John Palmer (criminal)

John Edward Palmer (September 1950 – 24 June 2015)[1][2] was an English gangster, former market trader and gold dealer,[3] involved in various criminal activities including mortgage and timeshare fraud.[4]

This article is about the criminal whose birth name is John Palmer. For the criminal who used the pseudonym John Palmer, see Dick Turpin.

John Palmer
Born
John Edward Palmer

September 1950
Solihull, Warwickshire, England
Died24 June 2015(2015-06-24) (aged 64)
Brentwood, Essex, England
Other namesGoldfinger
OccupationTimeshare/mortgage fraudster, gold dealer

The police believed that much of his alleged £300 million fortune was the result of swindles, violence, racketeering and money laundering.[5] Palmer owned a complex network of 122 companies, many offshore in the Isle of Man, Madeira and the British Virgin Islands, as well as 60 offshore bank accounts.[6]

Early life

Palmer was born in Solihull, Warwickshire, one of seven children.[7][8] Reportedly dyslexic, Palmer left school at 15 and joined his brother Malcolm in a roof tiling business[3] and also sold paraffin from "the back of a lorry".[9] He married Marnie J. A. Ryan in 1975 in Bristol.[10][11]

He ran a gold and jewellery dealing company, Scadlynn Ltd, in Bedminster, Bristol with business partners Garth Victor Chappell and Terence Edward James Patch.[5][12][13][14] Palmer and Chappell had been arrested in 1980 when they worked together selling furniture. The two men were charged with obtaining credit on furniture by providing false references, with Palmer receiving a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Brink's-Mat involvement and acquittal

In 1985, following the November 1983 Brink's-Mat robbery, Chappell and Patch of Scadlynn Ltd were arrested for their involvement in melting down £26 million worth of gold from the robbery to try to pass it off as legitimate.[12][15] Two days after armed robbers Brian Robinson and Micky McAvoy were jailed, Chappell withdrew £348,000 from the company's accounts. Throughout their trial, a total of £1.1 million had been withdrawn.[16]

During the raids, one of the suspects refused to confirm what they had been melting that morning. It was revealed that the company had been processing millions of pounds' worth of gold, but claimed it was gold they had purchased themselves. The company's books stated that they were selling the melted gold for virtually the same amount as they had purchased it for—which didn't make sense, unless the records were false. Confiscated documents also showed that the company had been evading tax, and were ordered for pay £80,000 in unpaid tax.[17]

Palmer evaded arrest at the time, after fleeing to Tenerife with his family only days prior to his company being raided and its directors arrested. His family returned to England, whilst he sold his remaining assets back home and set up a timeshare business at Island Village, near Playa de las Américas. He attempted to move to Brazil after Spain signed an extradition treaty with the UK, but he was arrested and his entry refused as he had travelled on an expired passport. Deported back to England, he was forced to face trial.[18]

Despite Palmer admitting to melting down gold bars from the robbery in his garden, he was acquitted during the trial in 1987 after claiming that he wasn't aware they were stolen.[19] Chappell was sentenced to ten years in the earlier trial.

He was reported by The Independent in 1993 as being subject to an asset-freezing Mareva Injunction gained by Brink's-Mat from the High Court of Justice, enabling investigators to track his substantial financial resources.[20] He later paid out £360,000 to Lloyd's the insurers as a result of a civil action brought against him, but continued to plead his innocence in the 1987 robbery and in 1999 claimed the authorities were persecuting him.[8] For his connection to the Brink's-Mat robbery, Palmer acquired the sobriquet of 'Goldfinger'.

Conviction for time-share fraud and later events

In 2001, he defended himself after sacking his legal team in one of the longest fraud trials in British legal history.[9] He was found guilty "of masterminding the largest timeshare fraud on record" and jailed for eight years.[21] It is reported that he swindled 20,000 people out of £30 million, but attempts by the Crown to confiscate this profit were later stopped in a court hearing.[22] Sentenced to 8 years, he served just over half of this term.[19] His fortune at the time of his conviction was estimated at about £300 million,[9] but Palmer was declared bankrupt in 2005 with debts of £3.9m.[23]

In 2007, he was arrested on charges including fraud. Reportedly, he had been able to continue his criminal activities during his incarceration, following his 2001 conviction.[22] In 2009, after two years without charge in a high security Spanish jail, he was released on bail, but was required to report to court authorities every two weeks.[24]

In 2015, it was alleged by The Times from leaked Operation Tiberius files, that Palmer was protected from arrest and investigation by a clique of high-ranking corrupt Metropolitan Police officers.[25] Palmer's companions were reportedly once detained in possession of a silenced Uzi submachine gun and 380 rounds of ammunition.[25]

Death

Palmer was murdered on 24 June 2015 at the age of 64 in his gated home of South Weald, near Brentwood, Essex by means of gunshot wounds to the chest. The fact he had been shot 6 times was only revealed during a post-mortem as he had undergone open-heart surgery for which the wounds were mistaken.[26][27] It was later revealed that at the time of his death, Palmer faced charges in Spain for fraud, firearm possession and money laundering. It was only after his death that it was revealed that in addition to his activities in Spain, Palmer also opened the first Russian timeshare company in the 1990s.

