Five unanswered questions in murder of Brink's-Mat gangster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer – including shocking missed detail | The Sun
FROM a wheeler dealer jeweller who couldn’t read or write to being richer than the Queen, John 'Goldfinger' Palmer's life is a real rags to riches story.
He enjoyed a Champagne lifestyle – with a glamorous wife on his arm, a string of mistresses, a £3.5m private jet, £6m yacht, two helicopters and a collection of classic cars.
But behind his lavish wealth lay a dark underbelly.
Palmer – played by actor Tom Cullen in new BBC drama The Gold – acquired his Bond villain nickname after he was accused of melting down gold from the notorious £26million Brink’s-Mat robbery in 1983.
Palmer was controversially cleared in 1987, and went on to mastermind a multi-million pound timeshare fraud on Tenerife in the Canary Islands.
There he conned thousands of British holidaymakers into parting with their life savings.
TRUME CRIME
Inside lethal world of gangster Goldfinger whobecame richer than Queen
Who was gangster John Palmer and how did he die?
But the Costa del Crime playboy met a grisly end when he was shot dead in the garden of his home in South Weald, Essex, by a mystery assassin in 2015.
Here investigative journalist Livvy Haydock – host of BBC Sounds podcast Gangster: The story of John Palmer – delves into the five unanswered questions that haunt the case.
How did cops miss he’d been murdered?
Palmer had been under surveillance by the secret service for 16 years and was one of Britain’s most wanted criminals before he was assassinated on June 24, 2015.
But when paramedics and police arrived it was thought Palmer’s death was not suspicious – a possible cardiac arrest given he'd recently undergone keyhole surgery to his chest.
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