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The Essex Murders - Who Killed Goldfinger
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Transcription by CastingWords
00:02Transcription by CastingWords
00:03Transcription by CastingWords
00:05Transcription by CastingWords
00:07Transcription by CastingWords
00:09Transcription by CastingWords
00:11Your dad, were you in a necklace?
00:13It's my dad's fingerprint.
00:15Oh, is it? Yeah.
00:16Oh, that's such a lovely thing.
00:19When did you get that done?
00:21I asked a few more directors to get a print of his fingerprint.
00:30Yeah.
00:32I like.
00:33Yeah, I never take it off.
00:37Some people have described him as a gangster.
00:39How do you do about that term?
00:47It's hard for me to say on that
00:49because it's quite hard to think of your dad like that.
00:57As a gangster?
00:58Yeah.
00:59And I don't think we do.
01:09My dad's house was secluded.
01:13When I was told he had been murdered, I'd actually speak to him a couple of hours before.
01:29He did go to prison.
01:33He did his time.
01:35Now, he was saying, well, that was, you know, it's maybe time for him to have a bit more of a relaxed life.
01:46Did your dad ever get death rounds?
01:47Did your dad ever get death rounds?
01:48Did your dad ever get death rounds?
01:50Did your dad ever get death raps?
01:57Not that I was aware of, no.
02:02He never acted like he was in fear of his life.
02:12All I kept thinking was, why?
02:15Why somebody would even want to kill my dad?
02:20One of Britain's most notorious gangsters, shot at close range.
02:33But who ordered John Palmer's murder, and why?
02:37You can run for a long time, run for a long time, run for a long time.
02:47One of these days gonna cut you down.
02:50One of these days gonna cut you down.
03:04Come, stay off the ropes, stay off the ropes.
03:07Whoa, you're wide open to me, wide open there.
03:11John Palmer did four years for timeshare fraud.
03:16While Palmer was inside, his former right-hand man, Mo Durba, moved in on his territory, and ran it like his own empire.
03:24When Palmer got out, his assets were frozen, the Spanish police were sniffing about, and rival gangs were coming in from all directions.
03:36So he did what any old school fighter would do.
03:39He tucked in his chin, he slipped back to Essex, and he took cover.
03:44But for Palmer, this wasn't the kind of game you can just retire from.
03:52Because in his line of work, there's always the risk that someone's gonna come after you with a sucker punch.
03:58And when it finally came to the end, there were actually two killers that took him down.
04:04One with enough money to buy a contract hit.
04:07The other came with a silenced pistol.
04:08I've been investigating the murder of John Palmer now for a year.
04:35But there's two distinct theories we're looking at at the moment.
04:41First one is Brinks-Matt.
04:49Mickey McAvoy, revenge.
04:52McAvoy was being screwed by people on the outside.
04:56He was violent, and he may have had a motive to kill John Palmer.
05:00And the second theory is that Palmer was killed by the Russian mafia.
05:04Do you know how much debt Palmer was in?
05:07A million pounds a week, interest it is.
05:10That's interest.
05:10That's just interest.
05:11That's just interest.
05:12Wow.
05:12They put out the hit on John Palmer, and assassins carried out the hit.
05:19Over the years, police have chased hundreds of leads without charging anyone.
05:23Rumours and speculation are rife in the press and social media.
05:26But there must be more to uncover.
05:28At his old Bailey trial 14 years ago, gangster John Palmer wore a bulletproof vest.
05:36In June, alone and vulnerable in the garden of his Essex home, he was shot dead.
05:43John Palmer's underworld life meant he was a potential target for many years, and he knew it.
05:49The bulletproof vest.
05:51This secluded home.
05:52What we know about Palmer's life from the outside at this stage is that he'd made it look like he was in retirement from his criminal activities.
06:03In reality, he'd withdrawn into a fortress.
06:07The house was wired with CCTV covering every angle, and he had four guard dogs on a daily rotation.
06:13So you've got to ask what kind of assassin could breach this level of security, shoot John six times, and vanish without a trace.
06:27So I'm going to meet Philip Boyce, a firearms expert who's 40 years' experience.
06:32We're going to go to the scene, and I'm hoping that Phil can interpret the scene and identify the methodology used by the killer.
