- 19 hours ago
- #realityrealmus
The Essex Murders - Who Killed Goldfinger
#RealityRealmUS
Reality Realm US
🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️
👉 Official Channel: />👉 THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
#RealityRealmUS
Reality Realm US
🎞 Please subscribe to our official channel to watch the full movie for free, as soon as possible. ❤️Reality Insight Hub❤️
👉 Official Channel: />👉 THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Category
🎥
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.
02:06In the beginning of my career, in the 1980s and into the 1990s, I knew John Palmer. I'd written a lot about John Palmer.
02:26He was a big fish in the criminal underworld.
02:28John Palmer was internationally famous as Goldfinger he made a fortune out of fencing
02:40the Brink smack gold I'm completely innocent of this so-called Matt's Brink bullion ride
02:48I know nothing of it as the jury foreman spoke the words not guilty John Palmer looked at the
02:56jury nodded and then blew them a kiss as he left the dock dodging jail left Palmer a free man with
03:05millions in the bank he headed straight back to Tenerife where he spotted a golden opportunity
03:11to put his fortune to work and this propelled him into the stratosphere of criminality oh I've got
03:20him there but big money leads to big enemies in Tenerife John Palmer was swimming in very dangerous
03:30waters and for him there was going to be no escape
03:36right John Palmer what I want us to do today is review the facts around the day that he was
04:04murdered the day died my own personal experience of Mickey McAvoy is that he's an extremely dangerous
04:19individual
04:19so
04:21so
04:29so
04:31so
04:33so
04:35so
04:37so
04:39so
04:41so
04:45When 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.
05:15So I want to go down to the centre of the main town.
05:20I want to go down and have a look, get a feel and understanding of what was going on at that time.
05:24I'm coming up now to Harley's and the Flamingo Beach Bar, which was one of John Palmer's
05:30original restaurants, clubs.
05:36I'm coming up now to Harley's and the Flamingo Beach Bar, which was one of John Palmer's original
05:55restaurants, clubs.
05:58And 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, then going down to Flamingo Beach Bar.
06:10And this was the investment.
06:12This was the power base.
06:14This 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.
06:44John has always been seeing opportunities and going for them.
06:49Making the most of everything he possibly could to get as much money as he can, because that's
06:57what turns him on.
07:07I'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
07:33was acquiring many more.
07:35This is all on the village.
07:40When the palmer arrived in the Tenerife, this is clear.
07:58Clear.
07:59Clear.
08:00All clear.
08:01Wow.
08:02It's huge.
08:03So why is this important to John Palmer's story?
08:07It's important to John Palmer's story because it's the first complex that he bought or acquired
08:11once he arrived to the island of Tenerife.
08:15And after this complex of apartment, he discovered 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.
08:27He came with money, and he realized that there was no mafia, there was no mafia, there was no
08:38delinquency organized.
08:40His business was dedicated to his companions, to the Britannians.
08:47He brought people outside of Tenerife, and he brought a lot of young British buyers.
09:06Well, in 1991, I had hair, I 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.
09:22It was my first job, I was so naive.
09:25It's living in the fast lane, Tenerife.
09:27You know, bars opened all night, nightclubs opened all night.
09:31There was a lot of drugs, there was a lot of alcohol.
09:34The strip, Veronica's, was a very, very popular place to go.
09:38You know, you had the best DJs.
09:40It was just wild, and it was like a whole new way of life.
09:47When I first got to Tenerife, I realized 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,
10:02and 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.
10:14What 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.
10:31If 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.
10:44I started for a studio at three and a half grand, for one bed it was about five or six grand, two bed, ten to twelve grand.
10:50By 52 weeks of the year, times 200 apartments on each resort, it's a lot of money.
10:56Big money. It's massive money.
10:59In 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 get the one thing off the record?
11:08I'm not here to invite you anywhere, by the way. There you go, pal.
11:10John 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, illuminous sign. You can't miss it.
12:01I used to say that there's a festival on the beachfront. You can get some free car hire.
12:05You can get a meal for four in Harley's Restaurant.
12:08It was all a story.
12:10It 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, and when you get them to the resort, if they agree to look around the resort for 90 minutes, I would get £50.
12:30And the South person, they would take them around the resort, and 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, but you couldn't.
12:45The money is gone.
