A dodgy accountant has been jailed after laundering more than £1.2m for an international drug dealer while funding his own luxury lifestyle in Wilmslow.

Malcolm Carle, 57, of Overhill Drive,  helped his boss Walter Callinan process money from importing and selling cannabis, even buying a £1.2m hotel with the cash. Police found Carle’s encoded accounts – some of which showed the receipt of £973,000 in cash from the sale of drugs and details of ‘Proj Hot’ – referring to the purchase of the Hadley Green Bowling Inn, near Worcester.

He used his ill-gotten gains to fund a luxury lifestyle – following Chelsea FC  around the world and driving a Jaguar.

He even double-crossed his drug dealing boss, taking out a secret loan against the hotel to fund his own property deal.

He was jailed for six years at Winchester Crown Court after admitting three offences of money laundering. Walter Callinan, 59, who lived in a mansion in Malaga, was sent down for 11 years for two drug-dealing offences, five counts of money laundering and two passport offences. Police raided Carle’s home and found his accounts and diary, which they had to decode.
They also found more than £10,000 in cash.

They discovered Carle had set up a complex network of trusts and companies abroad to hide cash – some of these were so successfully concealed that the Serious Organised Crime Agency had not been able to trace them, the court heard.

One letter found at Carle’s house showed documents for a trust were hidden in Azerbaijan – other firms were set up in the Seychelles and British Virgin Islands.

But SOCA did manage to trace the transfer of £1.2m back from abroad.

Police found messages from Carle to Callinan about the hotel, which stated it had been purchased with ‘dirty money’ and was meant to be a ‘hidden and long-term investment’.

He referred to its transfer abroad as ‘to hide the way the funds were raised’.

When interviewed, Carle at first denied all knowledge of the scams, but later admitted MTC Law was ‘a big front’, admitted it was ‘all dodgy’ and said he ‘wasn’t happy’ with what he had done.

Callinan’s importation of cannabis to his office in Cheltenham between November 2007-2008 generated almost £1m of cash – found in Carle’s accounts.

Police also found identical accounts in Carle’s Wilmslow home and at a house belonging to Callinan’s Spanish girlfriend which showed 14 sums of £27,000 and £200,000 totalling just over £1.2m.

They also showed that Carle drove to pick up cash himself and claimed petrol expenses of 20p per mile from Callinan.

They found that on 10 occasions between December 24, 2007 and November 25,2011, Carle picked up cash ranging from £25,000 to £100,000 totalling £593,000. Carle had a 20pc stake in the hotel and other notes showed him receiving more than £58,000 in cash. He managed the finances of the Hadley hotel from mid-2006.

Although he told Callinan his drawings from the business were limited to £20 a week and the Hadley barely broke even, he was able to drive a Jaguar, fly around Europe watching Chelsea and enjoy many foreign holidays.

In July 2007, Carle used his position as sole director of an English firm which appeared to own the Hadley to secure a £1m loan for a property deal from which he hoped to make £200,000.

He didn’t tell Callinan what he had done, the deal went wrong and only £500,000 of the loan was repaid.

Callinan discovered there was a problem in late 2008 when he tried to re-mortgage the Hadley.

He sent his son and co-defendant Ben Callinan to talk to Carle. With interest the debt rose to £1.4m and the loan firm tried to enforce the sale of the Hadley to repay it.

Police discovered from notes in Carle’s diary and emails between the pair they fell out over the finances of the hotel.

Five co-defendants were also jailed for their part in the drug scam.