06:45Morning, Philip.
06:47Morning.
06:48You OK?
06:49Yeah.
06:50Nice to see you again.
06:51And you.
06:51And you.
06:52This is obviously the public footpath.
07:02This is the, that's the house in the foreground.
07:05This is the wooden fence that's the circumference, runs around the circumference of the entire garden.
07:10Is that the original height of the fence?
07:12Yeah.
07:14Quite a big area of property as well.
07:17Yeah, it's massive.
07:17So the path goes off to the, slightly to the left, and there's like a dip down, and it's over on the, that part of the fence, where they say there was a hole, that the shooter had kept observation on John.
07:31So, this is the, effectively the scene.
07:34So, you've got John Palmer on his lawn tractor, backwards and forwards to an area over here.
07:53Yeah.
07:53Which is where he's burning documents.
07:55So, you've got John Palmer on his lawn tractor, backwards and forwards to an area over here.
07:55Yeah.
07:56Which is where he's burning documents.
07:59The shooter is hiding behind the fence.
08:22No CCTV in this area.
08:31The shooter goes over the fence.
08:38Shoots John three times in the front.
08:41Three times in the back.
08:46And then he's found about 15 metres away.
08:49The gun, there's no cartridges anywhere.
08:57No, nobody hears the shots.
09:01At the time, they didn't know what had happened to him.
09:03Obviously, many, many days later, they find six bullet wounds in him.
09:09And, according to the police, it was a .32 caliber silenced weapon.
09:14Yeah.
09:15So, what's your views on that?
09:17To give you an idea of the range of calibers, you can have something like a .22 caliber.
09:23Right.
09:23But that's quite small.
09:24You wouldn't think that would kill someone.
09:26That will travel for maybe a mile and a half.
09:29Wow.
09:30From a rifle or a pistol.
09:32Right.
09:33.32 caliber.
09:35That's the one.
09:36Which is the one we're talking about.
09:38It's developing somewhere in the region of 190, 200 foot-pounds.
09:43So, it's got good injury stroke lethal power.
09:50And also, the bullets recovered were from a smoothbore barrel.
09:55Which may indicate the weapon used was a silenced revolver.
10:00I have two guns here.
10:08And this is a typical size of a .32 revolver.
10:13And why is it that you think the police considered it was a revolver that was used in the murder?
10:19Well, again, really, to demonstrate it, this is a sound moderator.
10:25Right.
10:25And inside the sound moderator is a series of metal baffles.
10:31And whenever it's fitted to a gun, the bullet sometimes hits those baffles.
10:36And there must have been some marks on the bullet to suggest that it was fired through a silencer or a sound moderator.
10:43It's like a shemaltz on the actual bullet itself.
10:44Yes.
10:45So, the likelihood is the gun that was used to kill John Palmer had been adapted so that it would have the silencer just screw on the top.
10:54I would suspect so.
10:56So, with this, the bullets would still be loaded.
10:59But, literally, you've got to pull back the trigger mechanism each time to fire.
11:03Yeah.
11:05And you've got six shots and you fire them all.
11:08And you fire three in the front, three in the back with a silencer.
11:11No forensics.
11:13Determined.
11:15Professional assassin?
11:16Possibly, yes.
11:18The whole scenario shows pre-planning and knowledge of firearms at least.
11:23I wouldn't have expected someone to have carried this shooting out unless they were a professional assassin.
11:31Right.
11:31So, we know that the shooter managed to kill John in an area of the garden where there was no CCTV.
11:56And we know that he used a weapon that was very quiet.
12:01And we know also they've been carrying out surveillance, reconnaissance on John and identified his routine.
12:10So, they picked the right moment to kill John Palmer.
12:14So, it looks like a professional hitman.
12:19And there's not many gangs that used professional assassins.
12:24We know Russian mafia are one, but I've found no hard evidence to back this theory.
12:32They've received a lead from a source in Ireland about an organised crime gang in Dublin with very close ties to John Palmer.
12:40They use professional hitmen to carry out their dirty work.
12:44That appears to me to be a very good lead to follow.
12:47I've known about John Palmer for years.
