Details of how M25 killer Kenneth Noye evaded justice for so long have been revealed in a new book.
Noye murdered Stephen Cameron, 21, in front of fiancee Danielle Cable in a road rage attack on the M25 in Kent while on licence from prison in 1996.
He was arrested in Spain in 1998 after spending two years on the run and sentenced to life imprisonment in 2000.
Now, a new book, A Million Ways To Stay On The Run: The Uncut Story Of The International Manhunt For Public Enemy No.1 Kenny Noye, as serialised in the Daily Mail, outlines the details of how Noye jetted off to Spain and lived a life of luxury abroad after the road rage killing.
After informing his family that he had been in a fight on the M25, he told them of how he pulled out a knife and cut the man in self defence as he was a "nutcase," before driving away in his Land Rover and going to the pub with a friend.
Noye was not expecting any repercussions but within 24 hours, as the case made national headlines, he made his way out of the country by helicopter and remained on the run for more than two years.
The grieving family of Stephen Cameron, the man he killed, including his 17-year-old fiancee Danielle Cable, never stopped hoping to see Noye brought to justice.
Before Noye fled, he placed the clothes he had been wearing at the time of the crime into a plastic bag to be incinerated and associates bought an alternative Land Rover as the original was taken to the scrapped.
The book claims he enlisted the help of his friend John Palmer, also known as Goldfinger, who owned a Learjet, two helicopters and a £7million superyacht, and offered to help him vanish.
Noye would take a helicopter over the Channel and a private jet based in Russia was being prepared to meet him in Paris.
Armed with three bogus passports in different names and £10,000 in cash, Noye made it to Palmer’s home in Normandy and enjoyed a meal at a fancy restaurant washed down with a bottle of Chateau Margaux.
From Paris, he boarded a private flight to Madrid where he spent the night at a five-star hotel with a pair of prostitutes, before making his way to Tenerife.
Over the course of two weeks, Noye travelled to four countries and was not once asked to show his passport by border control as the investigation into Mr Cameron's murder intensified in the UK.
Officers appealed for help on BBC1’s Crimewatch and information from eyewitness Alan Decabral, who remembered the numberplate, eventually led them to Noye who had registered the Land Rover under the alias Anthony Francis.
The book says once Noye heard about the development, he considered faking his own death before deciding to leave Europe and become invisible.
After a brief stop in Casablanca, he arrived in Abidjan, the capital of Ivory Coast, where he had brokered diamond deals in the past.
The book reads: "In West Africa, he was living in luxury, eating six-course meals in the embassy restaurant, with educated companions who could not have dreamed he was the subject of a global manhunt."
Speaking about his life in Abidjan, Noye said: "I fitted right in.
"Only one person knew who I was and of course he wasn’t saying. Everyone else just thought that I was a 'connected' person being looked after. Maybe they thought I was a spy or some rogue operator lying low but what was remarkable was they asked so few questions. So, I gave very few answers."
As violent unrest unfolded in Abidjan, Noye travelled to Amsterdam and then Spain, where he managed to use the passport of another man
By this point Noye had a girlfriend called Maria who knew him as Mick, a builder who was living as an expat to avoid tax, and knew nothing of his real identity or family who occasionally visited him in Europe.
After a sighting was reported in Gibraltar, Noye then fled to Cuba, Jamaica and then Panama.
He continued to travel and was eventually caught out when he met up with a couple who recognised him and called him out by his real name while at an event in Cadiz, Spain.
Whilst they reassured him that they'd "never tell", the police ended up finding out about his whereabouts and in July 1998, two British police officers flew to Cadiz and arrested Noye after spotting him drive around town.
In 2019, he was released on parole, after serving nearly 20 years.
A Million Ways To Stay On The Run: The Uncut Story Of The International Manhunt For Public Enemy No.1 Kenny Noye, by Donal MacIntyre and Karl Howman to be published by Mirror Books on February 13 at £9.99. It is serialised in the Daily Mail.
