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365-day returns

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quence.com/opportunist. On a

1:05

cold day in December

1:07

of 2007, 57-year-old John

1:09

Darwin turned himself in

1:11

to a London police

1:13

station, but he wasn't

1:16

there to confess to a

1:18

crime. Instead, he proclaimed

1:20

something much more bizarre.

1:23

Darwin said, I think I'm a missing

1:25

person. Authorities quickly

1:27

recognized the name. Darwin

1:30

had already made headlines five

1:32

years earlier, when one morning

1:34

in 2002, he had paddled

1:36

off in a canoe and

1:38

never returned. After an extensive

1:40

search, he was presumed dead,

1:42

leaving behind a grieving wife

1:44

and two sons. But now, here

1:47

he was. Seemingly unharmed, aside from

1:49

a convenient case of amnesia. Darwin

1:51

claimed he had no memory of

1:54

the past seven years, nothing since

1:56

a family vacation in 2000, two

1:58

years before he even Yet somehow

2:00

he had learned about his own

2:02

disappearance, realized the story was about

2:05

him, and decided to come forward.

2:07

John called his wife from the

2:09

police station and gave her the

2:12

news that he was alive and

2:14

well. Then he had an emotional

2:16

reunion with his sons. They released

2:19

a statement saying that their father's

2:21

reappearance was a huge shock. All

2:23

things considered, that was

2:25

probably an understatement. Their

2:27

father had essentially come back from

2:30

the dead. It was virtually a

2:32

miracle. Almost too good to be true.

2:34

Soon, doctors were brought in to

2:37

evaluate Darwin's status after his

2:39

ordeal. But as they started

2:41

asking him questions, they realized

2:43

his answers weren't consistent with

2:45

what they'd expect from someone

2:48

experiencing amnesia. And that was

2:50

when Darwin's whole story started

2:53

to fall apart. This

3:02

is the opportunist an original

3:04

podcast from Podcast One. You're

3:06

listening to a story told

3:09

in one episode called John

3:11

Darwin, Up a Creek Without a

3:14

Pattle. I'm Sarah James McLaughlin.

3:16

In this episode, we dive

3:18

into the story of John

3:20

Darwin, a struggling businessman who

3:23

disappeared in 2002, only to

3:25

reappear five years later, under

3:28

very mysterious circumstances.

3:46

John Darwin was born in the

3:48

early 50s in Northumberland, England. By

3:50

all accounts, his family was

3:52

comfortably middle class. However, John

3:54

liked to portray himself as having

3:56

working class roots, perhaps to craft

3:58

the image of of a self-made

4:01

man. For more context, we spoke

4:03

with London-based journalist Nick Murray,

4:05

who wrote a piece about

4:07

Darwin for Vice. I think the

4:09

impression that I got from him and

4:11

from reading up and finding out what

4:14

I could about him is that he

4:16

seemed like someone who always kind of

4:18

had ideas bigger than his station,

4:20

where he grew up was kind of quite

4:22

a working class area in the

4:24

part of sort of North, North,

4:26

North England, but... He was from

4:29

a recently middle-classish

4:31

family. Darwin attended

4:33

college in Manchester, where

4:35

he studied chemistry and

4:37

biology. But when he returned

4:40

to his hometown, he reportedly

4:42

felt that his academic achievements

4:45

made him stand out, in a way

4:47

he didn't necessarily like. When he

4:49

moved back, he said that lots

4:51

of the people in the local area

4:53

felt he suffered from inverse

4:56

snobbery. of people being like, oh,

4:58

you went away to university and

5:00

people thought that he thought you highly

5:03

of himself. It could be that

5:05

the inverse snobbery was all in

5:07

Darwin's head, but for whatever

5:09

reason, it seems he struggled to

5:11

make and keep friends. And it

5:13

seemed that he didn't seem to

5:16

have, like sort of particularly strong

5:18

ties or had quite close friendships

5:20

in the community. He would constantly

5:23

be relocating him and his wife

5:25

to new houses that would be

5:27

bigger, that would be flashier, that

5:30

was more about trying to give

5:32

off this impression of being

5:34

someone who was well to do rather

5:36

than someone who would maybe buy a

5:38

house and would do it up, but

5:40

would be part of their community, would

5:42

get on with their neighbours, you know,

5:45

things like that. Darwin

5:47

became a schoolteacher and when

5:49

he was 23 he married

5:51

21 year old Anne Stevenson

5:53

a secretary on December 22nd

5:55

1973 His parents helped him

5:58

and his wife by their first car

6:00

and put a deposit down on

6:02

a house. This helps set the

6:05

young couple up for a solidly

6:07

middle-class life. Not that John liked

6:09

to acknowledge that. John and

6:11

Anne soon welcomed two sons, Mark,

6:13

in 1975 and Anthony in 1978.