13:05I certainly knew about his career and, of course, the timeshares in Tenerife.
13:11So, as a crime journalist, when one of the wealthiest criminals in the UK is killed, you know that there is a really big story behind it.
13:21I remember when I first heard that John Palmer had been murdered because I was starting to make connections between Palmer, some of his associates, and people I was writing about.
13:38The biggest organised crime gang in this country, the Kinnehan Organization, two family groupings from Dublin who had joined together, the Hutch side and the Kinnehan side.
13:52They've been described as a murderous, drug-dealing cartel, and they migrate to Spain and the Costa del Sol.
14:01And John Palmer, of course, had his own businesses down in the Costa del Sol.
14:05The likes of Palmer, the likes of the Kinnehan's, they all know one another.
14:12And they all are in business at some point together in one way or another.
14:262016, there was a boxing weigh-in in the Regency Hotel.
14:31This feud had broken out within the Kinnehan Organization.
14:35And the leadership of the Kinnehan Organization were going to be there.
14:40People start running.
14:56And as they run out the front of the hotel, members of what looks like the armed response unit start making their way into the hotel.
15:11Most people believed they were the police, but they were actually the Hutch organized crime group, armed with Kalashnikov rifles, hunting for the head of the Kinnehan organized crime group.
15:25I got a phone call from the photographer I was working with, and he had captured an image of what he believed was a gunman and a woman fleeing from the scene.
15:38When he focused in a bit further, he could see that it was a gunman and another gunman in drag.
15:47It almost looks like something from a scene from Reservoir Dogs.
15:57That was the moment that this Hutch-Kinnehan feud really exploded.
16:02Michael Barr was shot dead last month by two gunmen who burst into the Sunset House pub in the Summer Hill area.
16:08Forensic specialists today examining the scene of last night's gangland murder in Dublin.
16:14This gang feud turned parts of this city, the inner city here in Dublin, into an absolute war zone.
16:2118 young men, dead.
16:22In the aftermath of this, something very unusual happened.
16:32Out of the blue, this weird sort of anonymous Twitter site appeared called the Whistleblower.
16:40This site was tagging journalists like myself, crime journalists, trying to alert you, trying to get your attention.
16:46And it starts giving information about cartel murders, in-house murders.
16:56I'm communicating with people I know, high open the guards, and they're telling me, this is fucking accurate.
17:05It was investigated by the police here, and it was discovered that this was the Hutch-organised crime group that was behind it.
17:11And they were ready to spill the secrets of the Kinnehan's.
17:16One of the secrets that that whistleblower site let out claims that a hitman for hire working for the Kinnehan cartel killed John Palmer.
17:46So we've come over to Dublin to meet with a journalist who has been investigating, organised crime, out in Ireland, in Dublin.
18:00And she has intelligence on a hitman who could be a suspect in the murder of John Palmer.
18:18So, Nicola, what happened to John Palmer and how he was murdered? What do you think?
18:24About two years after John Palmer was shot, an international contract killer showed up here in Dublin.
18:36He was employed by the Kinnehan cartel to take out one of their sworn enemies.
18:43And when he flew in from Alicante, he was here to kill.
18:54The Irish police got a tip-off that there was a man on the way in to the airport, and his name was Imre Arrakis.
19:07He was known as an international hitman for hire.
19:12He was wanted in a number of countries for murder.
19:15Ireland was in the grip of a gang feud, and they knew that he had previously worked with the Kinnehan organisation, and he was followed.
19:29He was disguised as a tourist, a fishing enthusiast, he had a rucksack on his back, he had a tent in it, and as the surveillance team watched him, he was picked up in a van by a known associate of the Kinnehan organisation.
19:48He was followed back to a premises where he was due to stay the night, he was arrested the following morning, he found all sorts of weird stuff, telescopic equipment, disguises, there was masks, and during his arrest, an encrypted BlackBerry mobile phone was picked up.
20:18This is the printout of those messages that were sent on that encrypted phone.
20:32You know, it shows what he's planning to do, and how he hopes to go to Belfast and to stalk his prey, really.
20:41And who was he going after?
20:42He was going after a guy called James Mago Gately, and this was a military-style operation.
20:51He wanted a gun that was accurate, and he wanted a silencer.
