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The Essex Murders - Who Killed Goldfinger
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Short filmTranscript
00:00My name is Giovanni Di Stefano. I'm an international lawyer. I defended John Goldfinger-Palmer,
00:13but I've also defended a number of other high-profile cases worldwide, including the Iraqi regime,
00:19Milosevic, Gaddafi, Mugabe, Ian Brady. My latest client is President Bashar Assad,
00:27and it all kicked off, thanks to John Goldfinger-Palmer's case.
00:33John Palmer was and remained to the last day, in my view, a legitimate business entrepreneur.
00:41He was dyslexic, he had a problematic childhood, and he still made a success of his life.
00:48He was richer than the Queen, he sailed close to the wind, sometimes he went over the edge,
00:53and he paid a terrible price for it. But, you know, he was no gangster.
00:59I've never come across a more evil person than John Palmer. So we decided that we would show him up for what he was.
01:07Roger Cook, I'd like to talk to you about money laundering.
01:10About what?
01:11Money laundering.
01:11He was the biggest criminal in Britain at the time. You know, he seriously enjoyed hurting people, or having them hurt.
01:19We've got it all on film. You're going to look amazingly stupid.
01:23He had my address, he knew my movements, and he took out a contract on my life.
01:31John Palmer was not dangerous at all. He wasn't a gangster. That's what I do to Roger Cook.
01:36One of Britain's most notorious gangsters, shot at close range.
01:44But who ordered John Palmer's murder, and why?
01:47You can run on for a long time. Run on for a long time. Run on for a long time.
01:57Soon or later, gotta cut you down. Soon or later, gotta cut you down.
02:06It's been a financial.
02:14It was a war.
02:17At the beginning of my career in the 1980s and into the 1990s, I knew John Palmer had written a lot about John Palmer.
02:26He was a big fish in the criminal underworld.
02:29John Palmer was internationally famous as Goldfinger.
02:38He made a fortune out of fencing the Brinks Matt Gold.
02:42I'm completely innocent of this so-called Matt Brink bullion ride.
02:48I know nothing of it.
02:51As the jury foreman spoke the words, not guilty,
02:55John Palmer looked at the jury, nodded, and then blew them a kiss as he left the dock.
03:02Dodging jail left Palmer a free man with millions in the bank.
03:07He headed straight back to Tenerife where he spotted a golden opportunity to put his fortune to work.
03:14And this propelled him into the stratosphere of criminality.
03:19Ooh, I've got him here.
03:20But big money leads to big enemies.
03:27In Tenerife, John Palmer was swimming in very dangerous waters.
03:33And for him, there was going to be no escape.
03:36Right, John Palmer.
04:00What I want us to do today is review the facts around the day that he was murdered, the day he died.
04:14My own personal experience of Mickey McAvoy is that he's an extremely dangerous individual.
04:19And he's an extremely dangerous individual.
04:49When John Palmer first arrived on the island, it was nothing like it is today.
05:02People dreamed of owning property in the sun.
05:05The land here was cheap, so it was massive investment.
05:08And Palmer saw an opportunity and took advantage.
05:12He invested heavily in timeshare.
05:14So I want to go down to the centre of the main town.
05:20I just want to go down and have a look, get a feel and understanding of what was going on at that time.
05:24Coming up now to Harley's and the Flamingo Beach Bar, which was one of John Palmer's
05:54original restaurants, clubs, and this is where he operated from.
06:00This was the centre of John Palmer's power back in the day.
06:06Classic cars outside on the front.
06:08Then going down to Flamingo Beach Bar, and this was the investment.
06:11This was the power base.
06:13This is where the wealth was open.
06:15After his acquittal, his plan was to go straight back to Tenerife and make something of himself.
06:34Being in Tenerife at the right time enabled him to build his empire.
06:43John has always been seeing opportunities and going for them, making the most of everything
06:51he possibly could to get as much money as he can, because that's what turns him on.
07:00I'm going to meet someone who was investigating John Palmer at the time that John was building
07:13his criminal empire on the island.
07:14Now we're headed to the first complex that he bought Palmer here, the Island Village, which
07:29was acquiring many more.
07:33This is all Island Village.
07:53When the parliament arrived in the Tenerife, this is now.
07:57It was just clear.
07:58Clear, clear, all clear.
08:00So why is this important to John Palmer's story?
08:07It's important to John Palmer because it's the first complex that he bought or acquired
08:11once he arrived to the island of Tenerife.
