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00:16Is your dad wearing a necklace?
00:18It's my dad's fingerprint.
00:20Oh, is it? Yeah.
00:21Oh, that's such a lovely thing.
00:24When did you get that done?
00:26I asked a few more directors to get a print of his fingerprint.
00:36Yeah.
00:37I like it.
00:38Yeah, I never take it off.
00:42Some people have described him as a gangster.
00:44How do you feel about that term?
00:52It's hard for me to say on that,
00:54because it's quite hard to think of your dad like that.
01:02As it goes?
01:03Yeah.
01:04And I don't think we do.
01:14My dad's house was secluded.
01:18When I was told he had been murdered,
01:31I'd actually speak to him a couple of hours before.
01:38He did go to prison.
01:39He did his time.
01:40Now, he was saying, well, that was, you know,
01:46it's maybe time for him to have a bit more of a relaxed life.
01:51Did your dad ever get death raps?
01:52Not that I was aware of, no.
02:05He never acted like he was in fear of his life.
02:10All I kept thinking is, why?
02:11Why somebody would even want to kill my dad?
02:23One of Britain's most notorious gasters, shot at close range.
02:39But who ordered John Palmer's murder?
02:41Murder.
02:42And why?
02:43You can run for a long time.
02:46Run for a long time.
02:48Run for a long time.
02:49Run for a long time.
02:51One of these days gonna cut you down.
02:54One of these days gonna cut you down.
02:56One of these days gonna cut you down.
03:09Come on, stay off the ropes.
03:10Stay off the ropes.
03:12Whoa!
03:13You're wide open too.
03:14Wide open there.
03:16John Palmer did four years for timeshare fraud.
03:21While Palmer was inside his former right-hand man,
03:24Mo Durba, moved in on his territory
03:27and ran it like his own empire.
03:32When Palmer got out, his assets were frozen,
03:35the Spanish police were sniffing about
03:38and rival gangs were coming in from all directions.
03:41So he did what any old school fighter would do.
03:44He tucked in his chin, he slipped back to Essex
03:48and he took cover.
03:49But for Palmer, this wasn't the kind of game
03:54you can just retire from.
03:57Because in his line of work,
03:58there's always the risk that someone's gonna
04:00come after you with a sucker punch.
04:04And when it finally came to the end,
04:06there were actually two killers that took him down.
04:08One with enough money to buy a contract hit.
04:11The other came with a silenced pistol.
04:14I've been investigating the murder of John Palmer now for a year.
04:28There's two distinct theories we're looking at at the moment.
04:45The first one is Brinks Matt.
04:54Mickey McAvoy, revenge.
04:57McAvoy was being screwed by people on the outside.
05:00He was violent and he may have had a motive to kill John Palmer.
05:05And the second theory is that Palmer was killed by the Russian Mafia.
05:09Do you know how much that Palmer was in?
05:12A million pounds a week, interest it is.
05:14That's interest.
05:15That's just interest.
05:16That's just interest.
05:17Wow.
05:18They put out the hit on John Palmer and assassins carried out the hit.
05:24Over the years, police have chased hundreds of leads without charging anyone.
05:28Rumors and speculation are rife in the press and social media.
05:31But there must be more to uncover.
05:34At this old Bailey trial 14 years ago, gangster John Palmer wore a bulletproof vest.
05:41In June, alone and vulnerable in the garden of his Essex home, he was shot dead.
05:48John Palmer's underworld life meant he was a potential target for many years.
05:53And he knew it.
05:54The bulletproof vest.
05:55This secluded home.
05:57What we know about Palmer's life from the outside at this stage,
06:02is that he'd made it look like he was in retirement from his criminal activities.
06:08In reality, he'd withdrawn into a fortress.
06:12The house was wired with CCTV covering every angle.
06:16And he had four guard dogs on a daily rotation.
06:19So you've got to ask what kind of assassin could breach this level of security,
06:24shoot John six times and vanish without a trace.
06:32So I'm going to meet Philip Boyce.
06:35A firearms expert who's 40 years experience.