20:56Those messages, read them, because I think they show certainly a modus operandi that he's using.
21:03Incredible, isn't it?
21:04I'll have to read this and see how this fits in potentially to John Palmer's murder.
21:12So I'm just reviewing the information that Nicola gave us yesterday in relation to the text messages that were received on the BlackBerry phone.
21:41Very detailed information between four individuals, one of whom is identified as Imre Arrakis, talking about a very sophisticated plan for a professional assassination.
21:54This is interesting because obviously here you can see the people who commissioned Arrakis replied to OW, which is Arrakis, as to how to go to and identify the target, which is James Gately.
22:13And if you go further down into the text messages, you see Arrakis, you see Arrakis, he's now responding, where can we see photos of him?
22:24They say, go into Google, write James Gately, Dublin criminal.
22:29It's the second picture in, he has a black suit on, it's a clear picture of him, that's the target.
22:40By analysing the preparation for this hit, I want to see if there are any similarities between it and the murder of Palmer, and see if Arrakis is a possible suspect.
22:57The people who commissioned Arrakis tell him that the target's car exits the rear of the building, from a shutter which opens up and down.
23:14Champagne coloured Toyota Aventis, he drives most days, he seems to go to Nureen back, we have a tracker on his car, when he is 10 minutes away, get in position, he parts in the same space always, so then you have him.
23:44Arrakis replies, my plan was actually to go there tomorrow, it seems it's possible to take him down, when he comes out of the car.
24:00It is good if the gun is really accurate, also, silencer would be good.
24:19This is the shutter, this is the shutter that's described in the text messages.
24:37Arrakis is hiding, Gately comes to here, in his car, in his Aventis, car comes in, parks up directly in front, as described in the text messages.
24:47Gately goes, literally, Arrakis is bang, bang, bang, bang, and then he's out.
24:54And then once he's out, he's away, Gately's murdered, dead.
25:01Perfect assassination.
25:03Even though he didn't get to carry out the murder, Arrakis has identified the vulnerabilities of Gately.
25:20It's all the pre-planning, the whole set-up for the murder.
25:25I can't see any CCTV down here.
25:28Ideal place to exploit and kill Gately.
25:32And in similar fashion to John Palmer.
25:35John Palmer.
25:40You've got the surveillance.
25:42No CCTV.
25:44The use of a silencer.
25:47It feels like a professional hit.
25:48Hello.
26:04Is that you, David?
26:05It is, yeah.
26:06Albert, you OK?
26:07Yeah, just a bit.
26:08Good news here.
26:09Remember your task, mate, to look at the...
26:11that Arrakis is a potential suspect.
26:13Yeah.
26:14It was in the country, aye, in the UK, but more importantly, in Essex, two weeks before the murder.
26:23Wow.
26:24Right, OK, I'm on the way back.
26:33Oh, Albert, you OK?
26:35You've got some more for us, haven't you?
26:36Well, we've spoken to the same source that you know.
26:39Let me just summarise what he's saying.
26:41He's saying Arrakis entered the UK in the weeks before Palmer's death.
26:48It's got similar facts.
26:49If you look at the detail in relation to what happened in Ireland.
26:53Silencer.
26:54Yeah.
26:55Preparation, lifestyle surveillance, coming into the UK, into Essex,
26:58two weeks before the murder of John Palmer.
27:04He's a very, very good suspect.
27:08This is dynamite.
27:09We've had information that a professional assassin, Imre Arrakis, had arrived in England just before the murder of John Palmer.
27:30I've tracked him down.
27:33He's in Lithuania at the moment.
27:39He's standing trial.
27:40He's been arrested for another murder, another assassination.
27:43And he's now on trial for gunning down a man outside his home.
27:50In Belarus.
27:51anytime soon, he's standing around.
27:52Imagine.
27:53Somewhere late in England..
28:00In India..
28:11He was probably in Europe.
28:19The last duck, Remigiju Markevičiu.
28:22He was a good guy.
28:26I know Remigiju Markevičiu,
28:29you can say, from a young age.
28:32Brilliant, very professional fighter.
28:35But, in words, he has another
28:37living room.
28:41He left contact with the people
28:43from the world of organized.