6:16

For Anne, her children immediately

6:18

became her whole world, but it

6:20

took years for John to really

6:22

bond with the boys. After

6:25

teaching math and science for 18

6:27

years, John briefly worked as a

6:29

financial advisor at a bank before

6:32

switching to work as a guard in

6:34

a prison. Later, Anne became

6:36

a receptionist in a doctor's office.

6:38

They had two salaries to support

6:41

them, but that wasn't enough for

6:43

John. He always wanted more. But

6:45

he also didn't really want to

6:47

work for it. He was always kind

6:49

of kind to have these... get-rich

6:52

quick schemes. I think his aunt said

6:54

that he was someone who was

6:56

always trying to yet make money

6:58

too quickly. He promised that he

7:01

was going to be a millionaire by the

7:03

time that he was 40 or 50. Any

7:05

chance that he could he was always

7:07

looking out for looking out for

7:09

schemes. And so some of his

7:11

early ones was he enlisted his

7:13

sons into breeding, I think,

7:15

African, African snails to then

7:18

sell them as escargout to

7:20

local restaurants. He got his

7:22

kids to paint garden gnomes,

7:24

to sell us, local sort of

7:26

car boot sales, things like that. He

7:28

got his son, I think, when he

7:31

was a young teenager, to sign

7:33

up to those kind of catalog

7:35

delivery, like knocking on doors and

7:37

selling things via catalog. Aside

7:39

from his more out there

7:41

ideas, John also invested in

7:44

a more conventional method of

7:46

making money, real estate. By the

7:48

year 2000, the couple owned

7:50

12 bedsits or rental properties.

7:53

Outwardly, John and Anne seemed

7:55

to be thriving. But the truth

7:57

was, the small real estate empire

7:59

John had built was a house

8:01

of cards constructed with creative accounting.

8:04

And then he progressed into more

8:06

standard money-making schemes in terms of

8:09

trying to take out endless amounts

8:11

of loans, credit cards, and then

8:13

use them to try and buy

8:16

property, which led him a bit

8:18

into the financial black hole that

8:20

he ended up in up to

8:23

the point where he decided to

8:25

concoct this hairbrain scheme of his.

8:29

Basically, he was robbing Peter to

8:31

pay Paul, and soon as a

8:33

result, their finances were in serious

8:35

trouble. The Darwins were in debt.

8:38

Altogether, they owed at least 65,000

8:40

pounds. Some accounts put that figure

8:42

as high as 700,000 pounds. Either

8:44

way, it was a lot of

8:46

money. A lot more than they

8:49

could afford to repay. Other than

8:51

taking out more ill-advised loans to

8:53

pay off his debt, it seemed

8:55

like the only option was to

8:58

declare bankruptcy. It

9:00

was getting to the stage where

9:02

he might have to file for

9:04

bankruptcy, which the reason that he

9:07

had said that he couldn't do

9:09

that was because at the time

9:11

he worked as a prison officer

9:14

and that if anyone found out

9:16

that he was declared bankrupt then

9:18

potentially he could be lent on

9:21

by prisoners could be blackmailed because

9:23

they would know that he was

9:25

in financial difficulty. But I'm not

9:28

too sure exactly how true that

9:30

would be. I know that his

9:32

wife Anna said in subsequent interviews

9:35

that he said that he simply

9:37

couldn't deal with the shame of

9:39

being bankrupt. Darwin just couldn't bring

9:42

himself to declare bankruptcy. After all,

9:44

this was the same man who

9:46

publicly swore that he'd become a

9:48

millionaire. Plus, he claimed that he

9:51

needed to do whatever was necessary

9:53

to provide financially for his wife.

