John Palmer: the Solihull gold dealer who was the UK’s richest criminal & as wealthy as the Queen

BBC One’s latest crime drama The Gold tells the story of a major robbery with huge repercussions, and it has been a big hit with viewers.

The new show is set in the 1980s with leading actors Jack Lowden, Sean Harris and Tom Cullen instigating a bank robbery in London. The drama escalates throughout the series and the thieves inadvertently stumble across £27m worth of gold bullion during their heist. The circumstances of the story seem so far-fetched that it’s hard to believe that the events could have really happened, but they did, and the man who played a huge part in the story also went on to become the richest criminal in the UK - and he’s from Solihull.

John Palmer (played in the show by Tom Cullen) was a former market trader and gold dealer involved in various criminal activities including mortgage and timeshare fraud - and he played a big part in the notorious Brink’s - Matop robbery.

At one point, he was the UK’s most wealthy criminal, even beating the Queen on the Sunday Times Rich List, owning a complex network of 122 companies, many offshore in the Isle of Man, Madeira and the British Virgin Islands, as well as 60 offshore bank accounts.

Palmer was said to once own a yacht, helicopters and even a chateau in France. Here, we take a look over his rise to power in the criminal world and his involvement in the infamous robbery.

John Palmer’s early ventures

Palmer was born in Solihull, and was one of seven children. His father was allegedly once part of Birmingham’s infamous Peaky Blinders gang. Palmer was reportedly dyslexic, leaving school at 15 and joining his brother in a roof tiling business.

In 1975, Palmer married Marnie Ryan in Bristol, and the couple had two daughters. In the 80s, he opened his gold and jewellery dealing company, Scadlynn Ltd, in Bristol with business partners, Garth Victor Chappell and Terence Patch. The store also handled stolen goods.

Over his life, he made his money through fraud, money lanundering, scams as well as through legitimate business. Palmer and Chappell had been arrested in 1980 when they worked together selling furniture. The two men were charged with obtaining credit on furniture by providing false references, with Palmer receiving a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Brinx’s-Mat robbery

BBC’s The Gold tells the story of the events which took place in London during the 1980s. In November 1983, Six men were aiming to steal £1 million worth of foreign currency from the Heathrow International Trading Estate, but instead stumbled upon gold bullion valued at £26 million. Detectives at the time said at the time that it felt like “a typical Old Kent road armed robbery.”

The gang, some carrying guns, surprised security staff as they started their Saturday shift between 6.30am and 8.15am at the warehouse. They gained entry through one of the security guards, Anthony Black, who was in on the robbery. The six men handcuffed members of staff and hit one on the head with a pistol. They also threatened to set one of the guards on fire if they didn’t reveal the vault’s combination numbers.

The thieves escaped with valuable gold, diamonds and cash. Around 15 minutes later, after the thieves had escaped, one of the staff managed to break free of his handcuffs and alert the police of the incident.

Micky McAvoy and Brian Robinson were the two thieves said to be behind the robbery. McAvoy recruited criminal Kenneth Noye - who killed undercover police officer John Fordham while he was being investigated - to dispose of the gold, most of which has never been recovered.

Palmer’s involvement

Palmer was approached by Noye and fellow criminal Brian Reader with a scheme to launder gold using his business. It’s believed that after the gold was sectretly transported to Palmer’s home in the West Country by Noye and others - Palmer then began smelting the gold in his garden. He was offered a 25% cut to do this.

After smelting the gold, Palmer and Noye are said to have helped to smuggle the untraceable gold bars out of the country, before reimporting them back into the country with documents which made these seem legitimate. Some gold was eventually found in Noye’s garden after he killed Fordham.

In 1985, Palmer’s business partners Chappell and Patch of Scadlynn Ltd were arrested for their involvement in melting down the gold from the robbery to try to pass it off as legitimate. Two days after two armed robbers from the heist were jailed, Chappell withdrew £348,000 from the company’s accounts. Throughout their trial, a total of £1.1 million had been withdrawn.

It was revealed that the company had been processing millions of pounds’ worth of gold, but claimed it was gold they had purchased themselves. Documents which were later confiscated by police also showed that the company had been evading tax.

At this time, Palmer had headed for Tenerife and was on holiday with his family. His wife and children returned to England, while he tried to set up a timeshare business on the Spanish island to defraud holidaymakers. He attempted to move to Brazil to evade arrest further, but he was arrested and deported back to England by police to face trial for his part in the robbery.

Palmer admitted to melting down gold bars from the robbery in his garden, but incredibly, he was acquitted during the trial in 1987 after claiming that he wasn’t aware they were stolen, although his business partner Chappell was sentenced to ten years in the earlier trial. He continued to plead his innocence in the trial, and acquired the nickname of ‘Goldfinger’ for his role.

Later life and timeshare fraud

In 2001, Solihull-born Palmer was convicted of masterminding the largest timeshare fraud on record and he was jailed for eight years. It was reported that he swindled 20,000 people out of £30 million.

Timeshare resale scams involve the sellers of timeshares, posing as a reseller or real estate agent. The scam artist claims to have a buyer for the timeshare or guarantees he can sell the timeshare for a good price. Due to his money laundering and his off-shore bank accounts, Palmer’s fortune at the time of his sentence in 2001 was estimated at £300 million - making him as rich as Queen Elizabeth at the time.

Despite this, Palmer was declared bankrupt in 2005 with debts of £3.9million.

He returned to Tenerife after his release from prison, where he was being monitored by English and Spanish police before moving back to England. With the police monitoring him, Plamer’s enemies had become convinced he had become an informer, according to his biography.

Palmer was shot in the chest and killed at his home in Essex in 2015, aged 64. Palmer was facing charges in Spain for fraud and money laundering at the time of his death. It was later revealed that Palmer was under electronic surveillance by a secret police intelligence unit for 16 years until his assassination. Palmer had no shortage of enemies during his career as a criminal, and police previously said they believed he was killed on the orders of a rival underworld boss.

A 50-year-old British man who was living in southern Spain was questioned on suspicion of Palmer’s murder in 2017, but so far no one has been charged with his death.