An organised crime boss from Nantwich 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, of Nantwich, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on Tuesday 3 March, after admitting to a string of offences relating to luxury car thefts and online drug dealing, valued at £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.

Staffordshire Police investigated the thefts, finding three of the vehicles had been transferred to Spain.

Mark Robert Witchell was sentenced at Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court on 3 March (Photo: Nub News).

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 Witchell had been leading a sophisticated online drugs and medicine supply chain between 2013 and 2015.

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He ordered three people in the UK to sell the drugs, which generated around £3.7 million in profits.

These profits were transferred to Witchell's accounts in Mauritius, under the company 'Next Day Pharmacy Solutions'.

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.

Forced to confront the extent of his crimes, Witchell admitted a series of offence at an earlier court hearing:

• Five counts of theft
• Three counts of transferring/removing criminal property
• Supplying a class B controlled drug (codeine)
• Supplying class C controlled drugs (alprazolam, diazepam, tramadol, zolpidem and zopiclone)
• Selling prescription-only medicines contrary to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012
• Selling unauthorised medicinal products contrary to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012
• Money laundering contrary to s.328(1) Proceeds of Crime Act 2002

Detective Constable Gareth Reynolds, of Staffordshire Police's 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."

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