9:55

He said the whole reason that

9:58

he did it was to provide

10:00

for... his wife who had a,

10:02

I think the term we used

10:05

was a piddly little because she

10:07

just worked as a secretary in

10:09

a local GP's office. You know,

10:12

everything that I've read and learned

10:14

about the man, I don't think

10:16

that he was going into this

10:19

purely for selfless reasons to try

10:21

and provide for his wife and

10:23

retirement. So instead of cutting his

10:25

losses and starting fresh, Darwin began

10:28

looking for a more creative escape

10:30

from his financial troubles. And the

10:32

plan he devised was nothing short.

10:35

of outrageous. Around 8 a.m. on

10:37

March 21, 2002, 51-year-old John Darwin

10:39

set out to sea in a

10:42

small red canoe. He was wearing

10:44

a yellow life jacket. Anyone who

10:46

saw him head out from his

10:49

seaside home would have thought he

10:51

was just out for another peaceful

10:53

morning paddle. He was someone who

10:56

was known as like an occasional

10:58

canoeer. would sometimes occasionally be spotted

11:00

going out and about with his

11:03

canoe. But the morning shifted to

11:05

afternoon and afternoon to evening and

11:07

there was no sign of Darwin's

11:09

red canoe on the horizon. He

11:12

still hadn't come back when his

11:14

next work shift started that night

11:16

at 9.30 p.m. At that point

11:19

it seemed clear that something had

11:21

gone very very wrong. Darwin's wife

11:23

Anne called the police and officially

11:26

reported John missing. She

11:29

called the police, reported a missing,

11:31

and said, you know, I have

11:33

concerns that you might have got

11:36

into some trouble when he went

11:38

out for one of his canoeing

11:40

trips yesterday, which then resulted in

11:43

a massive sea rescue operation that

11:45

I think cost to the tune

11:47

of £150,000. There were lifeboats sent

11:49

out, there were helicopters, you know,

11:52

everything. The search began to find

11:54

him that very same day at

11:56

midnight. and no expense was spared

11:59

while there was still a chance

12:01

that Darwin to be rescued. Different

12:03

teams join forces to comb 62

12:06

square miles of coastline and even

12:08

up to 10 miles out to

12:10

sea. The effort employed five lifeboats,

12:12

two Coast Guard rescue teams, a

12:15

police fixed-wing aircraft with heat-seeking equipment,

12:17

and teams of police officers. After

12:19

finding nothing the first night, the

12:22

search team set out again early

12:24

the next morning. But soon a

12:26

tragic discovery cast a shadow over

12:29

the mission. The day after Darwin

12:31

vanished, his red canoe washed ashore,

12:33

and pieces, along with his paddle

12:35

and yellow life jacket. Up next,

12:38

the Darwin family tries to pull

12:40

itself together in the wake of

12:42

John's disappearance, only for him to

12:45

suddenly reappear in a shocking twist

12:47

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Offerance 331-25. Now, back to the

14:24

story. On

14:28

March 22, 2002, the battered remains

14:31

of a red canoe washed ashore

14:33

near the house of John Darwin,

14:35

who had last been seen paddling

14:37

out to sea the day before.

14:40

His body was never found, but

14:42

it appeared clear that Darwin had

14:44

suffered some kind of accident while

14:46

out at sea. It was a

14:49

little strange that he had run

14:51

into trouble, because he was an

14:53

experienced canoeer, and the water that

14:55

day had actually been unseasonably calm.

14:58

Nonetheless, Anne Darwin seemed to believe

15:00

that the worst had happened, and

15:02

that she was now a widow.