06:39We're going to go to the scene.
06:41And I'm hoping that Phil can interpret the scene
06:44and identify the methodology used by the killer.
06:47Morning Philip.
06:52Morning.
06:53You okay?
06:54Yeah.
06:55Nice to see you again.
06:56And you.
07:04This is obviously the public footpath.
07:07This is the, that's the house in the foreground.
07:09This is the wooden fence that's the circumference runs around the circumference of the entire garden.
07:15Is that the original height of the fence?
07:17Yes. Yeah.
07:19Quite, quite a big area of property as well.
07:22Yeah, it's massive.
07:24So the path goes off to the, slightly to the left and there's like a dip down.
07:28And it's over on the, that part of the fence where they say there was a hole.
07:31That the shooter had kept observation on John.
07:36So this is the, effectively the scene.
07:52You've got John Palmer on his lawn tractor, backwards and forwards to an area over here.
07:56Yeah.
07:57Which is where he's burning documents.
07:58Yeah.
07:59Which is where he's burning documents.
08:00The shooter is hiding behind the fence.
08:27Mm-hm.
08:29No CCTV in this area.
08:37The shooter goes over the fence.
08:43Shoots John three times in the front.
08:47Three times in the back.
08:52And then he's found about 15 metres away.
08:58The gun, there's no cartridges anywhere.
09:02No, nobody hears the shots.
09:06At the time they didn't know what had happened to him.
09:08Obviously, many, many days later, they find six bullet wounds in him.
09:13And according to the police, it was a 32 caliber silenced weapon.
09:19Yeah.
09:20What's your views on that?
09:21To give you an idea of the range of calibers, you can have something like a 2.2 caliber.
09:28Right.
09:29But that's quite small.
09:30You wouldn't think that would kill someone.
09:32That will travel for maybe a mile and a half.
09:35Wow.
09:36From a rifle or a pistol.
09:37Right.
09:393.2 caliber.
09:40That's the one.
09:41That's the one.
09:42Which is the one we're talking about.
09:43Yeah.
09:44It's developing somewhere in the region of 190, 200 foot pounds.
09:49So it's got good injury stroke lethal power.
09:55And also the bullets recovered were from a smoothbore barrel.
09:59Which may indicate the weapon used was a silenced revolver.
10:10I have two guns here.
10:13And this is a typical size of a 3.2 revolver.
10:18And why is it that you think the police considered it was a revolver that was used in the murder?
10:24Yeah.
10:25Well again, really to demonstrate it, this is a sound moderator.
10:30Right.
10:31And inside the sound moderator is a series of metal baffles.
10:36And whenever it's fitted to a gun, the bullet sometimes hits those baffles.
10:42And there must have been some marks on the bullet to suggest that it was fired through a silencer or a sound moderator.
10:49Yeah.
10:50So 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.
10:59I would suspect so.
11:01So with this, the bullets would still be loaded, but literally you've got to pull back the trigger mechanism each time to fire.
11:09Yeah.
11:10And you've got six shots and you fire them all.
11:13And you fire three in the front, three in the back with a silencer.
11:17No forensics.
11:18Determined.
11:20Professional assassin?
11:22Possibly, yes.
11:24The whole scenario shows pre-planning and knowledge of firearms at least.
11:29I wouldn't have expected someone to have carried this shooting out unless they were a professional assassin.
11:36Right.
11:54So we know that the shooter managed to kill John in an area of the garden where there was no CCTV.
12:00And we know that he used a weapon that was very quiet.
12:07And we know also they've been carrying out surveillance, reconnaissance on John and identified his routine.
12:16So they picked the right moment to kill John Palmer.
12:19So it looks like a professional hitman.
12:26There's not many gangs that used professional assassins.
12:30We know Russian Mafia are one, but I found no hard evidence to back this theory.
12:36They've received a lead from a source in Ireland about an organized crime gang in Dublin with very close ties to John Palmer.
12:45They used professional hitmen to carry out their dirty work.
12:49That appears to me to be a very good lead to follow.
