Hitman known as 'The Butcher' named as suspect in John 'Goldfinger' Palmer murder

A hitman suspected of killing John "Goldfinger" Palmer at his mansion jetted in to the UK two weeks before the shooting.

Imre Arakas, dubbed The Butcher, might have been hired by one of Palmer’s former criminal associates, a new Sky documentary claims.

Arakas is said to have carried out dozens of contract killings and is serving a 10-year term for murdering a cage fighter in Lithuania.

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He was pictured flying in to
Stansted airport in Essex 14 days before Palmer, 65, was assassinated on June 24, 2015. However, there is no record of him leaving.

One theory is he was contracted to carry out the execution through Ireland’s Kinahan crime cartel on behalf of one of Palmer’s former timeshare associates.

Former Met Det Chief Insp David McKelvey, who probed the murder for the documentary, said of Arakas: “He’s a very, very good suspect.”

Essex detectives previously said a Spanish fraud trial, in which Palmer was named as a defendant, might be linked to the killing.

Palmer’s daughter Ella, 48, said she hoped Essex Police will follow up Mr McKelvey’s work.

Arakas met the Kinahans in Spain 15 years ago.

In 2017 he was arrested in Dublin over a plot to execute a Kinahan rival. He was jailed for six years before his extradition to Lithuania in 2023. Palmer was nicknamed Goldfinger for his alleged role in melting down gold stolen in the 1983 Brink’s-Mat raid.

He was killed as he burned papers in his garden in South Weald, Essex. An assassin fired six shots with a .32 silenced revolver as Palmer fled.

Palmer, who had been jailed for timeshare fraud, was found dead by his son James, 28. But when police arrived, they initially believed he died of natural causes due to complications from gallbladder surgery.

Mr McKelvey said: “Someone in the underworld knows what happened. Ten years on perhaps one of them is ready to step forward and the murder will finally be solved.”

• The Essex Murders: Who Killed Goldfinger? will be on shown on Sky Documentaries on October 4.