Shedding light on Goldfinger’s dealings

Earlier this week, police confirmed that convicted fraudster John “Goldfinger” Palmer was murdered in what police believe to be a professional hit, even though he had allegedly “gone straight” for more than a decade.   

However, as far back as 1993, he was the subject of an asset-freezing Mareva Injunction following his involvement with the Brink’s-Mat case, although he was subsequently acquitted.  

As part of the injunction, investigators were allowed to track his “substantial financial resources”.

Then in 2002, the multi-millionaire, whose wealth was estimated at the time to rival the Queen’s, was handed a then record-breaking confiscation order of £36m, having been sentenced to eight years in prison for timeshare fraud, after a judge granted prosecutors power to conduct a forensic investigation of his assets.

The forensic accountants investigated his intricate web of companies and came up with what many believed to be a conservative figure.  

However, the order was subsequently overturned at the Court of Appeal on a technicality.  He next hit the financial headlines when he was declared bankrupt in 2005 with debts of £3.9m, despite a reputed wealth of £300.  Unfortunately at this point there were no forensic accountants on hand to discover the true extent of his assets.

Finally, in 2007 he was arrested by Spanish police and charged with fraud, firearm possession and money laundering, which often go hand-in-hand with hidden assets.  He was due to stand trial for these charges and it is widely speculated that this is why there was an order for him to be silenced for good.

In such cases forensic accountants are invaluable, as they unpick the complex tapestry of hidden assets so that victims, many of whom are stripped of their savings by the scam, are able to get some redress for the fraud perpetrated against them.

For advice on how Milsted Langdon’s forensic accountants can assist you, please contact us today.

Author: Roger Isaacs, 14 March 2016

Sources: Telegraph, BBC News, Independent

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