12:46The money's gone, yeah.
12:47It's in Palmer's pocket.
12:48That's right.
12:52Stories were emerging in Britain of people investing in the John Palmer Timeshare scheme, finding they were seriously ripped off.
13:00It's on arrival at the complex that holidaymakers say they're confronting the trouble.
13:06Many of them have found that unless they pay management costs in cash up front, which they've already paid to a firm in London, then they're not given their keys to their apartments.
13:17I got to realise that, 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, they hustled him out of the building, and they then sort of kicked him and got him down on the ground.
13:30And 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, that 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 where 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.
14:38The 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, lots of his friends were there.
14:50One of his friends got attacked by somebody drunk, and John Palmer got the ump about that, and he put out a contract on him.
14:56The fella left the island that night, and then paid 50 grand to come back, and 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 on the other one?
15:11I heard about that numerous times, yeah.
15:13I did hear about people being murdered, 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 any more about that, I'm afraid.
15:40Even now?
15:41No.
15:43Palmer era visto como el mafioso número uno por dos cosas.
15:54Tenía dinero, tenía mucha gente a su servicio, y dos, era un hombre al que no le temblaba la mano para ordenar una quema de un coche, una paliza, dar un escarmiento a aquella persona que no cumplía con lo que él creía que tenía que cumplir.
16:13Eso 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.
16:26As his empire expanded, John Palmer's wealth went through the roof.
16:45He was earning so much, virtually a million pounds a week, that he couldn't invest it quick enough, back into hotels, into port facilities, marinas, into villas.
16:55This 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.
17:36Apart from everything, his business side of it, I mean, and it was leased.
17:43I mean, loads of people do that.
17:45From our perspective, John Palmer's lifestyle on Tenerife was that of a rock star.
17:51You know, he looked to be unstoppable.
17:52But 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.
18:05We need to look even more closely at this man.
18:07How did he get to be this rich?
18:10My fate is up to you
18:17Driving 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.
18:41I 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.
18:59Well, 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.
19:14The 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 f*** 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.
20:16If he didn't get his way by fair means, which he very rarely did, he'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 going 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.
21:34We 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.
22:08And 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...
22:35Good! Very good!
22:36The potential profits for a money launderer would be staggering.
22:39So as a result of a programme we had made earlier, when we wanted to get a couple of drug barons,
22:45we sent a message to him on a cleft stick, and 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.
23:04This is with a special hook.
23:08We've finished all the other.
23:10Astonishingly, Palmer came himself, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese,
23:15eating a Thai meal.
23:17That was when we knew we had him hooked completely.
23:21He told Saan Porn that he kept at least one bank account,
23:25especially for the purpose of money laundering.
23:27It balances $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 logistical 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, which is exactly what we wanted him to do.
23:48In the house we'd rented for Kunsa's men, Palmer 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.
24:05I'm not cheap, but I'm good.
24:06Oh, yeah.
24:07He soon began to relax and realised that he was going to do some serious business in Southeast Asia.
24:14If you give me a million dollars, I'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.
24:25He was offering to launder vast quantities of drugs money.
24:30And to top it all, he asked these drugs barons whether they could provide him with
24:35unidentifiable soldiers to act as enforcers for him.
24:39So if I want something done, somebody 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.
24:51The confrontation was meticulously planned.
24:53I mean, we thought of every possible variation, and we made it very convincing.
24:57So Palmer actually turned up on his own.
25:00Mr. Palmer, 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, as it dawned on him, that he'd been conned
25:18by the Cook report.
25:19I don't know what you're talking about.
25:20We've recorded every one of the conversations you've had with the representative of 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've said has been recorded.
25:34Everything, including...
25:35Including requests for enforcers.
25:41He denied all knowledge of any of these nefarious activities, and then got into a taxi which
25:46he'd hailed, and looking ridiculously smug, which 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, the lights turned red.
25:59Roger went in again and opened the door and started talking to him.
26:02Just extraordinary.
26:03So, tell us more about the laundering.
26:08You were laundering money.
26:09You were offering to launder 60 million dollars a year from 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, we were raiding all of Palmer's premises, looking
26:32for evidence to support what we believe was the timeshare fraud against British subjects,
26:38and therefore something that we could prosecute.
