- guardian.co.uk, Sunday May 18 2003 01.55 BST
- The Observer, Sunday May 18 2003
At first, it seemed the death of the former associate of the Kray twins, whose name has been linked to at least 20 murders, was just part of London's increasingly violent gang wars. An Observer investigation can reveal, however, that Francis is the latest victim of what has been dubbed the curse of the Brink's-Mat millions.
Francis's murder is the ninth in a 20-year saga of betrayal, double-dealing and death in the hunt for the proceeds of Britain's biggest-ever robbery, when a gang raided a Brink's-Mat warehouse at Heathrow and got away with £26 million in gold ingots. At least £10m is still unaccounted for and few believe this killing will be the last.
Seventeen months ago, Brian Perry, also 63 and also linked to the Brink's-Mat raid, was shot dead in almost identical circumstances as he arrived for work a few hundred yards from where Francis was killed.
In December 1998, Hatton Garden jeweller Solly Nahome, who had helped melt down hundreds of gold bars on behalf of the notorious Adams family, was shot dead outside his home.
John Fordham, a policeman, was stabbed to death by Kenneth Noye while carrying out undercover surveillance in the grounds of Noye's home. Noye was cleared of murder, but was sentenced in 1986 to 14 years for his part in helping to dispose of the gold.
Noye is now serving life for the road-rage murder of Stephen Cameron in 1999, while his business partner, John 'Goldfinger' Palmer, has been imprisoned for a timeshare fraud.
Others who handled the gold but managed to escape prosecution have also ended up behind bars. In 1995, Tony White, acquitted in the original Brink's-Mat trial, was found to have handled the gold and was ordered to pay back almost £28m. Two years later, he was jailed for his part in a £65m drug smuggling ring.
The shooting of George Francis last Wednesday morning outside the office of his Bermondsey courier business is the latest murder linked to the Brink's-Mat raid. Francis arrived early for work, as he always did, to meet the first trucks arriving from the Continent.
His killer is believed to have lain in wait for Francis's green Rover 75 to come into view. As Francis stepped out of the car, the hitman fired at least four shots into his head and chest at point-blank range.
Although underworld sources are convinced that the Brink's-Mat connection is the key - Francis was questioned over allegations that he helped launder the money - no one is sure of the exact motive for the killing. One prominent south London 'face', who declined to be named, told The Observer: 'Did he know where the gold is or is this just a warning telling those who do that they had better speak up? This has made a lot of people in south London very, very jumpy.'
It was just after 6.40am on 26 November 1983 that six armed men burst into the Heathrow depot of the security company Brink's-Mat. The robbers disabled the sophisticated security system, tied up the guards and doused them with petrol. The guards were threatened with being set alight unless they revealed the combinations to the locks.
Once in the vault, the robbers removed 6,800 ingots of gold. The gang changed the face of organised crime overnight: the underworld had been a strictly cash business until then.
No one within the robbers' immediate circle had any experience of dealing with gold - the gang had been expecting to find only cash - so the call for help was put out far and wide. George Francis soon came into the picture.
On the fringes of the underworld, with a string of convictions for theft and violence, Francis rose to prominence in late 1979, when he became part of a group of armed robbers who decided to move into drug trafficking.
Specially converted containers were sent to a shoe factory in Pakistan, where millions of pounds of cannabis were hidden by legitimate goods and shipped back to the UK. The first four runs went like clockwork. Francis and other members of the gang began living the good life, buying cars, jewellery and making a show of lighting their cigars with £20 notes in south London pubs.
But when the fifth drug consignment arrived, Customs officers were watching. Lennie 'Teddy Bear' Watkins, driving a lorry filled with £2.5m of cannabis, spotted the surveillance team, prompting Customs investigator Peter Bennett to move in to make the arrest. Watkins shot Bennett dead.
Watkins was sentenced to life and the rest of the gang were put on trial. Underworld sources say that Francis offered to pay more than £100,000 to get the jury in his trial nobbled. The contract was taken up by the north London Adams family - and it turned out to be money well spent. The first jury failed to reach a verdict. This resulted in a retrial that led to his acquittal. While Francis walked free, several other members of the gang, faced with the same evidence, had pleaded guilty.
Soon afterwards, Francis became involved with the Brink's-Mat gang. Francis is believed to have laundered hundreds of thousands of pounds in the space of a few months.
Tracking down those at the heart of the raid presented few problems for detectives. The fact that the robbers knew their way around the security system pointed to an inside job. When detectives discovered that one of the guards, Anthony Black, had arrived late for work, missing the robbery, they questioned him. He soon named one Mickey McAvoy.
McAvoy had done little to disguise his new-found wealth. Within weeks of the robbery, he had left his council house and moved into a mansion. He also bought two Rottweilers, and named them Brinks and Mat.
That was not his only mistake. Sentenced to 25 years, McAvoy believed his friends and associates would look after his share of the gold while he was away. One such friend, known only as the Fox, has been one of the most senior figures in organised crime for 30 years.
The Fox claimed to have passed on the money to the likes of McAvoy's friend Brian Perry and Francis, though many suspected that he had kept it for himself.
In 1985, unable to pay the remainder of the fee for having the jury nobbled, Francis was shot in the shoulder close to the pub he ran in the Kent village of Hever. He settled his account, with interest, after becoming involved in a series of crimes to pay off his debts.
In August 1990, he was found guilty of being involved in smuggling £1m worth of cocaine aboard a private yacht. He was sentenced to 16 years. Released three years ago, he started his courier firm and moved into a mansion in Bromley. There is little evidence that he was actively involved in crime at the time of his death.
What many in the criminal fraternity find particularly disturbing is that, like Perry before him, Francis gave no indication that he believed his life was at risk.
When McAvoy was released in 2000, he was told by the Fox that his money had vanished and that the likes of Perry and Francis were to blame, although Francis convinced McAvoy that this was not the case.
Although there is no suggestion of any involvement, five of the murders linked to Brink's-Mat have taken place since McAvoy's release and police are expected to question him over the latest killing. In the meantime, the hunt for the remaining £10m of missing gold - both by the police and the criminal fraternity - continues.