12:52I've known about John Palmer for years.
12:53I certainly knew about his career and, of course, the timeshares in Tenerife.
12:59So 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.
13:13I 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 right with.
13:31The biggest organized crime gang in this country. The Kinahan organization. Two family groupings from Dublin who had joined together. The Hutch side and the Kinahan side.
13:43They've been described as a murderous drug dealing cartel. And they migrate to Spain and the Costa del Sol. And John Palmer, of course, had his own businesses down in the Costa del Sol.
13:57The likes of Palmer, the likes of Palmer, the likes of the Kinahan's, they all know one another. And they all are in business at some point together in one way or another.
14:222016, there was a boxing weigh-in in the Regency Hotel. This feud had broken out within the Kinahan organization. And the leadership of the Kinahan organization were going to be there.
14:45What's happening?
14:48What's happening?
14:52What's happening?
14:54What's happening?
14:56People start running.
15:01Stop.
15:06And 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.
15:19Most people believe they were the police, but they were actually the Hutch organized crime group armed with Kalashnikov rifles hunting for the head of the Kinahan organized crime group.
15:32I 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.
15:45When he focused in a bit further, he could see that it was a gunman and another gunman in drag.
15:56It almost looks like something from a scene from Reservoir Dogs.
16:03That was the moment that this Hutch Kinahan feud really exploded.
16:07Michael Barr was shot dead last month by two gunmen who burst into the Sunset House pub in the Summer Hill area.
16:14Forensic specialists today examining the scene of last night's gangland murder in Dublin.
16:19This gang feud turned parts of this city, the inner city here in Dublin, into an absolute war zone.
16:2618 young men, dead.
16:2811 young men, dead.
16:2913 young women, dead.
16:3014 young men.
16:31Only due to the cases went past a mountain.
16:3218 young men.
16:33In the aftermath of this, something very unusual happened.
16:35Out of the blue, this weird sort of anonymous Twitter site appeared.
16:39Called the whistleblower
16:42This site was tagging journalists, like myself, crime journalists.
16:49Trying to alert you, trying to get your attention.
16:51and it starts giving information about cartel murders in-house murders I'm
17:01communicating with people I know high open the guards and they're telling me
17:06this is fucking accurate it was investigated by the police here and it
17:13was discovered that this was the hutch organized crime group that was behind
17:16us and they were ready to spill the secrets of the Kinnahans
17:25one of the secrets that that whistleblower site let out claims that hitman for hire
17:32working for the Kinnahan cartel killed John Palmer
17:46so come over to Dublin to meet with a journalist who has been investigating
18:01organized crime out in Ireland in Dublin and she has intelligence on a hitman who
18:10could be a suspect in the murder of John Palmer
18:23so Nicola what happens to John Palmer and he was murdered what do you think I have a
18:29theory about two years after John Palmer was shot a international contract killer
18:39showed up here in Dublin right he was employed by the Kinnahan cartel to take out one of their sworn enemies
18:48and when he flew in from Alicante he was here to kill
18:59the Irish police got a tip off that there was a man on the way in to the airport
19:06and his name was Imre Arrakis he was known as an international hitman for hire
19:16he was wanted in a number of countries for murder
19:20Ireland was in the grip of a gang feud and they knew that he had previously worked with the Kinnahan
19:31organization and he was followed he was disguised as a tourist a fishing enthusiast he had a rucksack
19:43on his back he'd a tent in us and as the surveillance team watched him he was picked up in a van by a known
19:51associate of the Kinnahan organization he was followed back to a premises where he was due to stay
20:01the night he was arrested the following morning he found all sorts of weird stuff telescopic equipment
20:10disguises there was masks and during his arrest an encrypted Blackberry mobile phone was picked up
20:21this is the printout of those messages that were sent on that encrypted phone you know it shows what
20:38he's planning to do and how he hopes to go to Belfast and to stalk his prey really and who was he going
