Latest news with #Rolexes
Daily Mirror
13 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
'How I brought down one of the UK's most powerful crime lords'
Former Daily Mirror Crime Correspondent Sylvia Jones tells the gripping story of how she went undercover to snare 'untouchable' gangster John 'Goldfinger' Palmer John 'Goldfinger' Palmer was in the elegant lounge of London's Ritz hotel when the beginning of the end arrived. He was sitting at a tea table with two Burmese opium producers in June 1994, celebrating finalising a £65million-a-year money laundering deal, when a large figure loomed over him and announced: 'Roger Cook, Central Television. We've come to talk to you.' It was a voice familiar to the 10 million viewers who regularly tuned in to watch television's biggest investigator uncover, confront and pursue criminals and wrongdoers. And it marked the start of Palmer's descent from a man with a royal-level fortune and a life of yachts, fast cars, Rolexes and helicopters to prison – and, ultimately, his death in a suburban back garden. Palmer, a former gold dealer, had risen to fame and fortune smelting gold bars stolen in the Brink's-Mat bullion robbery 11 years earlier. On trial at the Old Bailey in 1987, charged with conspiracy to handle the stolen gold, he admitted melting down large amounts at his mansion in Bath, but claimed not to know it was stolen. When the jury acquitted him he blew them a kiss. He went on to set up a huge timeshare fraud operation, cajoling or intimidating thousands of folk out of their hard-earned savings and ruling the holiday island of Tenerife with his posse of violent, steroid-fuelled musclemen. This ruthless 'business model' was essential for Palmer's real activities of laundering ever-increasing amounts of dirty money for his underworld criminal cronies, thieving Russian oligarchs, and other corrupt government officials and politicians who plundered their own countries. The latest series of the BBC drama The Gold fictionalises this period in Palmer's life. Played by Tom Cullen, he boasts to one of his heavies as he steps off a private jet: 'A ghost, that's what I am in England – no passport control, no nosy b****** spotting me in an airport and calling the press or the Old Bill. 'Because I beat them, you see. The English police – I beat the best they have.' This is where I came in. After becoming the first female crime reporter on Fleet Street when working for the Mirror, I moved to the Cook Report in the early 1990s. During painstaking research for a programme on Palmer, I assembled a mountain of evidence about his hugely lucrative money laundering activities and estimated he had more than £400m sloshing around in different banks in secretive financial centres, including Russia. The vast Communist state was crumbling as greedy government agents, businessmen and the Russian mafia began to plunder the country's most valuable assets. I traced at least 100 companies, dozens of offshore accounts and business interests in the UK, Europe and around the world, and as far away as South America, South Africa and the Caribbean. Palmer used these companies to move around millions of pounds from timeshare, property, leisure and finance organisations. He mixed this money up with large deposits of ill-gotten cash that swirled around and came out of the Palmer 'washing machine' looking untainted and ready to hand back to his criminal associates – minus his 25% commission, of course. I informed Scotland Yard about our impending Palmer sting – we called the show 'Laundry Man'. Brink's-Mat detectives whose bid to convict him had failed in 1987 literally fell off their chairs laughing. 'He will never fall for it,' they claimed. Gathering legally watertight evidence needed a very special plan, a sophisticated sting so close to the real thing that not even the streetwise Palmer would suspect he was being lured into a TV trap. I recruited Buddy Burns, a retired US undercover drug enforcement detective, to talk his way into Palmer's tight-knit organisation. A tough, grizzled Native American who had worked more drug stings than I'd had hot dinners, Buddy was a perfect choice. He posed as the 'representative' of notorious Burmese warlord Khun Sa, then the world's biggest opium producer and top of theFBI's most-wanted list. He was, Buddy explained in an initial phone call to Palmer's Spanish solicitor, looking for a discreet 'businessman' willing and big enough to handle £30m twice a year from poppy crops. The