26:41The taxi driver phoned us the next day and said, we'd gone about two streets up the road,
26:46and he started phoning all his offices around the country, only to find that the police had
26:51raided them at the very moment that we were doorstepping him at the Ritz Hotel.
26:56So, he got so angry, he flung his phone out of the open window.
26:59It was just amazing.
27:01What 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.
27:20What Roger Cook did, and the way that we worked together with him,
27:24was the key to opening up the timeshare empire and, ultimately, Palmer's downfall.
27:43Scotland Yard initially investigated John Palmer on suspicion of money laundering,
27:48but senior detectives eventually decided they had a better chance of convicting him on the timeshare fraud.
27:54This was what I call payback for being acquitted in Brinks-Math.
28:00The state were out to get John Palmer.
28:03One way or to the other, by hook or by crook, they were going to get him.
28:06John Palmer turned up at the Old Bailey wearing 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 which could have earned him 14 years in prison.
28:25And I think a lot of criminals on the outside would have been thinking that he would do anything to mitigate that position.
28:32And I think he was extremely vulnerable at that point.
28:36Palmer was charged with Connick's 16,500 timeshare customers out of £30 million.
28:44The difference with John Palmer's trial was he decided to defend himself.
28:50I'd been a police officer for 27 years.
28:52I'd never been cross-examined by a defendant acting on their own behalf.
28:58He thought he knew best, as John Palmer always did.
29:02John Palmer asked me, you know, why 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 he was a serious and organised criminal.
29:14Which outraged Palmer, who 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 how he got on in court there,
29:24and he actually did tell me that he regretted that he didn't have counsel.
29:28Jesus, he could easily have afforded it.
29:30He was one of the richest people in the UK.
29:33A massive mistake.
29:34During a long trial, he told the jury there had been a fraud,
29:38but that was done by others who were running the company for him.
29:42Palmer claimed that he was let down by people he worked with.
29:45That's complete rubbish.
29:45He controlled the whole thing.
29:47Nothing happened in his organisation without his direct involvement.
29:52He orchestrated absolutely everything.
29:55And if you didn't do it his way, you got seriously hurt.
29:58A wealthy businessman has been found guilty of swindling £30 million
30:03from holidaymakers in a timeshare fraud.
30:0651-year-old John Palmer has been convicted of defrauding
30:0917,000 tourists on the island of Tenerife.
30:19He still had a chauffeur and minders too,
30:22but the transport had changed rather
30:24as Britain's wealthiest villain was driven off to prison.
30:27I think the reality of John Palmer's life following the conviction
30:31was very different.
30:34He was going to prison for quite a long time.
30:37He was not in financial control of his businesses in Tenerife.
30:42He was in a very difficult and vulnerable position.
30:45When he was in prison, he 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 and was such a public target.
30:59If you've had the kind of life that 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 just, 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.
31:36As 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 Brink's mark
31:44because it changed everything about us,
31:47about how we were.
31:51Do you miss those days?
31:55Yes, I do.
31:58He was, he was, um,
32:01a special person to me.
32:04So, yeah, do.
32:11So, tell me what happened to Palmer's empire when he was in prison?
32:27Well, well,
32:28well, 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,
32:39his 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 doesn't work well.
32:47Well, aparte,
32:47there was more competition.
32:49There was the man,
32:50who was his right hand,
32:52who also wanted a part of this tata,
32:54Mohammed Erbaugh,
32:55and there was a lot of Russians with money.
32:58You have to take into account
32:59that John Palmer left a lot of enemy behind,
33:03a lot of enemy and very powerful.
33:04So, I'm going to meet a really important man
33:26here in Tenerife,
33:27John Palmer's enforcer,
33:28Mohammed Erbaugh.
33:30At one stage,
33:32he 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.
33:42This is a man alleged to have been involved
33:45with intimidation, violence,
33:47never been prosecuted and convicted.
33:51So, 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.
34:03Hello, Mr. Durban, David.
34:13You all right?
34:13How are you?
34:13You okay?
34:14You okay?
34:15Good to see you.
34:15Come here.
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,
34:22you'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.
34:45And I'll see you next time.
35:15What 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
35:37was 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
35:48on this island
35:49and Mo was looking after him
35:51and Mo is looking after the family as well.
35:54But it was incredible.
35:57I mean, he spoke about John's wealth
35:59and how John lost that wealth,
36:02what happened throughout
36:05the period when 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,
36:18but 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
36:42that 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.