20:46after he was going after a guy called James Magogately and this was a military-style operation he wanted a gun that was accurate and he wanted a silencer those messages read them because I think they show certainly a modus operandi that he's using
21:06incredible I'll read this and see how this fits in potentially to to John Palmer's murder
21:13so I'm just reviewing the information that Nicola gave us yesterday in relation to the text messages
21:40messages that were received on the Blackberry phone very detailed information between four individuals one of whom is identified as Imre Arrakis talking about a very sophisticated plan for a professional assassination
21:59this is interesting because obviously here you can see the people who commissioned Arrakis replied to OW which is Arrakis
22:08as to how to go to identify the target which is James Gately and if you go further down into the text messages you see Arrakis he's now responding where can we see photos of him
22:27they say go into Google write James Gately Dublin criminal it's the second picture in he has a black suit on it's a clear picture of him that's the target
22:48by analysing the preparation for this hit by 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
23:07the 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 champagne coloured Toyota Aventus
23:22he drives 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
23:41you have him
23:51you have him
23:52Arrakis replies my plan was actually to go there tomorrow
23:56you have him
23:58it seems it's possible to take him down
24:00you have him
24:02when he comes out the car
24:16it is good if the gun is really accurate also silencer would be good
24:26this is the shutter this is the shutter that's described in the text messages
24:35arrakis is hiding gaitley comes to here in his car his events is car comes in parks up directly
24:50in front as described in the text messages literally arrakis is bang bang bang and then
24:56he's out and then once he's out he's away gaitley's murdered dead perfect assassination
25:16even though he didn't get to carry out the murder arrakis has identified the vulnerabilities
25:24of gaitley it's all the pre-planning the whole the whole setup for the murder i can't see
25:30any cctv down here ideal place to exploit and kill gaitley and in similar fashion to um john
25:40palmer you've got the surveillance no cctv the use of a silencer it feels like a professional
25:51hit it feels like a professional hit hello is that you david it is yeah albert you okay yeah yeah just a bit good news here remember you tasked me to look at the arrakis as a potential suspect yeah arrakis yeah it was in the
26:21in the country i in the uk but more importantly in essex two weeks before the murder
26:27wow wow right i'll come on the way back
26:30oh how about you okay you got some more for us haven't you well we've spoken to the same source that you know
26:43let let me just summarize what he said he's saying arrakis entered the uk in the weeks before palmer's death
26:51it's got similar fact if you look at the detail in relation to what happened in ireland
26:57silencer yeah preparation lifestyle surveillance coming into the uk into essex
27:03two weeks before the murder of john palmer
27:06he's a very very good suspect
27:10this is dynamite
27:14we've had information that a professional assassin
27:30imre arrakis had arrived in england just before the murder of john palmer
27:35i've tracked him down
27:37he's in lithuania at the moment
27:40he's standing trial he's been arrested for another murder another assassination
27:47and he's now on trial for gunning down a man outside his home
27:55he's still alive
27:56he's still alive
28:13he's still alive
28:13i'mre arrakis
28:14i'mre arrakis
28:15samdomo žudikas
28:16turbūt evropoje
28:18It was the last one, Remigiu Markevičiu, who was the boss of Buši Duokovoto.
28:30Remigiu Markevičiu, as I can say, was a young man.
28:36Brilliant, very professional fighter.
28:40But, in words, he also has another unbeatable living room.
28:44He left his contact with the people of the world.
28:51Very, very big figures in the drugs world.
28:56We are working with cartels.
28:59Yeah.
29:01The Arakas, Savo Aukas, was very hard to stab at the attack.
29:08And he lived one of the ones who lived in the past.
29:14The backup was used to be placed modifications with slantoo machines.
29:24And the reason the keist was placed on the front of Kalashnikov.
29:33It was the time I had to listen to people's story.
29:38He even ended up chasing people's redesign.
29:44Arak has turned out a few times,
29:47from the car from the car from the car.
29:51And that's right, Remigas fell and fell into the ground.
30:02This is the shootings, the avidbolts.
30:05I think the Arrakas is very dangerous man, very cold-blood killer, very.
