Fraud trial to reveal Goldfinger’s killer?
A MAJOR fraud trial that could “shed light” on the gangland murder of crime kingpin John “Goldfinger” Palmer is set to begin in Spain tomorrow.
Ten associates of Palmer, once believed to be Britain’s richest criminal, are charged with fraud offences in connection with his Tenerife timeshare racket, that is thought to have netted him up to £300million.
They include his partner Christina Ketley, who shared the £800,000 home in Essex where he was shot dead in the garden in June 2015.
Palmer was charged with fraud, money laundering and firearms offences alongside the others in May 2015, just weeks before his assassination.
The trial in Madrid centres around the scam that continued to fleece customers even while Palmer was serving eight years in prison after being convicted in 2001 of fraud charges in connection with the timeshare con.
It is alleged that he continued to run the crime empire selling non-existent timeshares in holiday apartments from inside HMP Long Lartin with the other defendants, including Ketley, who was allegedly managing it on his behalf.
Palmer’s alleged right-hand man Richard Anthony Cashman, 52, and one of his nephews, Darren John Morris, are also charged with fraud offences.
Before his death, Palmer was facing up to 15 years in prison. He was first arrested in Spain in 2007, but not charged until 2015.
The Spanish indictment also alleges a 9mm Zastava pistol, found during a Tenerife raid, belonged to Palmer.
It says Palmer’s associates in Spain had their phones tapped and the kingpin was taped giving them, including Morris, orders from his British prison cell.
Prosecutors want Ketley and Cashman, each jailed for two years for criminal association, given two more for money laundering and six for fraud. Palmer got his nickname after being acquitted of smelting gold bars stolen in the notorious 1983 Brink’s Mat robbery.
His killer stalked him through a small hole made in the garden fence before jumping over and firing six bullets from a silenced revolver.
The area of the covered by CCTV.
Five of the six bullets were found but there was no other forensic evidence.
Essex Police’s main line of inquiry is that someone connected to the trial may have wanted him out of the way. There garden was not were suspicions among the criminal underworld after he was charged with the offences that he may have been about to turn “supergrass”.
Last July, Ketley put up a £100,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
At the time, lead investigator DCI Stephen Jennings said: “Before Mr Palmer’s death, and during the course of this investigation, there has been lots of speculation about his connections to organised criminals, specific highprofile crimes, suggestions that he was a police informant and further speculation that charges brought against him in Tenerife were about to be dropped.
“The key hypothesis is around John being due to stand trial in Spain.
“That trial is still to go ahead and because of the timing when that first went out, I believe that is why John was killed. That makes sense and that is what the evidence and intelligence is telling us.
“John was due to fly out to Spain just days after he was killed.”
He said “active inquiries in and around Palmer and the upcoming trial in Spain” were underway to see if anyone involved in the case would have “benefited from his death”. BRITAIN could fall to a James Bond villainstyle cyber attack if it does not take precautions against buying in Chinese technology, a former minister has warned.
Tory peer Baroness Anelay of St Johns is set to lead cross-party concerns in the Lords this week whether the UK should remain open to 5G technology from Chinese firm Huawei.
The company is the leading provider of 5G for mobile phones but has been blocked from building networks in Australia, New Zealand and the US on national security grounds with Canada also considering whether to follow suit.
It is estimated that upgrading networks to 5G technology would be worth £200billion to the UK economy.
Lady Anelay said that while the benefits are tempting, we could be left vulnerable to a massive cyber attack. She added: “It could be exactly like a James Bond villain attack who could switch off everything at the touch of a button.”