37:21Mo portrayed Palmer as charismatic
37:44but volatile,
37:45capable of both generosity
37:46and extreme violence.
37:47He recalled various violent episodes
37:51and criminal entanglements
37:53involving numerous people,
37:55major crime families
37:57and organised crime from across the world
37:59including the Italian Gomorrah
38:01and also links to Russians.
38:05Also vast scale money laundering
38:07all around the timeshare.
38:09But they were making
38:10eight to ten million pounds a month.
38:12Making.
38:13He said that the cash flow issues
38:16presented by Palmer's arrest
38:18led to Palmer's downfall.
38:21The biggest opportunity
38:22that came out of his,
38:23he spoke about a man
38:25who he described
38:27as a British accountant
38:28that clearly Mo Durba didn't like.
38:31He called him a grass.
38:33And so I need to now
38:35track that person down.
38:36Back in the 90s,
38:55after serving time
38:56in prison for fraud,
38:57I decided to have a fresh start
39:00in Tenerife,
39:01away from the British police
39:02and set up a company
39:04dealing with high net worth individuals
39:07advising them
39:08how to minimise their tax.
39:13I had clients
39:14from all over Europe
39:16including John Palmer's
39:18former right-hand man,
39:20Mohamed Durba.
39:23And at that time,
39:24I realised that
39:25some of my clients
39:26were in fact
39:27mafia members
39:28or just gangsters.
39:30So I became an informant
39:35on behalf of
39:35the Spanish Secret Services.
39:39So I gathered lots of information
39:41on all these individuals.
39:47So I've got a mountain
39:48of evidence.
39:51Tape recordings.
39:55Documents.
39:58Everything.
40:00And because of that
40:01information and intel,
40:03I know
40:03who killed
40:04John Palmer.
40:05Hello, Paul.
40:30How are you?
40:32I'm David.
40:33Pleased to meet you.
40:34And you.
40:35Good to meet you.
40:37Paul, I've come up
40:39to see you.
40:39Yes.
40:40About the murder
40:41of John Palmer.
40:43So what's your involvement
40:43in all this?
40:44How did you get involved
40:45in it all?
40:46I'm an offshore
40:47financial consultant.
40:48Right.
40:49I was working
40:49in Spain.
40:51What part of John's life
40:52was this?
40:53This was late 2000s.
40:55So that was when
40:55he was out of prison?
40:57Yes.
40:58Right.
40:59And I had a client
41:00who was worth
41:00£25 billion.
41:03Million or billion?
41:03Billion.
41:04Billion?
41:05Billion.
41:06And he was involved
41:07in a property deal
41:09in Moscow
41:09called Project Moscow.
41:11Right.
41:12Which my client
41:13had invested in.
41:18Project Moscow
41:19was a development
41:21of a shopping complex
41:22in Moscow.
41:23and from looking
41:27at all the accounting
41:27records to do with that
41:29I came across
41:30a Russian oligarch
41:31called Boris.
41:33Boris Berezovsky?
41:34Correct.
41:34Right.
41:36So where does John Palmer
41:37fit into all of this?
41:38John Palmer
41:39had some links
41:40to Boris
41:41because he was
41:41dealing with Boris.
41:45Do you know
41:45what sort of business?
41:47Property in Tenerife.
41:48So he was
41:51investing in property
41:52in Tenerife?
41:54He was, yes.
41:54Right.
41:55Yes.
41:56Back in the 90s
41:57before prison
41:58John Palmer
41:59decided to
42:00open an office
42:01in Moscow
42:02selling Timeshare
42:04and that was
42:05very, very successful
42:06but to do business
42:08in Russia
42:08at that time
42:09was you had to be
42:10in with the mafia
42:11otherwise you didn't
42:12operate.
42:14And once he's
42:14in business
42:15with them
42:16he's got access
42:17to funds
42:18borrowed funds
42:20from them.
42:21So now he's
42:21borrowing monies
42:22as well.
42:23Wow.
42:24And this is
42:24a lot of money
42:26borrowed
42:28from a lot of
42:30highly dangerous
42:32people
42:32in Russia.
42:34Okay.
42:35So how do you
42:35back up
42:36what you've said
42:37to us today?
42:38I have tape recordings.
