Radlett: Residents of an exclusive Radlett street have been shocked by revelations about a drugs baron-turned-supergrass who lived in their midst.

Despite their respectable appearance, Michael Michael, aged 44, and his wife Lynn, 42, lived a secret life behind the doors of their luxurious Loom Lane home, involving the smuggling of millions of pounds worth of cocaine and cannabis into Britain, money laundering, guns and links with notorious villains.

When police searched their £750,000 house in the quiet, leafy street, they found £800,000 cash in boxes and in the attic, guns, a cash counting machine and incriminating documents.

Michael was jailed for six years last Tuesday, having confessed to running an £132 million drug smuggling racket, but was due to be released immediately after the court hearing because he had already served more than three years in custody, waiting to be sentenced.

Michael, whose two sons, aged nine and 11, were private school-educated, headed a gang which imported drugs, in vehicles, from France and Spain.

The family are now expected to be given new identities and a safe house abroad, after underworld paymasters put a £4million contract on Michael's head.

A Loom Place neighbour described, this week, how a flow of cars, including Porsches and Mercedes, would pull up outside the Michael's house.

She commented: "It was a very unsavoury thing it was so nice around here and we had a nice atmosphere. When someone moves out you never know who you are going to get."

She added: "It is really sad that it looks as though they are going to get away with it and go to a safe haven at the taxpayers' expense."

Michael was arrested in April 1998, following a Customs and Excise investigation, and, as a result of information he passed to police, 34 crooks have been convicted and 26 drugs distribution networks smashed. The Greek Cypriot supergrass, who trained as an accountant but never qualified, is estimated to have made more than £58 million out of the racket.

He also organised an extensive money laundering operation to cope with the proceeds, which involved opening his own bureau de change, and using couriers, including a former Page Three model, to smuggle cash out of the country in car spare wheels.

In December 1998, Michael and his wife admitted conspiring to import cocaine and cannabis and money laundering. He also admitted possessing a firearm.

Woolwich Crown Court heard last week that Michael became a police informer in the late 1980s and, when he became involved in drugs smuggling, would pay a corrupt police detective up to £10,000 per week to stay ahead of the law.

Roy Amlot QC, defending, said Michael had been described as "one of the best, if not the best, informant within the secret intelligence service" and that the risk now to his family was "enormous".

Michael, who is no longer registered as the occupant of the Radlett house, was told the 24-year jail sentence his crimes warranted was cut because of his assistance. His wife was given a two-year suspended jail sentence.He also organised an extensive money laundering operation to cope with the proceeds, including opening his own bureau de change, and using couriers, including a former Page 3 model from Cheshunt, to smuggle cash out of the country in car spare wheels.

Also convicted were his brother, Xanthos, from Barnet, and a 37-year-old woman who stored Michael's guns at her Bushey home and ran his string of north London saunas.

One villain he exposed had links with the M25 road rage killer Kenneth Noye.

He brought the drugs into Britain by car, tanker and a coach known as the "happy bus" and unloaded them at the Lee Industrial Estate in Hatfield.

December 24, 2001 13:30