28:46Very big figures in the drugs world.
28:51We are working with cartels.
28:53Yeah.
28:58Arakas, Savaukas,
28:59mėgdavo stabdėti iki nužudimo.
29:02Arakas,
29:05I've lived in a few years
29:07in the past few years.
29:12Savau nužudimams
29:13used to be
29:14keistos modifikacijos
29:16pistolets.
29:17It was a pistolets
29:18with lintu.
29:20And Remigiju
29:22keistos modifikacijos
29:24kalashnikov
29:25keistom
29:26iscentrotom
29:27pulkom
29:30how much I felt
29:31to hear from
29:32the people's messages.
29:33Remigiju
29:34Murkevičiu
29:35even though
29:36he was running
29:37at the time.
29:38Arakas
29:40a few times
29:41took to
29:42turn up
29:43to the
29:44automatic
29:45and
29:46at the time
29:47Remigijus
29:48fluttered
29:49and
29:49hid
29:50into the ground.
29:51This is the shootings, the other birds.
30:06I think the Arrakas is very dangerous man, very cold blood killer, very.
30:20Hello, Davies. I'm David. As I think you're aware, I'm investigating the murder of John Palmer back in 2015.
30:29What we know so far is that Arrakas arrived into Essex two weeks before the murder of John Palmer.
30:38He's obviously a professional, so he gets hired by people. People give him contracts to kill.
30:44Has he ever spoken about who has given him contracts to kill people?
30:48He don't want to talk about this.
30:52Because, as you know, it's a very big criminal organization working with narco traffic in all Europe, in America, in Colombia, in Mexico.
31:04And it's very, very, very serious criminal organizations.
31:10And he is effectively a contract killer who works for those gangs.
31:14Yes, but he's been traveling man. Traveling killer, I think.
31:19A traveling killer.
31:20Yeah.
31:21And we know he arrived in the UK two weeks before the murder of John Palmer.
31:45So it makes you wonder, doesn't it, whether or not he is the man who pulled the trigger.
31:51Ah, what a situation is true.
32:01I spoke in a building in Texas, statement, and said,
32:04I'm from the individual outside of the country.
32:09So...
32:10...
32:10...
32:14...
32:15We know that Arakas is a really good suspect for the shooting.
32:27But Arakas is a professional hitman, and so someone employed him.
32:33So the big question is what was going on in John Palmer's life at that time
32:41that meant he had to be murdered.
32:45So we know that on the day of John Palmer's murder,
32:50he was in his lawn tractor and he was taking documents down to this area here.
32:55The only area in the house and garden where there's no CCTV.
33:09According to Essex Police, he is burning documents at the time that he's assassinated.
33:15What was he burning?
33:20What were those documents?
33:23Were those documents evidence?
33:27Could they have potentially implicated John or other people?
33:32Recently, I travelled to Tenerife and I interviewed a man called Mohamed Durba.
33:40And he told me that John was being pursued by the Spanish authorities and they were getting closer and closer to charging him.
33:47And I've seen speculation about a Spanish fraud trial in the papers, which echoes what one of my sources in Tenerife has turned up.
33:56So I'm going back out there to see what he's got.
34:05So I'm telling you, what have we got here?
34:17So I'm telling you, what have we got here?
34:19here these are documents of the Spanish Police itself on the illicit activities of John Palmer,
34:26because the Spanish Police was already after Palmer's steps for a long time, when they
34:32give the definitive coup that they decide to formally impute. This is the judicial diligence
34:40of the Central Juzgado de Instrucción No. 5 of the National Audiencia in Madrid.
34:45This is the 10th of April 2015, and when is he due to go to court?
35:10So the week that John Palmer found out that he had the court date was the week that he
35:28got murdered. So Spanish Justice was catching up with John Palmer.
35:32So we know on the 10th of April 2015, John Palmer is indicted with 10 others for fraud offences,
35:52firearms offences and money laundering in relation to the timeshare. In June, at some stage, the papers are
36:00served on the 10 defendants. So there's clearly a legal noose tightening around John's neck and the others.
36:07Palmer was 64 years old, and he was looking at 15 years in jail. So the question is, would he have been
36:15committed to gut a deal to avoid prison? And if so, would someone have wanted to stop him?
