‘Goldfinger’ execution link to string of unsolved killings Solihull-born crime kingpin was gunned down at his home three years ago
DETECTIVES probing the execution of Solihull-born gangster John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer are looking at potential links between the underworld kingpin and a string of unsolved killings – including a former Midland soldier.
They include the murder of a British couple in 2006 and the death of Palmer’s former henchman three months before that of the crime boss – once Britain’s richest crook, worth £300 million.
Essex Police confirmed they are also examining a possible connec- tion to the 2005 killing of a former British soldier in Tanzania and the death of a timeshare boss in Spain five years later.
Palmer rose from small-time Birmingham crook to an international crime czar who enjoyed a working relationship with the Russian mafia.
He was linked to the Brinks-Mat bullion robbery and gained cash, through menaces, from a bogus Spanish timeshare operation.
Palmer’s violent mob, known as “clumpers”, ensured he monopolised the lucrative Mediterranean holiday market.
In death, he has been connected with a string of alleged executions.
Expats Billy and Flo Robinson were found dead near their Canary Island home in Tenerife in 2006.
Mr Robinson suffered multiple stab wounds and Mrs Robinson endured mutilation, said one source.
The horrific torture killings – and the fact that the couple were known to Palmer – led to some disturbing reports.
It was feared the couple may have been the victims of Eastern Europeans trying to muscle in on the timeshare market and police believe Palmer knew of threats made against them.
Palmer – who earned his nick- name after being cleared of helping to dispose of gold from the £26 million Brink’s-Mat robbery at Heathrow Airport in 1983 – had returned to the UK after being released halfway through an eight-year prison sentence for a £30 million fraud.
Three months before Palmer’s death, in June 2015, at his home in South Weald, Brentwood, one of his former lieutenants, 58-year-old Dennis New was found dead.
Police near his home in Phuket, Thailand, said New had died of a heart attack and there were no suspicious circumstances.
He had been arrested in 2002 with fellow Palmer lieutenants Richard Cashman, of Stocktonon-Tees and Lebanese-born Mohamed Derbah.
All three were held in Madrid after a series of raids in Tenerife and the Costa del Sol but were released without charge.
Another case is the death of timeshare shark Garry Leigh, 47, in 2010. He was run over during a Saturday cycle ride in Marbella on the Costa del Sol.
Leigh had long been involved in a variety of timeshare scams.
Another death being investigated for possible links to the Palmer murder is that of former soldier Dale Moore, from Stourbridge, in Febru- ary, 2005, in Tanzania. He 40-year-old keep-fit fanatic. A former associate has said Moore was linked to Palmer and was assassinated. Found in a cargo container, the cause of death was recorded as a heart attack but his family remain unconvinced. Moore’s son Kieran said: “Our family have always had unanswered questions about my father’s death.” A second unconnected source, a former military colleague, said: “I was told that he was stabbed to death in a bar but I have seen no evidence to support that.” An Essex Police spokeswoman said of the murders and deaths: “We are aware of these cases and have explored them.” Palmer, 64, was watched through a spyhole in his garden fence in South Weald, Essex, before a gunman shot him six times as he burned documents. Remarkably, Palmer’s death was not treated as suspicious by Essex Police until six days after he died. Detectives suspect Palmer was shot to stop him passing information to authorities. He had been due to stand trial with ten others on real estate fraud charges in Spain. was a