prospect of the biggest deal of his life was an offer Goldfinger couldn't resist. He took the bait within days. The next vital phase of our elaborate sting involved Khun Sa himself. Actors, however good, would never be able to convince the wily Palmer. So I sent ex-soldier Patrick King into the jungle of war-torn Burma to enlist the help of Khun Sa – who Roger had interviewed two years earlier. America's most wanted man agreed to help us and dispatched two of his closest aides. I posed as a shady local fixer hired by Buddy to look after the Burmese men. At a smart mews house in Marylebone, Central London, we secretly recorded meetings between Palmer and Khun Sa's henchmen. I handed out drinks and takeaway Thai food to Palmer as he sat cross-legged on the floor with the Burmese men. My real job, however, was to make sure no one stood in front of the secret cameras and to troubleshoot and rescue the situation if anything went wrong. Palmer's bodyguards were never far away so we had to be ready for anything at a moment's notice. By this time Palmer was so convinced he was finalising the biggest dirty deal of his career that he explained exactly how his money laundering operation worked, which we caught on camera. He was so comfortable that he even revealed he had several 'wives' and girlfriends. 'Just a secret between us,' he added – little realising his real wife, Marnie, and 10 million viewers would soon be let in on his 'secret'. Once we had a wealth of self-confessed evidence from Palmer, we brought in Roger for the final denouement. It was hot and stuffy that summer's day as I sat in a black cab with the two Burmese men and knee-to-knee opposite Palmer, heading for the Ritz. I had a tape recorder tucked into my stocking top and secured to my suspender belt – the only place our blushing sound man could think of hiding it where it would not show through my light summer clothes. Then, once we were seated at the Ritz at a table laden with gleaming silverware, dainty crustless sandwiches and fresh cream fancies, Roger appeared, followed by a cameraman and several of our colleagues. Our timing was perfect. Shocked, but trying to hold himself together, the previously untouchable underworld Mr Big staggered to his feet as Roger told him we had filmed every contact he had had with Khun Sa's men. Palmer denied everything as he quickly walked to the hotel exit swiftly followed by Roger and the film crew. But he was no longer the smiling, confident wheeler dealer who had entered the Ritz a few minutes earlier. He looked pale and anxious as he jumped into a taxi. The cab got stuck at a red light and Roger opened the door and continued his devastating onslaught, egged on by workmen on scaffolding in a side street who had recognised him shouting: 'Go on, Roger! Give it to him, Roger!' When the taxi finally pulled away, Palmer sat stony faced inside, the perfect image of a man who has realised he had just been totally suckered. By this time, detectives were raiding all of his premises and addresses in the UK. Every time Palmer rang his offices, the phone was answered by the police. The taxi driver later told us he had thrown his phone out of the window in anger. Scotland Yard was staggered by the speed and success of our sting. They used our information as the basis for search warrants and gathered a mountain of documentary evidence that eventually led Palmer to another trial, again at the Old Bailey. In 2001 I gave evidence against him. He was defending himself and wore a bulletproof vest as he cross-examined me. Palmer tried to convince the jury the sting was a police suggestion to set him up because they could not get to him. But he failed, and this time there were no kisses for the jury. He was found guilty of defrauding thousands of timeshare victims out of millions of pounds and sentenced to eight years. He served four before release. In his later years he lived a much quieter life with his partner Christina Ketley and their son in Brentwood, Essex, where he socialised with a close circle of old friends. Then, 10 years ago, he was gunned down in the garden as he burned old papers on a bonfire, blasted six times with a shotgun. He was 65. No one has been jailed over his death. At the end of the 1990s, Palmer had been worth over £300m, and the Sunday Times Rich List rated him on a level with the Queen. By 2005, after four years behind bars, he was declared bankrupt, with debts of £3.5m. Goldfinger, it seemed, had finally lost his Midas touch.