08:14And with this complex of apartment, he found out that it was a business that left a lot of
08:21money and went to buy another series of complex to dedicate them to time sharing.
08:30He came with money and he realized that there was no mafia in the island, there was no
08:37mafia, no delinquency organized.
08:40His business was dedicated fundamentally to his compatriotas, to the Britannians.
08:46He brought people outside of Tenerife, he brought a lot of British salespeople.
08:53He brought people outside of Tenerife, he brought people outside of Tenerife.
09:08Well in 1991 I had hair, I was a lot slimmer and a lot fitter.
09:12I loved having fun and I loved earning money.
09:15I was 17 years old. I'd never been away from home before. It was my first job. I was so naive.
09:25It's living in the fast lane, Tenerife. You know, bars opened all night, nightclubs opened all night.
09:31There was a lot of drugs, there was a lot of alcohol. The strip, Veronica's, was a very, very popular place to go.
09:38You know, you had the best DJs. It was just wild and it was like a whole new way of life.
09:45When I first got to Tenerife, I realised that it was dominated by John Palmer and his timeshare industry.
09:52It was totally dominated by him out there.
09:56Well, his timeshare business, he built basically shallets, he built rooms, hotel rooms, luxurious ones,
10:03and people would be able to choose the weeks that they would go and stay on holiday.
10:07And that was their home and their property for that period of time there.
10:11Now, in theory, timeshare isn't a bad idea. What happens is that for a lump sum, you buy the right to use an apartment or villa for particular weeks of the year.
10:20On top of that, you have to pay maintenance, but you do get the chance to swap your weeks for time in another apartment somewhere else in the world.
10:28Fine, if that's what you want.
10:30If I was a person who wanted to buy a timeshare, I would have a look around a resort, choose a timeshare that I would like,
10:36and then I'd buy one or two weeks out of the year for that apartment for the rest of your life, just by paying one fixed fee.
10:44Started for a studio at three and a half grand. For one bed, it was about five or six grand.
10:48Two bed, ten to twelve grand.
10:50By 52 weeks of the year, times 200 apartments in each resort. It's a lot of money.
10:54Big money. It's massive money. In essence, what you're doing is you're selling the same damn thing 52 times.
11:04There's always going to be some trouble in that.
11:06Ah, well, can I just say one thing off the record? I'm not here to invite you anywhere, by the way. There you go.
11:11John Palmer's employees were schooled to use absolutely maximum high-pressure sales techniques.
11:17It was a bit like double glazing on speed, badgering tourists all day long on the seafronts at the various resorts in Tenerife.
11:26So an OPC is an outside personal contact.
11:31But the locals would call us overpaid cunts.
11:34We were the people on the streets who would give scratch cards to tourists.
11:39Basically, I would approach a couple on the street.
11:45You give the winning ticket to the woman, and you give the losing ticket to the man.
11:48That's what I used to do.
11:50We could make up whatever we wanted.
11:52They could either go to the airport and collect their prize.
11:55We're about to the airport.
11:56You'll see, as you walk in, there's a big sign.
11:58It says, scratch your mouth. It's a huge, great, luminous sign. You can't miss it.
12:01I used to say that there's a festival on the beachfront.
12:04You can get some free car hire.
12:05You can get a meal for four in Harley's Restaurant.
12:08It was all a story.
12:09It was a story to get them stopped, to think that they would get a free prize, a free bottle of wine, a free drink.
12:16Oh, look, you've done it.
12:18The priority was to get the couple in a taxi, no matter what.
12:23And when you get them to the resort, if they agree to look around the resort for 90 minutes, I would get £50.
12:32And a south person, they would take them around the resort.
12:35And then they got the hard sell.
12:37A lot of the south people would say to them that, you know, don't worry if you change your mind, you can cancel when you get home in England.
12:44But you couldn't.
12:45The money is gone.
12:46The money's gone, yeah.
12:47Is it Palmer's pocket?
12:48That's right.
12:49The money's gone, yeah.
13:19They said, in fact, this is a scam.
13:21So that's when I started to go back and say that we wanted out of the arrangement.
13:25They grabbed him.
13:26They hustled him out of the building.
13:28And they then sort of kicked him and got him down on the ground.
13:31And they bounced his head on the pavement and on the road.
13:38The story that was emerging was that this was a business run by thugs and gangsters.
13:44That money was being almost extorted from ordinary working people.
