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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.
02:06The End
02:07At the beginning of my career, in the 1980s and into the 1990s, I knew John Palmer. I'd written a lot about John Palmer.
02:24He was a big fish in the criminal underworld.
02:28John Palmer was internationally famous as Goldfinger.
02:38He made a fortune out of fencing the Brink's Matt Gold.
02:42I'm completely innocent of this so-called Matt's Brink bullion ride. I know nothing of it.
02:49As the jury foreman spoke the words, not guilty, John 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.
03:06He 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.
03:22But big money leads to big enemies.
03:25In Tenerife, John Palmer was swimming in very dangerous waters.
03:31And for him, there was going to be no escape.
03:36Right, John Palmer.
04:01What I want us to do today is review the facts around the day that he was murdered,
04:05the day that he died.
04:14My own personal experience of Mickey McAvoy is that he's an extremely dangerous individual.
04:19The End
04:58When John Palmer first arrived on the island, it was nothing like it is today. People dreamed of owning property in the sun. The land here was cheap, so it was massive investment. And Palmer saw an opportunity and took advantage. He invested heavily in timeshare.
05:15So I want to go down to the centre of the main town. I'm going to go down and have a look, get a feel and understanding of what was going on at that time.
05:28I'm coming up now to Harley's and the Flamingo Beach Bar, which was one of John Palmer's original restaurants, clubs.
05:57And this is where he operated from. This was the centre of John Palmer's power back in the day.
06:06Classic cars outside on the front, then going down to Flamingo Beach Bar. And this was the investment. This was the power base. This is where the wealth was open.
06:16And you could see it.
06:17After 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 he 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 his criminal empire on the island.
07:14Now we're heading to the first complex that he bought Palmer here, the island village, which was acquiring many more.
07:33This is all island village.
07:35This 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 once he arrived to the island of Tenerife.
08:15And after this complex of apartment, he found out that it was a business that left a lot of money.
08:22And he bought 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 mafia, there was 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 vendors, a lot of British vendors.
08:53Britannica.
08:54Yeah.
08:55Britannica.
08:56Well, in 1991, I had hair.
09:10I was a lot slimmer and a lot fitter.
09:12Loved having fun and loved earning money.
09:16I 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.
09:46When 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.
37:22He's got a plan.
37:43Mo portrayed Parma as charismatic
37:44but volatile,
37:45capable 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?
48:54What was he burning?
48:55What was he burning?
48:56What was he burning?
48:57What was he burning?
48:58What was he burning?
48:59What was he burning?
49:00What was he burning?
49:01What was he burning?
49:02What was he burning?
49:03What was he burning?
49:04What was he burning?
49:05What was he burning?
49:06What was he burning?
49:07What was he burning?
49:08What was he burning?
49:09What was he burning?
49:10What was he burning?
49:11What was he burning?
49:12What was he burning?
49:13What was he burning?
49:14What was he burning?
49:15What was he burning?
49:16What was he burning?
49:17Peace!
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