Michael Michael

Michael Michael (born 12 November 1957 in Birmingham)^[1] is an English career criminal of Greek Cypriot descent,^[2] involved in drug smuggling, prostitution and money laundering. Following arrest, he turned supergrass/police informer, with his evidence leading to 34 people being jailed for a combined 170 years, and the dismantling of 26 different drug syndicates.

Career as informant

Among people he informed on were his wife Lynn, given a 24-month jail sentence suspended for two years for her role as a cash courier; his lover, Sue Richards; and Janice Marlborough, his business lieutenant who ran his string of brothels. Michael's evidence led to drugs worth £49m being recovered from a distribution network that is thought to have smuggled more than 110 kg of cocaine and 19,000 kg of cannabis into Britain. Michael has also alleged that a corrupt police officer took £10,000 cash handouts from him.

Information about Michael's work as an informer were kept secret until December 2001, when a judge at Woolwich crown court sentenced him to six years in jail. Reporting restrictions that had been in place for three years were lifted.^[3] Michael had admitted one count of conspiracy to import cocaine, a similar charge involving cannabis, and three conspiracies to launder the proceeds. He has also pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm.^[3] Michael, who lived in Radlett, Hertfordshire, is thought to have been given a new identity under the terms of the witness protection programme.^[3]

Michael, a former hairdresser and unqualified accountant, became a target for customs detectives in January 1998 when the agency launched Operation Draft. He had been identified as a member of a drug ring based at the Lee industrial estate in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, that was smuggling cannabis and cocaine into the country in cars, a coach (nicknamed the Fun Bus) and a tanker. When officers arrested him four months later, on 25 April, Michael was wearing body armour and brandished a gun. Woolwich Crown Court heard that Michael alleged he was paying his handler up to £10,000 a week in return for providing information "of great value" to Michael's operation. He claimed the officer turned a blind eye to the smuggling. Also jailed was trusted associates Janice Marlborough and Tracey Kirby, a former Sun page three model, received three years after admitting being a money courier. She has since been released.^[4]

Murder of Charlie Wilson

In 1990, the former treasurer of the Great Train Robbery Charles Frederick "Charlie" Wilson had moved to Marbella, Spain, where he was suspected to be involved in drug smuggling.^[5][6] Engaged to launder some of the proceeds from the Brink's-Mat robbery, he lost the investors £3million. On 23 April 1990,^[7] a young British man knocked on the front door of his hacienda north of Marbella and shot Wilson and his pet Husky dog before riding off down the hill on a yellow bicycle. Over the next three years, four more shootings were connected to the Brink’s-Mat raid.^[8] In 2007, Michael Michael claimed to know who the killer of Wilson was, but police made no arrest.^[9]

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