In the final chapter of this special three part series from True Criminals, the Brink’s Mat saga reaches its chilling, unsolved conclusion. The story moves from the immediate aftermath of the heist to the long, violent shadow it cast over the criminal underworld for more than three decades—culminating in a quiet garden in Essex.

Hosts Martin and Helen are reunited with former Metropolitan Police Commander and head of the Flying Squad, Roy Ramm, to trace the extraordinary life and mysterious death of John “Goldfinger” Palmer. A Bristol jeweler who provided the commercial cover needed to melt down, contaminate, and disperse the stolen bullion, Palmer managed to beat the Brink's Mat handling charges in court, only to build a fraudulent timeshare empire fueled by violence and offshore laundering.

The episode explores Palmer's brazen audacity—including the surreal moment he chose to cross examine police leadership while defending himself in a multi million pound fraud trial—and the massive institutional failures that allowed banks to handle bags of his cash unchallenged. Roy and Martin reflect on the infamous "Golden Week" lost by investigators when Palmer was gunned down by a professional assassin in 2015, a contract killing that remains unsolved to this day.

As the team looks back on the 43 year legacy of Britain's biggest bullion robbery, they examine the dark myth of the "Curse of Brink's Mat," a trail of untimely deaths that claimed figures like Charlie Wilson and Solly Nahome. This finale exposes how a single morning raid unexpected of gold forced Scotland Yard to fundamentally change how it fought organized crime, forever altering the landscape of global financial policing.

This is the final chapter of a modern British tragedy—a story of indestructible commodities, ruined lives, professional hits, and an ending that remains completely unwritten.

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Follow Martin on Twitter at ⁠⁠@skymartinbrunt⁠⁠. Discover more about his career and the cases he’s covered by reading his book, No One Got Cracked Over the Head for No Reason: Dispatches from a Crime Reporter, available here: ⁠⁠https://amzn.eu/d/g1WisSY⁠⁠.

Connect with Helen Fospero

Follow Helen on Instagram at ⁠⁠@helenfospero⁠⁠ and check out her podcast, The Convex Conversation, here: ⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-convex-conversation/id1510209575⁠⁠.

Credits

True Criminals is produced by Audio Bleach Global.

Visit ⁠⁠www.audiobleachglobal.com/truecriminals⁠⁠ for more information.

Executive Producer: Lee Mann.

Producer: Russell Barnes.

Audio Production: BLEACHED

Music Composition:BLEACHED

Artwork: BLEACHED

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