A special BBC documentary presented by broadcaster Roger Cook revealed that since 1999, police had run an intelligence operation on Palmer from the RAF Spadeadam base in Cumbria. Palmer was under electronic surveillance by a secret police intelligence unit for 16 years until his assassination by a hitman in 2015, according to the special BBC television investigation. The Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca), now the National Crime Agency, had gathered intelligence on Palmer in an operation codenamed Alpine because of concerns of corruption in the Metropolitan police.[28]

Following his death, it was revealed Palmer's partner Christina Ketley remained under police surveillance following reports from Spanish law enforcement agencies that she played a "predominant role" in his criminal empire. Ketley and fellow mistress Saskia Mundinger, who both had children with Palmer, demanded payouts from him in 2005 to "keep them in the lifestyle they became accustomed to". He also had two daughters with his wife Marnie.[29][30]

On 4 February 2017, a 50-year-old man was questioned on suspicion of Palmer's murder. Police said they had questioned a man who was originally from Tyneside although currently living in southern Spain. The man was not arrested but volunteered to be interviewed at a police station in the UK. The force did not specify at which police station he was interviewed.[31]

See also

References
  1. "The man who allegedly killed the British fraudster John Edward Palmer has been detained". typicallyspanish.com. Archived from the original on 14 October 2016.
  2. "Results for England & Wales Births 1837–2006". findmypast.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016.
  3. "Victims of a sunshine fraudster: Britons are being bullied and". The Independent. 28 February 1993. Archived from the original on 10 August 2017.
  4. Vasagar, Jeevan (19 May 2001). "How slick timeshare fraudster cheated thousands". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016.
  5. Steele, By John. "Swindler ran empire with army of thugs". The Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 5 May 2012.
  6. "John 'Goldfinger' Palmer: Murdered fraudster was under surveillance". The Independent. 12 July 2015. Archived from the original on 17 February 2017.
  7. Gibbons, Brett (2 July 2015). "Solihull criminal John 'Goldfinger' Palmer shot dead". Coventry Telegraph. Archived from the original on 13 September 2016.
  8. Elizabeth Nash "Goldfingered" Archived 10 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Independent, 2 July 1999
  9. Jeevan Vasagar and Nick Hopkins "King of crime who became as rich as the Queen" Archived 23 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, 24 May 2000
  10. "Results for England & Wales Marriages 1837–2008". findmypast.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016.
  11. "Results for England & Wales Marriages 1837–2008". findmypast.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016.
  12. Bristol Post (12 May 2012). "Aftermath of brutal robbery". exeterexpressandecho.co.uk.
  13. "TERENCE EDWARD JAMES PATCH – COLD ASHTON". checkcompany.co.uk. Archived from the original on 11 September 2016.
  14. ltd, company check. "MR GARTH VICTOR CHAPPELL director information. Free director information. Director id 905947735". companycheck.co.uk. Archived from the original on 16 September 2016.
  15. John Steele "Swindler ran empire with army of thugs" Archived 5 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine, telegraph.co.uk, 24 May 2001
  16. "Following the Brinks money trail". BBC. Archived from the original on 28 February 2009.
  17. Clarkson, Wensley (29 March 2012). The Curse of Brink's-Mat: Twenty-five Years of Murder and Mayhem – The Inside Story of the 20th Century's Most Lucrative Armed Robbery. Quercus. ISBN 9781849166508. Archived from the original on 25 January 2018 – via Google Books.
  18. Vasagar, Jeevan; Hopkins, Nick (23 May 2001). "King of crime who became as rich as the Queen". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 23 September 2016.
  19. Giles Tremlett "Spanish police hold 'Goldfinger' over claims he led international gang" Archived 7 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine, The Guardian, 13 July 2007
  20. Phil Davison and Michael Prestage "Victims of a sunshine fraudster: Britons are being bullied and deceived by a timeshare firm in Tenerife" Archived 25 September 2015 at the Wayback Machine, The Independent, 28 February 1993
  21. Judd, Terri (24 May 2001). "The Independent – London".
  22. John Steele "Criminal with Brink's-Mat link arrested in Spain" Archived 31 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine, telegraph.co.uk, 13 July 2007
  23. "Holiday conman declared bankrupt". BBC News. 6 May 2005. Archived from the original on 13 February 2006. Retrieved 6 May 2010.
  24. ExpressRewrite. "John 'Goldfinger' Palmer out on bail". archive.org. Archived from the original on 27 February 2012.CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  25. "'Goldfinger' had been protected by corrupt police". The Times. 6 July 2015. p. 5.
  26. "Murder investigation after John 'Goldfinger' Palmer shot dead". The Guardian (Press Association). 1 July 2015. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  27. "Notorious 'Goldfinger' Conman Found Shot Dead". Sky News. 2 July 2015. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 2 July 2015.
  28. London Evening Standard 26 September 2016
  29. Gary Jones (26 June 2003). "TIME TO SHARE; EXCLUSIVE He escaped paying back pounds 33m for timeshare fraud.. can Goldfinger now escape paying pounds 3m to one angry mistress and millions more to a second girlfriend?". The Mirror (London, England). Retrieved 26 November 2016 – via thefreelibrary.com.
  30. "Timeshare News – 2003 – Timeshare Consumer Association". timeshareconsumerassociation.org.uk. 28 December 2003. Archived from the original on 15 September 2016.
  31. "John 'Goldfinger' Palmer Murder Probe: Man questioned". BBC News. 4 February 2017. Archived from the original on 4 February 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2017.
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