42:39Right.
42:40And this is a recording
42:41of a colleague of mine
42:43interviewing
42:43Mohamed Dover.
42:45This recording
42:46for me
42:46demonstrates
42:48just why
42:49John Palmer
42:50got killed.
42:51Right.
42:51Okay, go on.
42:54Someone said
42:55that
42:56Palmer's jet
42:58was
42:58often seen
43:00at Moscow airport.
43:02Well at that time
43:03all the time
43:04the jet there
43:04went to pick up
43:05the money cash.
43:09You said that
43:10it was
43:12one million pound
43:13a week
43:13coming in
43:14from Russia.
43:14the Russian
43:16mafia
43:17and the Russian
43:17people
43:17they said
43:18okay
43:18give money
43:19make investment
43:20to take
43:20the money out
43:21and they
43:22keep the
43:23apartment
43:23in
43:24Lagomeres.
43:25and now
43:31the problem
43:31is
43:31Lagomeres
43:32does not
43:32exist
43:33land
43:34has already
43:34sold
43:35hard
43:35faith
43:35no building
43:37so he was
43:39taking money
43:40from the Russian
43:41mafia
43:41to exist
43:43in timeshare
43:43and not
43:44delivering
43:44anything.
43:56In the secret
43:58filming
43:58that we did
43:59at the time
44:00we had no
44:01prior knowledge
44:02about
44:03John Palmer's
44:03Russian
44:04connections
44:04until he
44:05started
44:05talking
44:06about it.
44:06This is a full
44:10transcript of
44:10one of our
44:11meetings with
44:12John Palmer
44:12a lunch
44:12meeting
44:13and he
44:14was very
44:15open about
44:16his business
44:18in Russia
44:18doing business
44:19with the
44:20communists
44:20and ex-KGB
44:22agents
44:23including
44:24the Russian
44:25mafia.
44:26We then
44:27started tracking
44:28his plane
44:29from Tenerife
44:30via Geneva
44:31where he had
44:31bank accounts
44:32before he flew
44:33on to Russia.
44:34He told us
44:36during our
44:36secret filming
44:37that he had
44:38opened offices
44:39in Moscow
44:40in St. Petersburg
44:42where at that
44:43time
44:44Vladimir Putin
44:45was the
44:46deputy mayor
44:46of St. Petersburg
44:47and in charge
44:48of the
44:48external investment
44:49committee.
44:52There was a
44:53story about
44:54him inviting
44:55Gorbachev
44:56to Tenerife
44:57in two weeks
44:58time he says
44:59here
44:59to talk
45:00about timeshare.
45:02It sounds
45:03as if he's
45:04exaggerated
45:04but this
45:05actually
45:05happened.
45:06Gorbachev
45:07did go
45:07to the
45:07Canary
45:08Islands.
45:09It's
45:09extraordinary
45:10really.
45:18John Palmer
45:19was doing
45:20really well
45:20in Russia
45:21and then
45:21he got
45:22arrested
45:22for the
45:23timeshare
45:24fraud.
45:25He can't
45:26touch his
45:26assets,
45:27he can't
45:27touch his
45:27money
45:28and now
45:28Palmer
45:29is
45:29absolutely
45:31in debt
45:32to his
45:32eyeballs.
45:33He's
45:33out of
45:34his
45:34league.
45:34This
45:34is not
45:35gangsterism
45:36in
45:36Tenerife.
45:38You're
45:38at a
45:39different
45:39level.
45:41Do you
45:41know how
45:41much debt
45:42Palmer was
45:42in?
45:43He's
45:43heavily in
45:44debt to
45:44the tune
45:45of a
45:45million
45:45pounds a
45:46week.
45:46Interest
45:47is.
45:48That's
45:48just
45:48interest.
45:49A million
45:50pounds
45:51a week.
45:52Now if
45:52we fast
45:52forward,
45:53John Palmer
45:54is out
45:54of prison,
45:55he can't
45:55pay his
45:56debt.
45:56That
45:57is
45:57when
45:57you
45:57become
45:57a
45:58liability.
46:00Exactly
46:00what
46:01happened
46:01to
46:02people
46:02who
46:02were
46:02involved
46:03in
46:03Project
46:04Moscow.
