone were estimated at £11.6 million.
Michael was arrested at his home in Radlett, where a host of incriminating documents naming drug couriers, importers and money launderers who had taken part in the operation.
In December 1998, both Michael and his wife admitted conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to import cannabis, and money laundering.
Michael admitted a further two counts of money laundering and possession of a firearm.
Michael and his wife are the last two to be convicted after a series of trials spanning the past two-and-a-half-years.
January 22, 2003 09:30
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