36:22My name is Kevin Lane. I've previously been convicted of contract killing, and I met John Palmer in Long Larton.
36:37When I first met John, John had just been sentenced for the timeshare. When I met him and he came into Long Larton,
36:47you could see he was at the age where, God, what am I doing here in prison with all the wealth that I've got?
36:52Long Larton had a serious reputation for making weapons in there. They had a metal shop in there. People used to make their own knives or spikes.
37:00Very dangerous place. And so when was the last time you spoke to John?
37:07I spoke to him over the phone prior to his death, when he lived in Essex.
37:14Just talking about the upcoming case, how he did want to go back to prison at his age.
37:22Yeah, definitely not hitting quite hard.
37:33In 2015, John Palmer was facing trial in Spain.
37:39And he was facing a really long time in prison if he was found guilty.
37:45And, like, at 64 years of age, that's a death sentence.
37:52At the time, it was suspected, or he was believed, certainly, to be cooperating.
37:59That he was going to rat.
38:08So you have to look at who was on the indictment and, like, what did they stand to lose?
38:14And amongst those names is John Palmer's former business associate.
38:19A man facing a sentence that could have left him locked up in a Spanish jail for up to a decade.
38:27He was floating around the Casa del Sol, along with Palmer,
38:30and got very mixed up at some point with the Kinahan organisation.
38:35The same crew that had hired Imre Arrakis.
38:37David, how do you do?
38:50How are you? David, you all right?
38:51Yeah, pleased to meet you.
38:52Yeah, pleased to meet you.
38:53I think you had involvement with John.
38:56You've known him for a considerable period of time since you were in prison.
38:59Yeah, yeah.
39:01Do you think, knowing the man, there was any potential that he would have gone to the police, spoken to the police, or given information?
39:09Do you think that's a possibility, knowing the man?
39:10Let's just be quite frank about this.
39:13Yeah.
39:14That's a possibility of anybody.
39:16Is it the truth? Doesn't mean it is.
39:18No.
39:19So I would have to say to you there, I see nothing of that in John.
39:24He didn't give me any indication that he was going to do that.
39:27But then would you give indication to people you were going to do that?
39:30No.
39:31And so I'm being objective here.
39:32No, totally. Yeah.
39:34So I suppose one of the theories is that one of the people on the indictment, on the Spanish indictment that John is named on, you probably know who I'm talking about, but the man who's on that indictment is associated to the Kenans.
39:52Do you think, knowing that individual, do you think that there is any possibility that that person could have jumped to the conclusion that John was going to talk about him?
40:03I wouldn't know.
40:04Right.
40:05Do you think that person's got the capability of doing it?
40:08What happened to John?
40:09Hasn't everybody?
40:10Yeah.
40:11Everybody's got all sorts of capabilities.
40:15That's all I'm saying.
40:18On that.
40:19Right.
40:20Got you.
40:21All right.
40:22Okay, so the investigation's got to three primary motives.
40:44Revenge, Mickey McAvoy, Russia, and links to the Russian Mafia, and three, the Spanish indictment.
40:56Just before John Palmer is murdered, the Spanish issue an indictment, and it's really interesting.
41:04I ended up speaking to a journalist in Ireland who's very well connected and has been doing a lot of work around the Kinahan cartel.
41:13Well, we had a long discussion around a man called Arrakas, who is an Estonian hitman.
41:20We have information that suggests that Arrakas came into the UK just prior to John Palmer's murder, and that he is a good possibility.
41:33The man who actually pulled the trigger, who killed John Palmer.
41:38The question is, what was the motive?
41:42Who do you suspect put the money up for the hit?
41:46My gut feeling is that one of the individuals on the indictment could be the man who ordered the hit.
41:53I don't want to name him and compromise any future police investigation, but we do know that he was involved with Palmer in the early days.
42:02A very violent man, well capable of serious violence, who is a close associate of the Kinahans, right?
42:12He was very close to John, and intentionally the man on the indictment may have thought that John was going to implicate him
42:21and put the majority of the real grief onto this individual.
42:26So, do we think John Palmer could have become an informant?
42:35Yes, I do.