Time of India
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Telegram billionaire Pavel Durov to leave $17B to 100+ kids conceived through sperm donation
Move over Elon Musk, there is a new eccentric billionaire in town, and he has brought babies. Pavel Durov, the reclusive Russian tech mogul behind the messaging app Telegram, casually revealed in a recent interview that he has fathered over 100 children. Yes, one-zero-zero. And yes, your group chat app guy just turned into a global superdad. Wait… Telegram's founder is basically a real-life Nick Cannon? The 40-year-old entrepreneur told French magazine Le Point that he has six 'official' children across three partners, but the real twist? The other 90-plus kids came from his anonymous sperm donations. Apparently, this tech titan has been handing out 'high quality donor material' like Silicon Valley hands out funding rounds. Billionaire dad energy: All his kids will inherit the empire Durov, who has an estimated net worth of $17.1 billion (cue gasp), has big plans for his growing offspring army. He reportedly wants all of them, natural-born or donor-conceived, to have equal rights to his empire. But there is a catch straight out of a drama series: they will not see a single dime until 30 years from now. He apparently believes his kids need to 'live like normal people' before unlocking their golden ticket. Basically, no billionaire trust fund babies flexing Rolexes in nappies, not on Durov's watch. From sperm clinic to dad of a hundred This all started when a friend asked Durov for a sperm donation due to fertility issues. He agreed, and the sperm clinic director apparently told him that his genes were too premium not to share. Fast-forward to now: he has helped over 100 couples across 12 countries become parents. And he is only just coming to terms with the magnitude. In a throwback Telegram post, Durov marvelled at how this could even happen for someone who has never been married and likes to fly solo. Well, sir, the math is giving legendary. Telegram founder or tech cult leader? Durov insists he will not play favourites and wants to avoid inheritance drama posthumously. His approach to fatherhood may be chaotic-good, but one thing is clear, the man is building the most elite cousin group chat the world has ever seen.
Business Insider
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
A man proposed to his partner with a stunning engagement ring. She returned the favor with his dream Rolex.
It's time that men start wearing engagement rings — or engagement Rolexes. That's what Andrew Woolf did. The 28-year-old property manager has had a storybook romance with his partner, Marielle Woolf. They met in 2018, got engaged in 2022, and later married in 2024. That entire time, his wife Marielle, a 28-year-old school social worker, had a plan to show Andrew how grateful she was for their partnership. "I always knew, from the second we started dating, that I wanted to give him a Rolex," she told Business Insider. "That is the male version of an engagement ring." A match made in college It was Marielle's last semester of college at SUNY Albany in 2018 when her best friend asked: "Are you ready to meet your husband?" She said yes and agreed to meet Andrew, the fraternity brother of her friend's boyfriend, at a bar. "We hit it off and haven't left each other's side since," she said. The couple now lives together in Connecticut. By 2021, Andrew was certain he'd found the girl he wanted to marry. He saved money for a year, storing cash inside an envelope stuffed in his sock drawer, and later visited a family friend who works as a jeweler in New York's Westchester County. "I came up with the very silly lie: I need to get my car serviced up in Westchester," he told BI. "But I forgot to turn my location off until I was actually at the jeweler." Marielle, of course, knew he'd visited. Still, she had no idea that Andrew spent multiple sessions working to make a perfect ring, and that he'd later purchased it and hid the box inside a ski boot in their closet. She was also completely surprised when he finally proposed to her on the beach in September 2022, followed by a party on Fire Island with their closest friends and family. Andrew didn't just get the girl. He also got a designer watch. For nearly a year before their September 2024 nuptials, Marielle had secretly been working on a project: securing Andrew's dream Rolex watch, a $7,750 Air-King. She wanted to show appreciation for her engagement ring, Andrew's proposal, and every other special moment they'd shared thus far. "It was a full-time job trying to get this Rolex," Marielle told BI. Rolexes can be easier to buy than some other luxury watches. Still, the process isn't always quick. Rather than going online and adding one to your virtual shopping cart, shoppers must visit an authorized retailer, where they could end up on a waitlist alongside other interested buyers. You can also turn to unofficial secondhand dealers. It's often a more expensive path, but one that can lead to more rare and coveted timepieces. Marielle tapped her brother for help, connected with a broker in New York City, and put her name on every waitlist she could find — even for watches she wasn't as interested in, just to increase her chances of getting one. "It's all about relationships," she