13:48And that was saying to us that Palmer must have a lot of influence there because he didn't seem to be in fear of justice, in fear of law enforcement.
13:58I was in the apartment when I turned around and a man came through the door, took three paces towards me and commenced hitting me around the head with a baseball bat.
14:10Palmer moved in Tenerife from being a fraudster to becoming a real organised crime character.
14:26A real mafia don, if you like, in the Canary Islands.
14:30He surrounded himself with people who would go out and commit acts of violence without any questions asked on his behalf.
14:42The first time I realised that John Palmer had a lot of power was when he had a party one night.
14:47Lots of people showed up.
14:48Lots of his friends were there.
14:50One of his friends got attacked by somebody drunk.
14:53And John Palmer got the ump about that.
14:55And he put out a contract on him.
14:56And the fella left the island that night and then paid 50 grand to come back.
15:02And then when he came back, he disappeared.
15:05A year later, his car was still parked outside the party venue and it was covered in dust and dirt and everything.
15:10You heard about that?
15:11I heard about that numerous times, yeah.
15:14I did hear about people being murdered.
15:22And, but I just turned a blind eye to it all because it wasn't something that I was wanting to know about, to be honest.
15:34So, yeah, not going to speak anymore about that, I'm afraid.
15:40Even now?
15:41No.
15:41Palmer era visto como el mafioso número uno por dos cosas.
15:54Tenía dinero, tenía mucha gente a su servicio.
15:58Y dos, era un hombre al que no le temblaba la mano para ordenar una quema de un coche, una paliza,
16:04dar un escarmiento a aquella persona que no cumplía con lo que, con lo que él creía que tenía que cumplir.
16:14Eso hace que la gente tenga miedo.
16:19Llegó a ver, llegó a controlar la isla.
16:22Él era el amo realmente del sur de Tenerife.
16:26I know I'd go from rags to riches
16:38As his empire expanded, John Palmer's wealth went through the roof.
16:46He was earning so much, virtually a million pounds a week, that he couldn't invest it quick enough,
16:50back into hotels, into port facilities, marinas, into villas.
16:56This was a top gangster at the top of his form.
17:00My clothes may still be torn and tattered
17:04Him and I never actually talked about what money he had or what money he didn't have.
17:13Just we didn't do it.
17:15I wasn't living over there.
17:18So Tenerife was totally separate from me.
17:23We had holidays on Concord and we were doing everything that we wanted to do and we had the boat.
17:30He had the private jets because he was coming back and forwards to home anyway.
17:37Apart from everything, his business side of it, I mean, and it was leased.
17:43I mean, loads of people do that.
17:44From our perspective, John Palmer's lifestyle on Tenerife was that of a rock star.
17:51You know, he looked to be unstoppable.
17:53But when he appeared in the Sunday Times rich list, up there with the same amount of money as the Queen,
17:59it started to make the yard think that there had to be something in this that was criminal.
18:04We need to look even more closely at this man.
18:07How did he get to be this rich?
18:10Driving a buggy through the grounds of his Essex home, one of Britain's most notorious gangsters,
18:32John Goldfinger Palmer, and watching him in the garden, a contract killer who would later shoot him dead.
18:39I heard John Palmer was dead in a news bullet and very shortly afterwards,
18:44people who knew I had an interest rung me to tell me that he had been assassinated.
18:51I did not feel sorry at all for his departure.
18:54I thought the world was rid of a really nasty piece of work.
18:57Well, I've had an interest in John Palmer for a very long time.
19:03The man was evil, pure evil, I think.
19:06So we decided that we would show him up for what he was.
19:10The Cook Report was a very, very popular investigative programme.
19:21It tackled all sorts of subjects.
19:25We're in Red Square and on our way to a secret meeting to buy plutonium to make a nuclear bomb.
19:31We had a very wide variety of subjects, like buying weapons-grade plutonium from the Russian Mafia.
19:38That was the hairiest one we ever did.
19:41Once we had the evidence, we would then organise to confront the malefactor.
19:46Hello, my name's Roger Cook from Central Television.
19:49And some of them, of course, turned violent.
19:50Leave him alone.
19:51Leave the **** in your ass!
19:52During the course of it, I used to think it was like lion taming.
19:56If you showed fear, you'd had it.
20:05On Tenerife, John Palmer was a very powerful man.
20:09Some people thought the most powerful.
20:11He used to boast he had the judiciary and the police force in his pocket.