46:05The
46:06Russian
46:06mafia
46:07have
46:07killed
46:08several
46:08people
46:09on
46:09British
46:09soil,
46:10all
46:10associated
46:11with
46:11Project
46:12Moscow.
46:15Inside
46:15his
46:16multi-million
46:16pound
46:17mansion,
46:18Verazovsky
46:18was found
46:19dead in
46:19his bath
46:20by his
46:20bodyguard.
46:22He
46:22was
46:23murdered
46:23and it
46:23was made
46:24to look
46:24as if
46:25it was
46:25a
46:25suicide.
46:27Scott
46:27Young's
46:27body
46:27was
46:28found
46:28in
46:28Montague
46:28Square
46:29on
46:29Monday
46:29evening.
46:31Did
46:31he
46:31fall
46:31onto
46:31these
46:32railings
46:32in
46:32London
46:33from
46:33the
46:33building
46:33above
46:34or
46:35was
46:35he
46:35pushed?
46:36Scott
46:36Young,
46:37they killed
46:38him also,
46:39all on
46:39the orders
46:39of the
46:40Russian
46:40mafia.
46:41Suddenly
46:42you're
46:42putting all
46:42the pieces
46:43of the
46:43jigsaw
46:43together.
46:44You've
46:45got the
46:45Russian
46:46mafia,
46:46you've
46:47got
46:47Project
46:47Moscow,
46:48you know,
46:48a series
46:49of deaths
46:49in the
46:50UK.
46:51You've
46:52got
46:52John
46:53Palmer,
46:54vast
46:54deaths.
46:55And
46:55they're
46:55all
46:56interconnected.
46:57Everything's
46:57connected.
46:58One way
46:58or another.
46:59Wow.
47:01Tell me
47:02what you
47:03think
47:03happened,
47:04how
47:05John
47:05was
47:05murdered.
47:06My
47:07trusted
47:07client
47:08told me
47:09the
47:10Russian
47:10mafia,
47:11they put
47:11out the
47:12hit on
47:13John
47:13Palmer and
47:14assassins
47:14carried out
47:15the hit.
47:17So do
47:18you think
47:19that you're
47:20putting two
47:20and two
47:21together or
47:22is that
47:22something that
47:23you specifically
47:24were told?
47:24This is what
47:25they've been
47:25actually been
47:26told.
47:26Right.
47:27Yeah.
47:33It's an
47:33extraordinary
47:34theory but
47:35it's very
47:36difficult for
47:37me to
47:37back up.
47:38If Paul
47:39is right
47:39and John
47:40ripped off
47:40the Russian
47:41mafia in a
47:41big way,
47:42their desire
47:42to kill him
47:43is plausible
47:44but it
47:45doesn't
47:45prove
47:45anything.
47:47But it
47:48does open
47:49up the
47:49possibility
47:49of a
47:50line of
47:50inquiry.
47:52Russian
47:52OCGs
47:53are clearly
47:53capable of
47:55killing people
47:55on British
47:56soil but
47:57they don't
47:58get their
47:58hands dirty.
47:59They
48:00employ
48:00professional
48:01hitmen to
48:02carry out
48:02the murders
48:03for them.
48:04It's happened
48:04in other
48:05cases and
48:05we've seen
48:06it.
48:06Hitmen
48:07and assassins
48:07coming into
48:08the country
48:08and then
48:09escaping.
48:11So if I
48:11can identify
48:12who pulled
48:13the trigger
48:14I may be
48:15asked to
48:15establish
48:15who ordered
48:16the hit
48:17on John
48:17Palmer.
48:25They've
48:26been described
48:26as a
48:27murderous
48:27drug dealing
48:28cartel.
48:30What was
48:31he burning?
48:33Was that
48:33the motive
48:34for John
48:34Palmer's
48:35murder?
48:36They
48:37found all
48:37sorts of
48:39weird stuff.
48:40He was
48:41here to
48:42kill.
48:42You've
48:43got a
48:44professional
48:44assassin
48:44coming into
48:45the UK
48:46into Essex
48:47two weeks
48:47before the
48:48murder of
48:49John Palmer.
48:50This is
48:51dynamite.
48:51Security
48:51time.
48:52natomiast
48:52all
48:53time.
48:54He White
48:54responds in
48:54tearing
48:56essex
49:12Gloria, Gloria, Gloria, Christ.
Be the first to comment