A French chateau once owned by a gangster who smelted stolen Brink’s-Mat gold has gone on the market despite being ransacked by treasure hunters.
The 126-acre estate, which belonged to John “Goldfinger” Palmer, has been turned over by looters searching for hidden ingots.
Palmer’s nine-bedroom chateau, plus 25 bungalows, an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts and a pool, has lain abandoned since he was gunned down at his Essex home in 2015, aged 64.
The Normandy property is currently on the market for €650,000, or £578,000.
The listing on the website of French estate agent Le Nail says of it: “The story was beautiful for 15 years until the murder of the owner.
“The property is then abandoned, nature reclaims its rights and the very hypothetical suspicion that treasure has been hidden there gives rise to a ‘gold rush’ with devastating consequences for the place. A veritable plundering took place in the midst of general indifference, leaving a desolate spectacle today.”
The 1983 Brink’s-Mat bullion robbery is one of the biggest heists in British history.
Palmer – who is played by Tom Cullen in new BBC One drama The Gold – melted down £26million of stolen gold from a warehouse near Heathrow Airport using a smelter in his garden.
It was smuggled out of the UK in lorry drivers’ lunchboxes and private planes. The gold was later reimported with papers that made it appear legitimate.
Palmer was acquitted at a 1987 trial after convincing jurors he did not know the ingots were from the raid.
He went on to make the Sunday Times Rich List in 1996, with a reported fortune of £300million.
The gangster purchased the chateau in the early 1990s but was convicted of a Spanish timeshare fraud in 2001 and jailed for eight years.
No one has ever been convicted of his murder, in the garden of his Brentwood mansion.
The BBC dramatisation of the Brink’s-Mat heist stars Downton Abbey’s Hugh Bonneville, Preacher’s Dominic Cooper and Jack Lowden of Slow Horses fame.
The Gold is on BBC One tomorrow night at 9pm