20:14And he could do anything he liked.
20:17If he didn't get his way by fair means, which he very rarely did,
20:21he'd do it by foul.
20:23Well, we had an editorial meeting in the Cook Report offices in Birmingham.
20:27And one of the subject letters we wanted to investigate was money laundering.
20:30We spoke to a lot of people, lots of senior police officers.
20:34And the one name that kept coming up was John Palmer.
20:39Palmer very quickly got into money laundering because timeshare is an ideal way of doing it.
20:45He had a legitimate business and he manipulated it so that he was able to have millions of pounds
20:52going through the companies that he set up.
20:55He began to launder money for the Colombian cartels because he had a big cocaine habit himself.
21:01And it made him lots and lots of money.
21:04Actually, in the end, it made him more than timeshares.
21:06Our research showed that huge amounts of money, as much as 400 million, were being sifted through his many accounts.
21:18He was able to conceal the true origins of this money by laundering it through a vast web of international companies
21:25in a number of different offshore tax havens, almost impossible, in fact impossible to trace.
21:32We did a deal with the Metropolitan Police to investigate his money laundering activities while they concentrated on timeshare.
21:43It is unusual for the police to work in that way with a journalist.
21:48But, you know, you have to remember that Roger Cook at the time had a tremendous reputation.
21:53He had like 12 million viewers.
21:56His journalism was regarded as, you know, really being integrity-based.
22:00And we were very happy that what he was going to do was a legitimate operation.
22:04We wanted to find a way of showing John Palmer as the unprincipled man he was.
22:09And we thought the best way to do that would be to get him to offer to launder money from drugs.
22:14The only way we could do that was find some realistic people to do the deal with him.
22:21General Kun Saar cuts open raw opium, which will be refined into heroin.
22:26Kun Saar was a warlord in Burma, who was the biggest heroin producer in the world at that time.
22:32As he produces 80% of the world's heroin,
22:35The potential profits for a money launderer would be staggering.
22:39So as a result of a programme we had made earlier,
22:42when we wanted to get a couple of drug barons,
22:45we sent a message to him on a cleft stick,
22:48and he said, of course you can,
22:49and sent out two of his men who were the real article.
22:52And John Palmer couldn't fault them because they were the real article.
22:56So we thought he'd go for something that big.
23:01First, the Burmese wanted happy snaps to take home.
23:05This is for the special hook.
23:07We've finished all the other.
23:10Astonishingly, Palmer came himself,
23:13sitting cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese, eating a Thai meal.
23:16That was when we knew we had him hooked completely.
23:21He told Saar and Pawn that he kept at least one bank account,
23:25especially for the purpose of money laundering.
23:28Balance is $10 million.
23:29It's difficult for him to check me.
23:31Yeah.
23:31Our business is in Spain.
23:33Our banks are in offshore England.
23:35Yeah.
23:3690% is in the digital money.
23:38Yeah.
23:38I watched the secret recordings more or less as live,
23:42and I just couldn't stop grinning.
23:44He was digging a big, big hole,
23:47which is exactly what we wanted him to do.
23:48In the house we'd rented for Kun Saar's men,
23:51Palmer put a price on his services.
23:54I think he'd probably be selling my 25%.
23:5625%?
23:58Because I have to do it properly.
24:00This is a meeting in the muse house that we rented.
24:04I'm not cheap, but I'm good.
24:06Oh, yeah.
24:07He soon began to relax and realise
24:10that he was going to do some serious business in Southeast Asia.
24:14If you give me a million dollars,
24:16I'll take a million from my bank.
24:18Yeah.
24:19This is clean room.
24:20Yeah.
24:20I need minimum six weeks.
24:23I can handle 50 million every six months.
24:26He was offering to launder vast quantities of drugs money,
24:30and to top it all, he asked these drugs barons
24:33whether they could provide him with unidentifiable soldiers.
24:37He was supposed to act as enforcers for him.
24:39So if I want something done,
24:42somebody making problems with me, big problems,
24:45you can give me some soldier from here, some men.
24:48Yeah.
24:48Yeah?
24:48No problem.
24:49No problem.
24:50No problem.
24:50The confrontation was meticulously planned.
24:53I mean, we thought of every possible variation,
24:55and we made it very convincing.
24:56So Power actually turned up on his own.
24:59Mr. Power, Roger Cook, I'd like to talk to you about money laundering.
25:08About what?
25:09Money laundering.