42:37Because a motivator would be the 15-year crime sentence he'd want to reduce due to his age, due to his health.
42:44The Spanish indictment, you can't take away the timing.
42:47You've got to consider that that is the trigger that's motivated the assassination.
42:52I'm the same as you. You know, the Spanish indictment, so close to the modern time, is fitting the bill for me.
43:01There's a name on the indictment.
43:04Yeah.
43:05That's that magic. What evidence, isn't there? What have they got against him?
43:08Yeah.
43:09Yeah.
43:10Yeah.
43:11Got a good motive.
43:12Yeah.
43:13Good picture of him now. So, he is a good, a very good possibility.
43:20So, it's been almost ten years to the date since John Palmer was murdered. So, it's quite a meaningful time for the family.
43:45So, I'm going to go back and speak to the daughter, and see if I can update them around what we've uncovered so far in the investigation.
44:01Hello, how are you? Are you OK?
44:03Not too bad, thank you. Come on in.
44:05OK.
44:06Hi.
44:07Is it here?
44:08Yeah, that would be lovely. Thank you.
44:10So, it's been ten years since your dad was killed. So, as we approach the tenth anniversary, there's a renewed sense of urgency in this.
44:22The fact is that the truth is we may never know for certain who killed your dad.
44:27Yeah.
44:28However, you know, we have uncovered strong new leads, and they are new leads, you know, places where the police have not gone.
44:35OK.
44:36And I think it's for the first time that I feel that we've got something solid to move forward with.
44:42So, what we have found, potentially, is evidence that a hitman, a professional assassin, was hired to kill your dad.
44:54That man is linked to probably the biggest drug cartel in the world, the Kinnerland Cartel.
45:01And the hitman involved is a man called Imre Arakas. We believe the information we've got is he travelled to the UK literally two weeks before John was killed.
45:14He has been involved in other murders. He's currently in prison in Lithuania. He's a professional hitman.
45:21So, who do we think would have paid him?
45:26The motive that we think may be linked is that Dad had been told that he was going to face trial in Spain.
45:34They served the proceedings only weeks before Dad was killed, and then people around that case feared that Dad was going to talk to the authorities.
45:44And I found the name in court papers. It was linked to both your dad and the killing gang.
45:51You tell me whether or not you know this man.
45:55That's the name. Yeah.
46:07Without naming him, what was your knowledge of that particular man? Or is that just something you've heard?
46:14No, I know that he did used to work for my dad.
46:17I'd heard conversations between my dad and that person, talking quite often to him.
46:24It was said that my dad was able to do things from prison, but in all the honest and truth of it, other people were having to run things.
46:35So, he was employed by your dad. Did you ever hear anything that would suggest that they fell out at any stage?
46:41Well, yeah. I know that he did stop working for my dad.
46:44I think he was probably doing some things that maybe my dad would have not wanted it done in that particular way.
46:53Right. Gotcha.
46:54Our intention is to give this information in the form of a report to the police, and it's their job then to take it on.
47:05It's their job to progress it, and hopefully, you know, there may be some closure for you.
47:11Yeah. I think it's just a bit of time to process things, but it's better to have something, some information, than where it was before, where we didn't have any.
47:24And I hope at some point they will look into the person on the piece of paper in more depth.
47:35It's quite a lot to process. The idea of somebody close to my dad at some point could then organise my dad's murder.
47:49I spent over 40 years investigating organised crime, and John Palmer led an extraordinary life.
48:12He came from nothing to become one of the most notorious and richest criminals in UK history.
48:18But the empire that he built came at a price, and he created enemies all around the world.
48:24Our 18-month investigation has taken us from Essex to Tenerife, from Ireland to Lithuania.
48:32And it's shot a light on some of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the world.
48:37We've uncovered evidence that points towards the hitman and the person who had the motive to kill John Palmer.
48:47We're going to hand that evidence over to the police.
48:50But ultimately, someone in the criminal underworld knows exactly what happened to John Palmer.
48:57Ten years on, perhaps one of them is ready to step forward.
49:02And the murder of John Palmer will finally be solved.
49:06The murder of John Palmer...
49:12Transcription by CastingWords
49:42Transcription by CastingWords
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