said of the buying process. "I would make sure to visit the broker every time I was in the city, and I'd remember little things about them. I'd text them every so often to ask how they were doing and just check in. It took me almost a year being on waitlists and making that constant effort." When she was finally offered one — the exact model her husband wanted — "on a random Tuesday," she left work early and picked it up two blocks from her then-fiancé's office. Marielle told BI that she knew Andrew would feel terrible if she gave him the luxury timepiece when he didn't have something for her. So she suggested they exchange wedding gifts with a budget of $500 each. He went over budget with a Cartier bracelet, and Marielle did the same with the Rolex. She recently posted a video of the exchange on TikTok, where it's been viewed more than 745,000 times. "I did not have any inkling that she would be getting me a watch, let alone a Rolex," Andrew said, adding that it almost felt like a second proposal — this time from Marielle to him. "I was genuinely shocked." @mariellesarah He deserved his engagement ring moment too #rolex #weddingtiktok #weddinggift #couple #speechless ♬ original sound - Marielle "When we got our wedding bands, I fell in love with one that was way out of our budget," Marielle recalled. "Andrew is so selfless; he got a less-expensive band so we could afford the wedding band I wanted, even though he already gave me the engagement ring of my dreams." Kicking off a new tradition In the comment section of Marielle's TikTok post, dozens of viewers have asked where they can purchase a Rolex for their partner. The couple said they'd love to see this become a more common trend, where both people in a relationship are celebrated for getting engaged. "I'll pass down my diamond ring one day to our kids, and he'll pass down the Rolex," Marielle said. Of course, you don't need a luxury item to woo your partner. "If you have the means to do something — on a similar scale or a smaller one — I think it shows true partnership," Andrew said. "Not only was one person able to save [money], keep a secret, plan, and execute [a proposal] beautifully, but both were able to do it for one another." If you can swing a Rolex, though, your husband just might end up with the partner and watch of his dreams.
Business Post
08-06-2025
- Business
- Business Post
Meet the Irish startup that tokenised a house — and now wants to transform global investing
Ctrl Alt, an Irish co-founded fintech business, is seeking to become the go-to option for institutional investors seeking to invest in alternative assets. Founded by Jordan McMullen and Matt Ong in 2022, the company has offices in Dundalk, Belfast, Dubai and London, with its headquarters in the latter. To date, the business has raised €4 million in funding. The company has developed a platform for investments in the likes of real estate or private credit. 'Essentially we make it easier and cheaper for people to invest in alternative assets,' Jack Denton, chief of staff at Ctrl Alt, told the Business Post. We cover anything that needs investment but that ordinary people normally can't invest in.' 'This could be anything from art to a wind farm. Whatever it may be, we help people invest in those projects.' The business uses a tokenisation platform designed to allow investors to make small partial investments in assets. 'In the same way that a share represents ownership of something, a token is like that but can be transferred and shared on the blockchain. In the UAE, for example, the title deed on a house can be sent as a token on the blockchain,' Denton said. 'On the blockchain we can always track the token down and work out where it is. That makes it more secure.' McMullen and Ong developed the idea from their time working together in Morgan Stanley, where investments in the luxury market boomed during the pandemic. 'There was a big market for luxury watches during Covid. The value of Rolexes was rising but, to get involved in that market, people had to buy a Rolex. What they wanted to do was offer the opportunity to everyone,' Denton said. 'Tokenisation allowed them to split out an asset into tokens, creating a different way to invest in it. We were the first in the UK to tokenise a house, where people could buy a piece of the property for as little as £10 (€12).' The business has grown quickly and already had to move offices multiple times in its locations due to the addition of staff. Enterprise Ireland has provided assistance to the company as it manages its growth. 'We've taken big leaps and strides in the past 12 months and grown rapidly. Enterprise Ireland has helped out in a number of ways. They have put us in touch with people, invested in us and let us use their offices,' Denton said. The company has no plans to raise any more funding at present, with its goal in the near-term to expand its partnerships with institution-level investors. 'We don't want to become a household name, we want to be an industry-known name. If you're a government or family office and want to talk tokenisation, you come to us. We want to be that name in tokenisation,' Denton said. 'We are regulated in the UK and the UAE, and are in the application processes in Ireland. We'd like to look more at Europe, the US and Singapore as well.'
