ORGANISED CRIME BOSS JAILED

An organised crime boss who was on the run for 14 years in Brazil has been jailed after his multi-million-pound enterprise was brought down.

Mark Robert Witchell, 61, from Nantwich, was sentenced to a total of 10 years' imprisonment today (Tuesday 3 March) after he admitted a string of offences relating to luxury car thefts and online drug dealing, valued at an estimated £3.7-million.

Between 2003 and 2006, Witchell organised car thefts worth more than £280,000 in Staffordshire. Mercedes and Porsche cars were taken after Witchell used hire purchase agreements as a front to access the high-value models.

In 2011, Witchell was charged but later failed to appear at his committal hearing and was then subject to a court warrant. He fled to Brazil for the next 14 years.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) then found that Witchell had been leading a sophisticated online drugs and medicine supply chain between 2013 and 2015. He ordered three people in the UK to sell the drugs, which generated around £3.7 million in profits.

His enterprise came crashing down when Witchell was arrested at Holyhead Port in August 2025. Three of the people he had been tasking to sell the drugs were also identified and sentenced in March 2023.

Detective Constable Gareth Reynolds, from our Economic Crime Unit, said: “This was a highly sophisticated criminal operation which generated millions of pounds by profiting from other people’s vulnerability and belongings.

“While Witchell may have spent 14 years on the run, it is through our evidence and the action of everyone involved in this investigation which has ensured that he was not able to escape his offending, no matter how hard he tried.

“Cases like this show the scale that organised crime can reach. It is a business which preys on the vulnerable in local communities and something which we are working robustly to identify and act against every single day in Staffordshire.”