BBC Radio 5 Live podcast Gangster returns for new series

The new series of BBC Radio 5’s podcast, Gangster charts the rise and fall of one of Britain’s richest and most wanted organised criminals, John ‘Goldfinger’ Palmer.

One of the most listened to podcasts on BBC Sounds, the latest series has launched ahead of the highly anticipated new BBC One drama The Gold starring Tom Cullen as John Palmer.

Journalist and presenter Livvy Haydock travels from the streets of post-war Birmingham to the sun-kissed beaches of Tenerife to find violence, mystery, murder and police corruption.

Gangster: The Story of John Palmer uncovers how an illiterate lad from a broken home went on to become as rich as the Queen, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.

Palmer was a wheeler dealer jeweller who owned a Learjet, a yacht, helicopters, a collection of fast cars and a chateau in France. He started by selling paraffin from the back of a lorry and moved to the top of the criminal world after the Brink’s-Mat heist in 1983 – the largest armed robbery in British history.

Smelting millions of pounds worth of the gold, he became known as ‘Goldfinger.’ He then went on to mastermind a multi-million-pound time share fraud in Tenerife, scamming thousands of innocent victims who lost their life savings.

Palmer’s associates and his victims, many of whom have never spoken before, speak to Livvy Haycock, and she meets the detectives who had the job of bringing him to justice.

Livvy says: “John Palmer’s story is extraordinary, both in life and in death. For me, it demonstrates just how the cogs of the criminal underworld turn, the complex relationships between villains, the battle between good and bad cop and what it’s like to take over an island!

“If Britain’s biggest ever gold robbery, the Brink’s-Mat Heist, was a starting point, just imagine what Palmer went on to become.”

Gangster: The Story of John Palmer is available as a box set on BBC Sounds now.