Business Insider
05-06-2025
- Business
- Business Insider
A luxury watch collector shares the simple strategy he used to upgrade from a $200 watch to a $10,000 Rolex
Before Greg Petronzi became an expert in repairing vintage Rolexes, he was a luxury watch enthusiast and collector. Petronzi, the watchmaker who owns the company True Patina, told Business Insider he used a simple saving method to build up the funds to buy his first luxury watches while he was still in graduate school. "I didn't have a lot of money, but I had enough that I was able to roll things into watches," Petronzi said, adding that he was working part-time and saving while studying to become a psychologist. He said in graduate school, he eventually was able to afford a $10,000 watch that he "probably had no business having." If someone is looking to start a luxury watch collection on a budget, Petronzi said there are some very cool watches in the $200 range to start with, like those from the brand Seiko. He said companies like Hamilton and CWC also sell vintage military field watches that are interesting and under $500. He also recommended doing a lot of research to figure out what types of watches you actually like. He said learning about the history of watches can make different watch qualities, like the materials used or movement mechanisms, a lot more interesting, regardless of how luxurious the watch is. The best way to learn about watches, he said, is through forums, meetups, and online resources like or larger publications such as Hodinkee. Petronzi said that once you start with a $200 watch, you can wear it and enjoy it while also looking ahead to the next purchase and putting money aside into a watch wealth fund. Once you have another $300 saved up, you can sell the original watch, and now you'll have $500 to go toward a new watch. If you purchase well, you might even make money off the watch you sell, he said. "You do that enough times and before you know it, you have a several-thousand-dollar watch, but you didn't actually spend several thousand dollars because you just rolled it into that watch from your previous sale," he said. The 'Snowball Approach' Petronzi said the watch he had in grad school was a Rolex Submariner 5513 and that it wasn't loud or flashy; it was just a piece he loved and found interesting. He also said he would not have been able to afford it had he not been doing that "snowball approach" of buying, selling, and adding to the pot for years before purchasing it. "I was able to build a degree of wealth in watches," he said. Thinking of his watches as a separate asset class has also helped him justify spending a lot on them, Petronzi said, and he's even made money flipping them. Luxury watches are often touted as an investment by collectors. A study published earlier this year found watches could even be a less volatile investment than real estate or stocks. But not everyone agrees — the CEO of Rolex said last year that he does not approve of comparing watches to stocks. Still, Petronzi said that thinking of your watch collection as a fluid, evolving fund can make getting into luxury watches more attainable, even if you shouldn't technically be able to afford something like a Rolex. Paul Altieri, founder and CEO of watch reseller Bob's Watches, recently told Business Insider about six starter watches that are good for someone starting out in collecting. They included the $6,500 Oyster Perpetual 41-millimeter diameter from Rolex and the $7,050 Santos de Cartier Medium from Cartier. Petronzi said he has maybe four or five watches that he doesn't think he'd ever sell. He has another five or so that he might rotate or trade out for something else. He said his personal collection of watches is still constantly evolving. "Once you have a certain amount of money in the watches, it's like having a separate fund of your own wealth," he said. "And the collection can be alive as you are as well." Do you have a story to share about luxury watches? Contact this reporter at kvlamis@