30:25Hello, Davis. I'm David. As I think you're aware, I'm investigating the murder of John Palmer back
30:33in 2015. What we know so far is that Arrakas arrived into Essex two weeks before the murder
30:41of John Palmer. He's obviously a professional, so he gets hired by people. People give him contracts
30:47to kill. Has he ever spoken about who has given him contracts to kill people?
30:53He don't want to talk about this. Because, as you know, it's a very big criminal organization
31:01working with narco traffics in all Europe, in America, in Colombia, in Mexico, and very,
31:10very serious criminal organizations. And he is effectively a contract killer who works
31:18for those gangs. Yes, but he's been traveling man. Traveling killer, I think. A traveling
31:24killer. Yeah.
31:46And we know he arrived in the UK two weeks before the murder of John Palmer. So, it makes you
31:52wonder, doesn't it, whether or not he is the man who pulled the trigger.
32:22We know that Arrakas is a really good suspect for the shooting. But Arrakas is a professional
32:34hitman, and so someone employed him. So, the big question is what was going on in John Palmer's
32:45life at that time that meant he had to be murdered. So, we know that on the day of John Palmer's
32:55murder, he was in his lawn tractor and he was taking documents down to this area here. The
33:01only area in the house and garden where there's no CCTV.
33:14According to Essex police, he is burning documents at the time that he's assassinated.
33:20What was he burning? What were those documents? Were those documents evidence? Could they have
33:32potentially implicated John or other people? Recently, I traveled to Tenerife and I interviewed a man called
33:43Mohamed Durba. And he told me that John was being pursued by the Spanish authorities and they were getting
33:50closer and closer to charging him. And I've seen speculation about a Spanish fraud trial in the papers,
33:58which echoes what one of my sources in Tenerife has turned up. So, I'm going back out there to see what he's got.
34:10So, I'm telling you, what have we got here?
34:25Estos son documentos de la propia policía española sobre las actividades ilícitas de John Palmer,
34:31porque la policía española ya estaba tras los pasos de Palmer desde hacía mucho tiempo,
34:36cuando ya dan el golpe definitivo que deciden imputar formalmente. Esto es, las diligencias judiciales
34:45de el juzgado central de instrucción número 5 de la Audiencia Nacional en Madrid. El procedimiento
34:51que se elabora para acusar a John Palmer, aquí nombran las denuncias que tiene por blanqueo de
34:57capitales, las estafas, evasión de impuestos. Viene perfectamente detallado con muchos pinchamientos
35:04de teléfono que sirven al final para imputarle los delitos de los que se le acusaba.
35:09So, this is the 10th of April, 2015. And when is he due to go to court?
35:15So, the week that John Palmer found out that he had the court date was the week that he got murdered.
35:33So, Spanish justice was catching up with John Palmer. See ya.
35:36So, we know on the 10th of April, 2015, John Palmer is indicted with ten others for fraud offences, firearms offences,
35:40and money laundering in relation to the timeshare. In June, at some stage, the papers are served on the ten defendants.
35:47So, there's clearly a legal noose tightening around John's neck and the others. Palmer was 64 years old,
35:54and he was looking at 15 years old. And he was looking at 15 years old.
35:59So, we know on the 10th of April, 2015, John Palmer is indicted with ten others for fraud offences,
36:06firearms offences, and money laundering in relation to the timeshare.
36:10John's neck and the others. Palmer was 64 years old, and he was looking at 15 years in jail.
36:17So, the question is, would he have been tempted to cut a deal to avoid prison?
36:22And if so, would someone have wanted to stop him?
36:25My name is Kevin Lane. I've previously been convicted of contract killing, and I met John Palmer in Long Larton.
36:46When I first met John, John had just been sentenced for the timeshare.
36:50When I met him, when he came into Long Larton, you could see he was at the age where,
36:54God, what am I doing here in prison with all the wealth that I've got?
36:57Long Larton had a serious reputation for making weapons in there.
37:02They had a metal shop in there. People used to make their own knives or spikes.
