Mr Big to pay £56k after making £800k

He thought he was untouchable, driving around the streets of Wolverhampton in a flash yellow Porsche and proudly showing off the trappings of his wealth.

Christopher Reid was described as "arrogant and over confident" by police, who uncovered these pictures of him posing with his Yardie-registered cars.

He is believed to have made more than £800,000 from his drug dealing enterprise.

But today he was facing the prospect of seeing his numberplates sold to pay back some of the £56,570 a judge ordered him to cough up.

Reid lost much of his wealth after defaulting on mortgages for some of his eight homes. The rest of his assets have been listed and he will now have to sell them to find the money he owes the court.

The cherished registrations of his cars have been valued at £1,000 each by police, who spent months researching his finances and found that just a fraction of the £828,071 he is said to have made from his life of crime is actually salvagable.

But if he ever comes into money, he will be ordered to pay back the £828,071 which police say he made from his criminal enterprise.

Today Det Ch Insp Mark Payne, the senior investigating officer who oversaw the team of detectives that brought down Reid, said the confiscation would send a powerful message.

He said: "This man set out to make money out of other people's misery through his drug dealing.

"The hard working, honest people of Deansfield and East Park saw him driving around in Porsches, owning lots of houses, and knew that that was paid for with the proceeds of crime.

"I hope those people can now see that we've stripped him of every asset that he's owned and he will continue to owe us the rest of the money. If that's not a message to anyone considering taking up drug dealing, then I don't know what is."

"The police understand how frustrating it is when people see criminals living lifestyles beyond their means and we do everything we can to strip criminals of their assets and send them to prison for a very long time."

Reid buried drugs in East Park in a bid to distance himself from the dealing, and used an old woman's garden as another secret stash. His runners would sneak in and out knowing that she was too frail to venture outside.

He was jailed in 2008 after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply heroin, crack, cocaine and cannabis.

Reid was living at Julian Road, Eastfield, at the time of his arrest but the father-of-one was on the verge of moving into an upmarket neighbourhood of Wolverhampton.

He had ambitious plans to demolish a bungalow in Windmill Lane, Castlecroft, and replace it with a house and conservatory. His arrest put the brakes on his plans and the building site fell into disrepair.

The house has since been demolished and replaced with an upmarket detached house built by a new owner.

During Reid's trial Mr Malcolm Morse, procesuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court: "Christopher Reid didn't indicate to the Inland Revenue that he was a mobile dealer of illegal drugs. He indicated to them he was a mobile valeter and car dealer.

"His money was not coming from waxing other people's wheel hubs. It was coming fromt he sale of the contents of a bushy area in East Park where he hid the drugs and an old lady's garden."

Ownership of Reid's yellow Porsche was transferred before the trial. At the time of his arrest police transported his black Porsche Cayenne around his local area to show residents that his criminal empire was being dismantled.

Exclusive by Crime Correspondent Mike Woods