There ought to be a movie about this guy. John Palmer was a key member of a gang of thieves who pulled off some of the most audacious, lucrative crimes in British history. This gang began losing members, one by one, with one stabbed several times and shot, another taking bullets to the head a year later, another snuffed out the next, in fact seven members of the original gang now gone, by murder. Someone ought to make a movie about this guy, and this gang.
Meanwhile, with other associates, Palmer organized grand frauds and con games, raking in millions by selling time shares to suckers. His own wealth became staggering, estimated at times as high as half a billion dollars. A higher level of fraud, and a higher level of spoils, than one crook could likely accumulate without collusion. Was someone, somewhere in authority making their own cool millions, on the take? It was all bigger than life. Someone ought to make a movie about this guy.
In fact, someone already has, when you consider that a film called Fool’s Gold from 1992 was based on the Heathrow Brink’s-MAT heist–netting well over $100 million in today’s dollars–and that documentaries followed in 2003 and 2010. But that “crime of the century” from 1983 was only the beginning of the amazing Palmer career, and all its unanswered questions.
The end came in June of 2015, in Palmer’s gated community. His death was reported, officers came to the scene, and declared the 64-year old deceased by “natural causes.” Later the coroner found a bullet in his chest–perhaps a natural cause of death for a career criminal! Yes, this all really happened.
There’s no need for crime fiction when you have the real life, and the real mysteries, of John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer to grapple with. Come explore the file with us.
