The Birmingham supergrass who helped jail 34 of the UK's most dangerous criminals

For a moment during the holiday I pondered Michael Michael, supergrass with an alleged £4m underworld contract hanging over his head. 

Where is the man who ran a criminal firm known simply as The Organisation? Was he among the throng of Christmas shoppers threaded their way through Birmingham city centre? Was he the grey haired individual in front of me at the supermarket checkout? Did he spend the festivities casting anguish glances over his shoulder? 

Only a select few know where Michael is today, what name he uses or even what he looks like. For he is condemned to be forever a cursed word – a profanity – among those immersed in organised crime. He is the villain who spilled the beans. 

Born into a Birmingham family of Greek Cypriots, the world was unaware of the man born Constantine Michael Michael, until he was jailed for six years in 2001. At Woolwich Crown Court, the now 66-year-old admitted conspiracies to import cocaine and cannabis, conspiracies to launder the proceeds and possessing a firearm. 

By then, Michael, who rose from hairdresser to playboy mobster, had taken a wrecking ball to the underworld. His evidence had resulted in 34 crooks being jailed for a total of 170 years, 26 drug distribution networks obliterated and the seizure of narcotics and hash worth £49 million. 

In a bid for leniency, Michael had even grassed on his mother, wife, brother and lover. Due to time already served in custody, he was released from prison almost immediately and condemned to a haunted existence. 

At the time, the Daily Mail reported Michael and his family were in “enormous danger”. The peril has only marginally been eased by time. Michael is, in all probability, abroad. He has a new name, perhaps a new face. The total cost of the witness protection programme was estimated at £2m. That astronomical feel initially included armed guards, a safe house and new identities, but, by now, the family are possibly reliant on a panic button to those tasked with keeping them safe. 

His lifestyle will still be cloaked by extreme caution

That is understandable. When Michael, whose £107 million empire was funded by coke, money laundering and massage parlours, was asked by Customs to detail those who may want revenge, he trotted off 14 names. 

One of them was Costa crime super-villain Mickey “The Pimpernel” Green. It has been reported he also provided information about North London’s Adams family and Kenneth Noye, plus details of unsolved hits. 

In my near 50 years of reporting about crime, Michael’s story is the one that looms larger than any Hollywood blockbuster. It is Pulp Fact, not fiction. He was a Mister Big who resided in a lavish £750,000 Hertfordshire home. The tentacles of his operation stretched, allegedly, to Colombian coke cartels, the IRA and Chicago crime bosses. 

His contacts were believed to include John “Goldfinger” Palmer, the Solihull born gangster killed in a 2015 hit. Michael, who operated under the veil of a successful bureau de change business, grew fat by collecting cash from drugs smuggled into this country, then sent the money abroad to purchase more narcotics. 

That grubby money was ferried by a bevy of glamorous couriers, a Page 3 girl among them – all oblivious to how much they were carrying or the reason for the payments. 

For a time, Michael lived high on the hog – the party lifestyle fuelled by cocaine and bubbly. The Guardian reported on his 40th birthday party, held at London’s Dorchester Hotel: “The highlight was the unveiling of a cake made to reflect Michael’s lifestyle. Alongside a bright red ‘40’ were icing sugar copies of the three mobile phones he carried, his silver Porsche, the stack of £50 notes that bulged in his wallet and the Silk Cut cigarettes he constantly smoked.” 

But Michael was also a five star informant, doling out gems to MI5, the Inland Revenue and Police. He believed it was his security blanket. He was wrong.  One senior detective described him as “one of the best, if not the best informant ever…providing information about some of the most notorious British criminals operating”. 

The mistake the mastermind made was to allow The Organisation to become too big to be ignored 

On April 25, 1998, Customs officers raided Michael’s mansion and uncovered £800,000 in cash and documents detailing the drug smuggling operations.  The threat surrounding Michael was best underlined by the state’s measure to keep him safe following arrest. Gun-toting officers stood guard at Woolwich Crown Court. While on the segregation wing at Belmarsh Prison, his meals were tested for poison. 

Somewhere, probably thousands of miles from here, Michael raised a glass to the New Year. He’ll have more reason than most to wish for a safe one. But here’s something to ponder. The mysterious individual in your street – nice man, keeps himself to himself – just might be Britain's biggest supergrass.