A drugs baron who posed with a £900,000 pile of money has been ordered to repay only £13,781.92.
Michael Welch ran a major drug smuggling operation and was a big-time cocaine dealer who lived the high life before being trapped by police and customs men.
During the height of his success, he posed at his home in Cornwall with a heap of £20 and £50 notes which Bank of England police experts calculated as amounting to £900,000.
He used his wealth to buy and run a lap-dancing club in Plymouth called Teazers, and splashed the cash on a flashy Rolex watch, designer clothes and expensive foreign holidays.
His assets were seized after police shut down his drugs operation in which he used a converted BT van with a secret compartment to smuggle cocaine into Britain.
He and fellow gang members sold the drugs out of his base in a container in Embankment Road, Plymouth, and at Wixenford Farm in Plymstock.
Welch, aged 41, of Boconnoc Avenue, Callington, was jailed for nine years in 2010 for the drugs conspiracy and police started a Proceeds of Crime Act investigation.
This showed his profit from selling drugs to have been £400,000 but that his only remaining assets were his half share in the equity of his family home, his watch and some painting.
A Judge at Exeter Crown Court has now approved a final order that he must repay just £13,781 after all his goods were sold on a police auction website.
Judge Francis Gilbert, QC, declared that the available amount for confiscation was this figure and it should be paid over within 28 days.
He ordered Welch to serve an extra 12 months in prison if it is not, but this is a formality since all the money is in the hands of the police and will be transferred from one account to another.
Mr Jason Beal, defending, said: "All the items have now been sold and so we have a final available amount and I ask you to make the confiscation order in that sum. The police already have the money."
During a series of hearings in front of different judges, the court has heard how extensive police investigations failed to uncover any secret bank accounts of hoards of money.
An initial figure of £29,630 was set, but this has now been reduced by almost £10,000 because the house was heavily mortgaged and its value fell, reducing his share of equity to just £1,500.
The case had to be delayed again to allow the police to sell Welch's collection of 17 paintings on their own auction website named Bumblebee.
