'Goldfinger' must pay victims £3m

Palmer is said to be Britain's wealthiest criminal

Bath fraudster John Palmer who conned 16,000 people in a timeshare scam has been ordered to pay more than £3m to his victims.

Palmer, known as Goldfinger, lost an appeal against a compensation order at the High Court on Wednesday.

The judgment is in addition to £2m compensation he was ordered to pay to 400 victims selected at random by the Crown Prosecution Service.

His victims paid up to £30m but never received their share of a holiday home.

Palmer's wealth has been estimated as bigger than the Queen's, with assets including a leased private Lear jet, two helicopters and a chateau in France.

Warm gold bar

He is also said to own a fleet of cars, various properties in Tenerife and around England, including a mansion worth more than £1m at Landsdown in Bath.

In 1983 Palmer and his friend, Garth Chappell were arrested over a £26m gold bullion heist from a cargo storage company at Heathrow.

It was the UK's biggest robbery, and Palmer was arrested for his part in helping smelt the gold.

"When the officers raided Palmer's home in Bath, we found a smelt in the back garden and there were actually two warm bars of gold under the sofa," said former Metropolitan police commander Roy Ramm.

Chappell was convicted but Palmer walked free heading to Tenerife where he set up a vast timeshare scam that eventually conned at least 16,000 victims.

In 1997 he was arrested in Tenerife, and returned to the UK to face charges of fraud on a massive scale.

He chose to defend himself, and in May 2001 was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay a record confiscation order of £33m.

This was overturned on appeal.