25:09We've been listening to every conversation you've had with George...
25:11He was so shocked, you could tell on his face,
25:14as it dawned on him,
25:16that he'd been conned by the Cook report.
25:19I don't know what you're talking about.
25:21We've recorded every one of the conversations you've had with the representative Kunsa.
25:24We've just heard you offering to launder money.
25:27We've heard you offering to launder at least three million.
25:29We have.
25:30We have the tape of it.
25:31Everything you said has been recorded.
25:34Everything, including...
25:36Including requests for...
25:38I don't understand.
25:39Including requests for enforcers.
25:41He denied all knowledge of any of these nefarious activities,
25:44and then got into a taxi, which he'd hailed,
25:47and looking ridiculously smug.
25:49Which you knew it was.
25:50I wish I had it.
25:51You had.
25:53The taxi starts to move away, but as luck would have it,
25:57the lights turned red.
25:59Roger went in again and opened the door and started talking to him.
26:02Just extraordinary.
26:04So, tell us more about the laundering.
26:08You were laundering money.
26:09You were offering to launder 60 million dollars a year
26:13from what you knew was drugs money.
26:17The people you've been talking with come from Kunsa.
26:19Never heard of it.
26:20I don't know who to do that.
26:21We've got it all on film.
26:23You're going to look amazingly stupid.
26:26As soon as Roger Cook had confronted him,
26:29we were raiding all of Palmer's premises,
26:32looking for evidence to support what we believe was the timeshare fraud
26:36against British subjects,
26:38and therefore something that we could prosecute.
26:41The taxi driver phoned us the next day and said,
26:44we'd gone about two streets up the road,
26:46and he started phoning all his offices around the country,
26:49only to find that the police had raided them
26:51at the very moment that we were doorstepping him
26:54at the Ritz Hotel.
26:55So, he got so angry, he flung his phone out of the open window.
26:59It was just amazing.
27:02What did John say about Roger Cook?
27:09Well, as usual, he said he was tricked into it.
27:15Made him look a bit silly, really.
27:17What Roger Cook did and the way that we worked together with him
27:24was the key to opening up the timeshare empire
27:28and ultimately Palmer's downfall.
27:31Scotland Yard initially investigated John Palmer
27:46on suspicion of money laundering,
27:48but senior detectives eventually decided
27:51they had a better chance of convicting him
27:53on the timeshare fraud.
27:55This was what I call payback for being acquitted in Brinks-Math.
27:59The state were out to get John Palmer.
28:03One way or to the other, by hook or by crook,
28:05they were going to get him.
28:10John Palmer turned up at the Old Bailey
28:12wearing a bulletproof vest, saying that he was a target,
28:15and he wore it throughout the trial.
28:18The threat against John Palmer was huge.
28:21You know, he was facing a trial
28:22which could have earned him 14 years in prison,
28:25and I think a lot of criminals on the outside
28:29would have been thinking that he would do anything
28:30to mitigate that position,
28:32and I think he was extremely vulnerable at that point.
28:37Palmer was charged with Connick's 16,500 timeshare customers
28:42out of £30 million.
28:44The difference with John Palmer's trial
28:47was he decided to defend himself.
28:49I'd been a police officer for 27 years.
28:52I'd never been cross-examined by a defendant
28:55acting on their own behalf.
28:58He thought he knew best, as John Palmer always did.
29:02John Palmer asked me, you know,
29:04why were we following him?
29:06Why were we spending all this money on him, as it were?
29:10And I told him that it was because we believed
29:12he was a serious and organised criminal.
29:14Which outraged Palmer,
29:16who kept turning to the jury and saying,
29:18I'm not a gangster, I'm not a gangster.
29:20Well, I spoke to Palmer and asked him
29:22how he got on in court there,
29:24and he actually did tell me that he regretted
29:26that he didn't have counsel.
29:28Jesus, he could easily have afforded
29:30he was one of the richest people in the UK.
29:33A massive mistake.
29:35During a long trial,
29:36he told the jury there had been a fraud,
29:38but that was done by others
29:40who were running the company for him.
29:42Palmer claimed that he was let down
29:43by people he worked with.
29:45That's complete rubbish.
29:45He controlled the whole thing.
29:47Nothing happened in his organisation
29:49without his direct involvement.
29:52He orchestrated absolutely everything.
29:55And if you didn't do it his way,
29:56you got seriously hurt.