37:06Very dangerous place.
37:09And so, when was the last time you spoke to John?
37:12I spoke to him over the phone prior to his death, when he lived in Essex.
37:17I was just talking about the upcoming case, how he did want to go back to prison at his age.
37:27Yeah, I definitely know it hit him quite hard.
37:29In 2015, John Palmer was facing trial in Spain.
37:44And he was facing a really long time in prison if he was found guilty.
37:48And, like, at 64 years of age, that's a death sentence.
37:58At the time, it was suspected, or he was believed, certainly, to be cooperating.
38:04That he was going to rat.
38:12So you have to look at who was on the indictment and, like, what did they stand to lose.
38:18And amongst those names is John Palmer's former business associate.
38:24A man facing a sentence that could have left him locked up in a Spanish jail for up to a decade.
38:32He was floating around the Casa del Sol, along with Palmer,
38:35and got very mixed up at some point with the Kinnehan organization.
38:40The same crew that had hired Imre Arrakis.
38:42David, how'd you do?
38:55How are you? David, you all right?
38:56Yeah, pleased to meet you.
38:58I think you had involvement with John.
39:01You've known him for a considerable period of time since you were in prison.
39:04Yeah, yeah.
39:05Do you think, knowing the man, there was any potential
39:08that he would have gone to the police, spoken to the police, or given information?
39:13Do you think that's a possibility, knowing the man?
39:15Let's just be quite frank about this.
39:18Yeah.
39:19That's a possibility of anybody.
39:21Is it the truth? Doesn't mean it is.
39:23No.
39:24So I would have to say to you there, I see nothing of that in John.
39:29He didn't give me any indication that he was going to do that.
39:32But then would you give indication to people you were going to do that?
39:35No.
39:36So I'm being objective here.
39:37No, totally.
39:38Yeah.
39:39So I suppose one of the theories is that one of the people on the indictment,
39:44on the Spanish indictment that John is named on,
39:47you probably know who I'm talking about,
39:49but the man who's on that indictment is associated to the Kinnons.
39:56Do you think, knowing that individual, do you think that there is any possibility
40:01that person could have jumped to the conclusion that John was going to talk about him?
40:08I wouldn't know.
40:09Right.
40:10Do you think that person's got the capability of doing what happened to John?
40:14Hasn't everybody?
40:15Yeah.
40:16Everybody's got all sorts of capabilities.
40:17That's all I'm saying on that.
40:18Right.
40:19Got you.
40:20All right.
40:21Okay.
40:22So the investigation's got to three primary motives.
40:53One, Russia, and links to the Russian mafia.
40:57And three, the Spanish indictment.
41:00Just before John Palmer is murdered, the Spanish issue, an indictment,
41:07and it's really interesting.
41:09I ended up speaking to a journalist in Ireland who's very well connected
41:14and has been doing a lot of work around the Kinahan cartel.
41:18We had a long discussion around a man called Aratas, who is an Estonian hitman.
41:25We have information that suggests that Aratas came into the UK just prior to John Palmer's murder
41:35and that he is a good possibility.
41:38The man who actually pulled the trigger who killed John Palmer.
41:42The question is, what was the motive?
41:46Who do you suspect put the money up for the hit?
41:50My gut feeling is that one of the individuals on the indictment could be the man who ordered the hit.
41:57I don't want to name him and compromise any future police investigation.
42:02But we do know that he was involved with Palmer in the early days.
42:06A very violent man, well capable of serious violence.
42:11He was a close associate of the Kinahans, right?
42:17He was very close to John.
42:20And attentionally, the man on the indictment may have thought that John was going to implicate him
42:26and put the majority of the real grief onto this individual.
42:31So, do we think John Palmer could have become an informant?
42:40Yes, I do.
42:42Because a motivator would be the 15-year crime sentence he'd want to reduce due to his age, due to his health.
42:49The Spanish indictment, you can't take away the timing.
42:52You've got to consider that that is the trigger that's motivated the assassination.
42:58I'm the same as you.
