Marnie Palmer - Goldfinger and Me: The Real Story of John Palmer, Britain’s Most Powerful Gangster

This book is dedicated to my two daughters. I love you both so much, and hope your futures are much brighter and happier.

First published 2018

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

Marnie Palmer and Tom Morgan, 2018

The right of Marnie Palmer and Tom Morgan to be identified as the Authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 8954 1

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

Thank you to my two beautiful daughters, and to my dear departed dad. He gave me everything he had. I also would never have been able to write this book without the loving support of my new partner, John, who has made a future possible. Lastly, I want to thank my husband of forty years, John Palmer.

Marnie Palmer

2018

Tom Morgan would like to thank Charlotte Dunlavey, Quita Morgan, Robert Smith, Alex Waite and Mark Beynon.

(Some names of close family members have been amended in the following pages at Marnies request, in order to protect their privacy.)

On 24 June 2015, John Palmers luck ran out. The underworld kingpin with riches to rival the Queen collapsed on the grass after being blasted six times by a contract assassin lurking in the shadows of his garden.

For his long list of enemies, Palmers death had been a long time coming. Murders and fatal accidents had wiped out at least twenty criminals and police officers connected to the spectacular Brinks-Mat bullion raid of 1983. Palmer, who melted down and sold the gold, was the one that got away. Dodging the so-called Brinks-Mat curse for thirty years, he masterminded a fraudulent timeshare empire of which his rivals could only dream.

The press nicknamed Palmer Goldfinger; his rivals knew him as Teflon John; and, as his business assets swelled to an estimated 300 million, associates on Tenerife called him Timeshare King. For those he crossed, however, he was Public Enemy No. 1. By the time he was shot, police estimated tens of thousands of people had reason to want him dead.

Palmer started with nothing and rose to the top by living on his wits. He was born into poverty in September 1950, one of seven siblings who often went to bed hungry in their two-bedroom council home in the Birmingham suburb of Solihull. He left school at 15 barely able to read and write, but with a fierce appetite to prove himself.

As a teenager, his prospects were limited to casual roofing work or the odd shift on his brothers market stall. Young John wanted more. He moved down to Bristol and dreamed big. Silver-tongued and cunning, he was a natural entrepreneur. He soon launched a number of businesses, selling second-hand cast-offs, carpets, antiques and eventually bullion. He then hit upon the idea to build a smelter in his back garden to melt down jewellery, cutlery and unwanted scrap.

Life was good. He fell in love with Marnie Ryan, a warm-natured and charismatic young hairdresser with the looks of Brigitte Bardot. They wed in 1975, eventually having two daughters and buying a beautiful Georgian pile near Bath. In the driveway, of course, was the Rolls-Royce.

But Brinks-Mat changed everything. The newspapers called it the crime of the century, but in reality, the operation wasnt so well planned. Six men broke into the US security companys warehouse at Heathrow in November 1983, thinking they were about to steal 3 million in cash. Instead, they stumbled across 3 tonnes of gold bullion. It was Britains most profitable robbery, a haul that sparked so many spin-off investments over the years that its total worth at todays rates is estimated in the hundreds of millions.

The gang never intended to pull off such a feat. Police had soon made the connection that one of the security guards on duty was a relative of a known criminal. Detectives quickly rounded up the raiders, but not the loot. Most of it had been hidden by fencer Kenneth Noye, who, in turn, needed a man who could turn his red-hot haul into cold hard cash.

As the biggest hunt for stolen property in Metropolitan Police history was launched, Noye asked Palmers former business partner if he would be interested in doing business. The bullion was ghosted down to the West Country from Essex. Much of it was mixed in with scrap before being melted down in Johns smelter and recast. The bars were re-formed into apparently legitimate bullion. Marnie claims that John Palmer had no inkling it was Brinks-Mat loot until it was too late to stop. Like so many of his antics back then, he operated on a no questions asked policy. Such was the gangs audacity or downright ignorance that some of the new gold was sold back to the victims of the heist.

A pair of neighbours reported to police that they had seen a crucible operating in Palmers Georgian home, but when officers visited they said it was outside their jurisdiction to investigate further. It would be another year before Scotland Yard was on the trail. By that point, Marnie and Palmer had jetted off to Tenerife for some winter sun. Police launched an SAS-style dawn swoop on their home, arrested the two unsuspecting house-sitters, and recovered just a solitary gold bar.

Needless to say, John and Marnie were spooked. He was suddenly front-page news, and lying low in Tenerife seemed the best option. Before long, he was named as one of twenty wanted Britons hiding out in Spanish enclaves.

During this extended stay, Palmer set about turning his talents to the rapidly expanding timeshare industry. It would be another eighteen months before Spanish authorities, alerted by their British counterparts, declared him an undesirable alien. He eventually flew to Brazil, but was arrested on the tarmac and forced back to Britain to face the music.

This was just the beginning of a plot that could have been lifted straight from a Hollywood script. Palmers reputation was largely built on the trial that followed. He was a likeable defendant and argued his case with a smile, saying that while he had certainly melted down plenty of gold as part of his jewellery business, he couldnt possibly know its origins. Police were dumbfounded when the jury believed him.

Everyone now knew him as Goldfinger, yet it was his silver tongue that saved him from the cells. As his Brinks-Mat accomplices were locked up, Marnie watched with shock as John swaggered out of Londons Old Bailey and flicked two fingers at the humiliated Scotland Yard detectives in the public gallery.

Palmer was on a roll. His Tenerife holiday business escalated faster than he could ever have hoped. Eventually he was ripping off Britons through a vast timeshare con. He launched a labyrinth of companies to disguise his antics and reportedly relied on the help of a small army of thugs. Police claimed profits were soaring thanks to swindles, violence, racketeering and cash laundering.