29:59A wealthy businessman has been found guilty
30:01of swindling £30 million from holidaymakers
30:04in a timeshare fraud.
30:0651-year-old John Palmer
30:07has been convicted of defrauding
30:0917,000 tourists on the island of Tenerife.
30:13He still had a chauffeur and minders too,
30:22but the transport had changed rather
30:24as Britain's wealthiest villain
30:26was driven off to prison.
30:27I think the reality of John Palmer's life
30:30following the conviction was very different.
30:34He was going to prison for quite a long time.
30:36He was not in financial control
30:40of his businesses in Tenerife.
30:42He was in a very difficult and vulnerable position.
30:45When he was in prison,
30:46he clearly lost a lot of his cachet,
30:49a lot of his reputation.
30:51People didn't want to be associated with a man
30:53who was so publicly humiliated
30:56and was such a public target.
30:58If you've had the kind of life
31:01that John Palmer has had,
31:04he's got to look over his shoulder
31:06because things were falling apart for him.
31:10How come you and John never got divorced?
31:12I did try, but he would just not sign the papers.
31:22So, and of course, he was in prison quite a bit.
31:28So, when John died, we were still husband and wife.
31:33As John said to me a long time after,
31:39when I said to him, what's happened to us?
31:41And he said, it was all that Brinks met
31:44because it changed everything about us,
31:47about how we were.
31:52Do you miss those days?
31:55Yes, I do.
31:58He was, he was, um,
32:00a special person to me.
32:04So, yeah, do.
32:24So, Tony, what happened to Palmer's empire
32:26when he was in prison?
32:27Well, well, the empire of John Palmer,
32:30without John Palmer being present in Tenerife,
32:33it doesn't work well.
32:34He leaves a cargo of his companies,
32:38his hombres of Pajas, his testaferros,
32:40that they don't know how to manage the business
32:43as he was going to carry out.
32:44And the business, evidently,
32:46it was not the same.
32:47Apart from there, there was more competition.
32:49There was the man who was right,
32:52who also wanted a part of this tata,
32:54Mohamed Erbaic.
32:55And there was a lot of russians
32:56with money.
32:58You must have to take into account
32:59that John Palmer
33:01left a lot of enemies behind him.
33:03A lot of enemies and very powerful.
33:04So, I'm going to meet a really important man here in Tenerife,
33:27John Palmer's enforcer, Mohamed Erba.
33:29At one stage, he was Palmer's right-hand man.
33:33Then they became bitter enemies
33:35in a power struggle on the island.
33:38He seems to have taken over here
33:39when Palmer was jailed.
33:41This is a man alleged to have been involved
33:45with intimidation, violence,
33:47never been prosecuted and convicted.
33:50So, we're on our way now to meet him
33:52at his business premises.
33:54And I want to see whether or not he knows
33:57or has got any ideas
33:58as to who really killed John Palmer
34:00and what the motive was.
34:11Hello, Mr Durban.
34:12David.
34:13You all right?
34:13You all right?
34:13You okay?
34:14You okay?
34:15Good to see you.
34:15Come in.
34:16Thank you so much for meeting with me.
34:19Any help you need, I mean.
34:21That's brilliant.
34:21Because you're not doing the wrong thing.
34:23You're doing the right things.
34:24Brilliant.
34:24And people, if they understand that,
34:26they're supposed to do it to help you.
34:27What I want to do is ask you some questions
34:29about John's life
34:30and potentially, you know,
34:33what led to John's death.
34:36Yeah, it's no problem.
34:37It's, you know,
34:37it's whatever I can have about John's life
34:40because, you know,
34:41and everybody knows how I am close to John
34:43from the beginning
34:44and even before he died.
34:46Oh,
35:16What was that?
35:19Blimey.
35:20That was not what I expected.
35:23I mean, I've made notes,
35:25but Mo is without doubt
35:29the most powerful man on the island,
35:32no doubt about it.
35:34He told me the whole history of John
35:35and him,
35:36but what was important
35:38was that Mo and John
35:41were best mates
35:43at the end.
35:45And Mo was looking after John.
35:47John had lost his power on this island
35:49and Mo was looking after him
35:51and Mo is looking after the family as well.
35:53But it was incredible.
35:56I mean, he spoke about John's wealth
35:59and how John lost that wealth.
36:03What happened throughout the period
36:06when John was in prison
36:08and how he looked after him in prison.
36:11But he said that John had got greedy
36:13and that's what had happened
36:15towards the end.