42:59You know, the Spanish indictment, so close to the murder time, is fitting the bill for me.
43:06There's a name on the indictment.
43:09Yeah.
43:10That's that magic.
43:11What evidence, isn't there?
43:12What have they got against him?
43:13Yeah.
43:14Yeah.
43:15He's got a good motive.
43:17Yeah.
43:18We have a good picture of him now.
43:19So, he is a good, a very good possibility.
43:28So, it's been almost ten years to the date since John Palmer was murdered.
43:46So, it's quite a meaningful time for the family.
43:52So, 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.
44:06Hello, Ella. How are you? Are you okay?
44:08Not too bad, thank you. Come on in.
44:10Okay.
44:11Hi.
44:12Is he here?
44:13Yeah, that would be lovely. Thank you.
44:17So, it's been ten years since your dad was killed.
44:21So, as we approach the tenth anniversary, there's a renewed sense of urgency in this.
44:27The fact is that the truth is we may never know for certain who killed your dad.
44:32However, you know, we have uncovered strong new leads, and they are new leads.
44:38You know, places where the police have not gone.
44:40Okay.
44:41And I think it's for the first time that I feel that we've got something solid to move forward with.
44:48What we have found potentially is evidence that a hitman, a professional assassin, was hired to kill your dad.
44:57That man is linked to probably the biggest drug cartel in the world, the Kinnelan Cartel.
45:07And the hitman involved is a man called Imre Arrakas.
45:12We believe the information we've got is he traveled to the UK literally two weeks before John was killed.
45:19He has been involved in other murders.
45:22He's currently in prison in Lithuania.
45:24He's a professional hitman.
45:27So, who do we think would have paid him?
45:31The motive that we think may be linked is that Dad had been told that he was going to face trial in Spain.
45:39They served the proceedings only weeks before Dad was killed.
45:43And then people around that case feared that Dad was going to talk to the authorities.
45:49And I found the name in court papers.
45:52It was linked to both your dad and the Kinnelan gang.
45:56You tell me whether or not you know this man.
45:59That's the name.
46:10Yeah.
46:11Without naming him, what was your knowledge of that particular man?
46:16Or is that just something you've heard?
46:18No, I know that he did used to work for my Dad.
46:22I'd heard conversations between my Dad and that person talking quite often to him.
46:29It was said that my Dad was able to do things from prison.
46:33But in all the honest and truth of it, other people were having to run things.
46:40So, he was employed by your Dad.
46:42Did you ever hear anything that would suggest that they fell out at any stage?
46:46Well, yeah, I know that he did stop working for my Dad.
46:49I think he was probably doing some things that maybe my Dad would have not wanted it done in that particular way.
46:58Right, gotcha.
46:59Our intention is to give this information in the form of a report to the police.
47:07And it's their job then to take it on.
47:10It's their job to progress it.
47:12And hopefully, you know, there may be some closure for you.
47:16Yeah.
47:17I think it's just a bit of time to process things.
47:21But it's better to have something, some information, than where it was before, where we didn't have any.
47:30And I hope at some point they will look into the person on the piece of paper in more depth.
47:37It's quite a lot to process.
47:44The idea of somebody close to my Dad at some point could then organise my Dad's murder.
47:53I spent over 40 years investigating organised crime.
48:09And John Palmer led an extraordinary life.
48:12He came from nothing to become one of the most notorious and richest criminals in UK history.
48:23But the empire that he built came at a price.
48:26And he created enemies all around the world.
48:29Our 18-month investigation has taken us from Essex to Tenerife, from Ireland to Lithuania.
48:37And it's shot a light on some of the most dangerous criminal gangs in the world.
48:44We've uncovered evidence that points towards the hitman and the person who had the motive to kill John Palmer.
48:52We're going to hand that evidence over to the police.
48:55But ultimately, someone in the criminal underworld knows exactly what happened to John Palmer.
49:03Ten years on, perhaps one of them is ready to step forward.
49:08And the murder of John Palmer will finally be solved.
49:25Have a good day.
49:55You
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