Two weeks before the fatal shooting of John “Goldfinger” Palmer at his residence, a hitman suspected of the murder arrived in the UK. Imre Arakas, known as The Butcher, is believed to have been potentially hired by one of Palmer’s former criminal associates, as per a new Sky documentary.
Arakas, who has a history of carrying out contract killings and is currently serving a 10-year sentence for killing a cage fighter in Lithuania, was seen arriving at Stansted airport in Essex just before Palmer’s assassination on June 24, 2015. Remarkably, there is no record of his departure from the UK.
Speculation suggests that Arakas was possibly contracted through Ireland’s Kinahan crime cartel to carry out the hit on behalf of one of Palmer’s past timeshare partners. Former Met Det Chief Insp David McKelvey, who investigated the case for the documentary, described Arakas as a strong suspect.
Prior investigations by Essex detectives indicated a potential link between a Spanish fraud trial involving Palmer and his subsequent murder. Palmer’s daughter, Ella, expressed hope that Essex Police will continue to pursue Mr. McKelvey’s findings.
Arakas had first encountered the Kinahans in Spain fifteen years ago. In 2017, he was arrested in Dublin for a plot to eliminate a Kinahan rival, leading to a six-year prison sentence before being extradited to Lithuania in 2023. Palmer, nicknamed Goldfinger due to his alleged involvement in melting down gold from the 1983 Brink’s-Mat heist, was fatally shot while burning papers in his South Weald garden in Essex.
Despite initially being mistaken for a natural death, Palmer’s son James, 28, discovered his father’s body after the shooting. Mr. McKelvey emphasized the importance of potential witnesses from the criminal underworld coming forward to finally solve the murder after a decade.
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