36:16John had got greedy
36:17when he was buying up properties,
36:19but he was also borrowing money
36:21and so he was having to pay interest
36:23back on that money.
36:24And he said that John,
36:26towards the end of his life,
36:28his exact words,
36:29John just wanted peace
36:30and he just wanted to get on with his life.
36:33He wanted to go fishing.
36:34He just wanted an easy life.
36:35The money had gone
36:36and he just wanted to get on with his life.
36:39The one thing that was quite clear
36:41is he says that if John had stayed in Tenerife,
36:45he would have been safe.
36:46He went back for that gallbladder operation
36:49and that's what got him killed.
36:52If he'd have stayed in Tenerife,
36:54he would have had the protection
36:55of Mo and his people,
36:58whereas John went back
37:00and that ultimately led to his death.
37:02So it was a mind-blowing interview
37:05and I'm going to have to sit down
37:07and seriously put all this together
37:10because there was so much there
37:15and then I need to follow through
37:17on the leads that he's given me
37:18to establish whether or not
37:20there's any corroboration for those leads.
37:22A lot of people
37:45are capable of both generosity
37:46and extreme violence.
37:48He recalled various violent episodes and criminal entanglements
37:53involving numerous people, major crime families
37:57and organised crime from across the world,
38:00including the Italian Gomorrah, and also links to Russians.
38:05Also, vast-scale money laundering all around the timeshare.
38:09But they were making £8 million to £10 million a month.
38:12Making.
38:14He said that the cash flow issues presented by Palmer's arrest
38:18led to Palmer's downfall.
38:21The biggest opportunity that came out of it is he spoke about a man
38:25who he described as a British accountant
38:28that clearly Mo Durba didn't like.
38:31He called him a grass.
38:32And so I need to now track that person down.
38:43Back in the 90s, after serving time in prison for fraud,
38:57I decided to have a fresh start in Tenerife,
39:00away from the British police,
39:02and set up a company dealing with high-net-worth individuals,
39:07advising them how to minimise their tax.
39:10I had clients from all over Europe,
39:17including John Palmer's former right-hand man,
39:20Mohamed Durba.
39:23And at that time, I realised that some of my clients
39:26were in fact mafia members or just gangsters.
39:33So I became an informant on behalf of the Spanish Secret Services.
39:37So I gathered lots of information on all these individuals.
39:47So I've got a mountain of evidence.
39:51Tape recordings.
39:55Documents.
39:57Everything.
40:00And because of that information and intel,
40:02I know who killed John Palmer.
40:29Hello, Paul.
40:30How are you?
40:31I'm David.
40:33Pleased to meet you.
40:34And you.
40:35Good to meet you.
40:37Paul, I've come up to see you.
40:39Yes.
40:40About the murder of John Palmer.
40:43So what's your involvement in all this?
40:44How did you get involved in it all?
40:46I'm an offshore financial consultant.
40:48Right.
40:49I was working in Spain.
40:51What part of John's life was this?
40:53This was late 2000s.
40:54So that was when he was out of prison?
40:57Yes.
40:58Right.
40:59And I had a client who was worth 25 billion pounds.
41:03Million or billion?
41:04Billion.
41:04Billion?
41:05Billion.
41:06And he was involved in a property deal in Moscow called Project Moscow.
41:11Right.
41:12Which my client had invested in.
41:15Project Moscow was a development of a shopping complex in Moscow.
41:25And from looking at all the accounting records to do with that, I came across a Russian oligarch called Boris.
41:33Boris Berezovsky?
41:34Correct.
41:34Right.
41:36So where does John Palmer fit into all of this?
41:38John Palmer had some links to Boris because he was dealing with Boris.
41:45Do you know what sort of business?
41:47Property in Tenerife.
41:50So he was investing in property in Tenerife?
41:54He was, yes.
41:54Right.
41:55Okay.
41:56Back in the 90s, before prison, John Palmer decided to open an office.
42:01He was in Moscow selling timeshare, and that was very, very successful.
42:07But to do business in Russia at that time was you had to be in with the mafia, otherwise you didn't operate.
42:14Then once he's in business with them, he's got access to funds, borrowed funds from them.
42:21So now he's borrowing monies as well.
42:23Wow.
42:24And this is a lot of money borrowed from a lot of highly dangerous people in Russia.
42:34Okay.
42:35So how do you back up, you know, what you've said to us today?
