A fugitive drug dealer, on the run after police smashed his multi-million pound crime empire, was captured after crashing into a telephone pole and jailed for eight years.
Skip hire boss Michael Woehrle, 47, of Fairview Road, Altrincham left cryptic notes in his shed detailing the supply of cannabis and speed, plus money laundering information.
“You have been involved in the wholesale supply of drugs,” Judge Nicholas Ainley told the married father-of-two at Croydon Crown Court. “It must be in the millions of pounds.”
Woehrle (pictured), who has a long criminal history of drug dealing pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply amphetamine, cannabis resin and herbal cannabis between January 1, 2008 and November 10, last year.
He also pleaded guilty to laundering £260,000 of criminal proceeds on or before March 8, last year and possessing criminal proceeds, namely £28,875 and 360 Euros on or around November 9 in Agden Brow, Lymm.
Woehrle additionally pleaded guilty to possessing knife found in his car, which he crashed on the A56, leading to his capture by a concerned local and a passing police officer.
Prosecutor Mr. Thomas Payne told the court Woehrle’s lorry driver accomplice Alistair Allen was routinely stopped at Dover docks on March 8, last year and £260,000 cash stuffed inside seven bags was found behind the driver’s seat.
Woehrle’s fingerprints were found all over the bags and on June 15 officers from the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) searched his home.
In his garden shed officers found 149 gms of ‘skunk’ cannabis, 70 gms of cannabis, boric acid, mobile phones, pipes and blades, four holdalls and incriminating notes detailing the defendant’s large-scale drug dealing.
In the kitchen they found two quantities of cannabis weighing 10.4 gms and 1.1 gm and in Woehrle’s Audi convertible were discovered more notebooks, traces of cannabis and amphetamines, plus 0.26 gms of cocaine.
A total of 120 pages of notes were seized by police.
“They are clearly a record of drugs bought and sold, money owed to him and money laundered,” explained Mr. Payne.
“The figures are mainly in the tens of thousands, but some are in the hundreds of thousands,” added the prosecutor, indicating the largest single deal was £682,000.
The notes were littered with drug slang such as ‘Polly’, ‘Wood’, ‘Billy’ and ‘Parrot’, also naming other dealers such as ‘Mackie’ and ‘Irish J’.
Woehrle had Allen’s phone and HGV number and telephone records proved the pair met at Windy Hill, Rochdale they day before the Dover money laundering run.
Allen was later sentenced at Canterbury Crown Court to two years imprisonment.
SOCA officers phoned Woehrle after the raid on his home, but he claimed to be in Venice and failed to appear for appointments.
On November 9 he crashed his car and a suspicious neighbour, despite Woehrle’s threats, confiscated the keys, and he was detained when a passing off-duty police officer intervened.
More bundles of cash were found in his pockets, the boot and glove box along with the knife.
Woehrle has been jailed three times for drug dealing, including a seven-year sentence in 1996 for supplying a kilo of amphetamines along with cannabis and ecstasy pills.
The court heard he dropped out of the Manchester School of Art as a teenager to help run his dad’s market stall before becoming involved in the world of drug dealing.
“It is a tragedy somebody who has got talents squandered them in the supply of drugs,” added Judge Ainley. “This is obviously drug dealing on a very large scale indeed.”
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