42:38I have tape recordings.
42:39Right.
42:40And this is a recording of a colleague of mine interviewing Mohamed Derva.
42:45This recording for me demonstrates just why John Palmer got killed.
42:51Right.
42:51Okay, go on.
42:52Someone said that Palmer's jet was often seen at Moscow airport.
43:02Well, at that time, all the time, the jet there went to pick up the money cash.
43:09You said that there was one million pound a week coming in from Russia.
43:14So he was taking money from the Russian mafia to invest in timeshare and not deliver.
43:44He didn't have enough to deliver anything.
43:57In the secret filming that we did, at the time, we had no prior knowledge about John Palmer's
44:03Russian connections until he started talking about it.
44:08This is a full transcript of one of our meetings with John Palmer, a lunch meeting.
44:13And he was very open about his business in Russia, doing business with the communists
44:20and ex-KGB agents, including the Russian mafia.
44:25We then started tracking his plane from Tenerife via Geneva, where he had bank accounts before
44:33he flew on to Russia.
44:35He told us during our secret filming that he had opened offices in Moscow, in St. Petersburg,
44:42where, at that time, Vladimir Putin was the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg and in charge of
44:48the external investment committee.
44:50There was a story about him inviting Gorbachev to Tenerife in two weeks' time, he says here,
44:59to talk about timeshare.
45:02You know, it sounds as if he was exaggerating, but this actually happened.
45:06Gorbachev did go to the Canary Islands.
45:08John Palmer was doing really well in Russia, and then he got arrested for the timeshare fraud.
45:24Right.
45:25He can't touch his assets, he can't touch his money, and now Palmer is absolutely in debt
45:32to his eyeballs, he's out of his league, this is not gangsterism in Tenerife, you're at
45:38a different level.
45:40Do you know how much debt Palmer was in?
45:43He's heavily in debt, to the tune of a million pounds a week, interest is.
45:48That's interest.
45:48That's just interest?
45:49That's just interest, a million pounds a week.
45:52But now if we fast forward, John Palmer's out of prison, he can't pay his debt, that is
45:57when you become a liability.
45:58Exactly what happened to people who were involved in Project Moscow.
46:05The Russian mafia have killed several people on British soil, all associated with Project
46:12Moscow.
46:15Inside his multi-million pound mansion, Verazovsky was found dead in his bath by his bodyguard.
46:22He was murdered and it was made to look as if it was a suicide.
46:26Scott Young's body was found in Montague Square on Monday evening.
46:30Did he fall onto these railings in London from the building above, or was he pushed?
46:36Scott Young, they killed him also, all on the orders of the Russian mafia.
46:41Suddenly you're putting all the pieces of the jigsaw together.
46:44You've got the Russian mafia, you've got Project Moscow, you know, a series of deaths in the UK.
46:51You've got John Palmer, Vastettes.
46:55And they're all interconnected.
46:57Everything's connected.
46:58One way or another.
46:59Wow.
46:59Tell me what you think happened, how John was murdered.
47:06My trusted client told me the Russian mafia, they put out the hit on John Palmer and assassins carried out the hit.
47:17So do you think that you're putting two and two together, or is that something that you specifically were told?
47:24This is what they've been actually being told.
47:26Right.
47:26Yeah.
47:33It's an extraordinary theory, but it's very difficult for me to back up.
47:38If Paul is right, and John ripped off the Russian mafia in a big way, their desire to kill him is plausible.
47:44But it doesn't prove anything.
47:47But it does open up the possibility of a line of inquiry.
47:52Russian OCGs are clearly capable of killing people on British soil.
47:56But they don't get their hands dirty.
47:59They employ professional hitmen to carry out the murders for them.
48:04It's happened in other cases, and we've seen it.
48:06Hitmen and assassins coming into the country and then escaping.
48:09So if I can identify who pulled the trigger, I may be able to establish who ordered the hit on John Palmer.
48:18They've been described as a murderous, drug-dealing cartel.
48:29What was he burning?
48:31What was he burning?
48:33Was that the motive for John Palmer's murder?
48:36They found all sorts of weird stuff.
48:40He was here to kill.
48:42You've got a professional assassin coming into the UK, into Essex, two weeks before the murder of John Palmer.
48:50This is dynamite.
48:51What was he burning?
48:52What was he burning?
48:53What was he burning?
48:53What was he burning?
48:55Agency I would favor the joy of lying to him.
49:16About this
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