15:04

She was so distraught that she

15:07

couldn't bear to break the news

15:09

to her sons. Here's a clip

15:11

of Anne herself from an interview

15:14

with the British talk show this

15:16

morning, back in 2016. That was

15:18

an absolute nightmare. I didn't actually

15:20

tell them personally, other members of

15:23

the family, did that on my

15:25

behalf. With

15:27

the news delivered via third

15:29

party, Darwin's death seemed official, at

15:31

least as far as his

15:34

family was concerned. Anne considered herself

15:36

a widow, but because her

15:38

husband's body wasn't found, there was

15:40

a little wrinkle when it

15:42

came to having him legally declared

15:45

dead. And that needed to

15:47

happen before Anne could access his

15:49

sizable life insurance payout. It

15:51

takes seven years for them to

15:54

issue some sort of certificate. if

15:56

there's nobody which then meant

15:58

that in order for them to

16:00

get the life insurance to

16:02

pay out she had to appeal

16:05

to the coroner's to carry

16:07

out an inquest, they sort of

16:09

dragged their heels on it,

16:11

then the chateau reply all the

16:14

way to the UK Parliament

16:16

and the Home Secretary to issue

16:18

an inquest into it. Anne

16:20

kept up the pressure for an

16:22

entire year after her husband went

16:25

missing. She did everything she

16:27

possibly could to make it clear

16:29

that Darwin had passed away.

16:31

A year after... his disappearance. She

16:34

made a very big sort

16:36

of song and dance of having

16:38

a kind of anniversary memorial

16:40

form where she scattered petals into

16:42

the sea on the beach

16:44

that you could see from their

16:47

house. A month after her

16:49

anniversary display, her request for a

16:51

dust certificate was finally granted. With

16:54

the paperwork in hand, she

16:56

was finally able to cash out

16:58

Darwin's life insurance policy. for

17:00

a cool 250,000 pounds. It allowed

17:03

her to pay off their

17:05

65,000 pounds of debt and their

17:07

130,000 pound mortgage, with money

17:09

to spare. So in a way,

17:11

that was a silver lining,

17:13

though no amount of money could

17:16

bring your husband back from the

17:18

dead. But Darwin's ghost seemed

17:20

to haunt the town. In 2003,

17:23

one of Darwin's colleagues from

17:25

the prison swore he saw Darwin

17:27

out in about. He was

17:29

so sure that he reported it

17:31

to the police. But Anne

17:33

brushed it off as a false

17:36

alarm, saying the prison guard

17:38

must have seen Darwin's cousin, who

17:40

looked just like him. And

17:42

later, one of Darwin's tenants was

17:45

also convinced that they'd seen John.

17:47

They even had a conversation

17:49

with him. The tenant asked John,

17:51

aren't you supposed to be

17:53

dead? The man replied, don't tell

17:56

anyone about this. and for

17:58

whatever reason, the tenant let it

18:00

drop and didn't seem worried

18:02

about the site. She started thinking

18:05

about what to do next,

18:07

now that she'd paid off debts

18:09

with money to spare. She

18:11

traveled to the Mediterranean island of

18:13

Cyprus in 2004. Then in 2006,

18:16

she tried out Panama for

18:18

size and became taken with the

18:20

country's beautiful tropical scenery and

18:22

affordable cost of living. By 2007,

18:25

she had decided to settle

18:27

down there and bought a two-bedroom

18:29

apartment in the Panama City.

18:31

With the help of her son,

18:34

Anne started planning to move

18:36

permanently. Arrangements were made to sell

18:38

her house and rental properties

18:40

in England, but then, without Anne's

18:42

knowledge, another wrench was thrown in

18:45

the works. In September 2007,

18:47

Anne was on a call at

18:49

the doctor's office where she

18:51

worked as a receptionist. She spoke

18:54

in a whisper, but a

18:56

co-worker overheard, and something about the

18:58

tone felt personal. On top

19:00

of that, the sheer number of

19:02

calls Anne was making from

19:04

work raised suspicions. Her colleague began

19:07

to wonder if she was speaking

19:09

to her husband, the man

19:11

everyone believed was dead. Concerned, the

19:14

co-worker reported her suspicions to

19:16

the police, who quietly opened an

19:18

investigation. It was confirmed that

19:20

John was indeed alive when he

19:22

waltzed into a police station

19:24

in London claiming to have had

19:27

amnesia for the past five

19:29

years. But there were a few

19:31

things that were off about

19:33

his story. For one thing, John

19:36

looked like he'd gotten a lot

19:38

of son recently. So a

19:40

massive giveaway was the fact that

19:43

he definitely had a reasonably

19:45

good tan. which would definitely be

19:47

a giveaway if you're walking

19:49

into a police station, which I

19:51

think was in winter in

19:53

England. So if he hadn't been

19:56

wandering the UK, lost and

19:58

without his memories, then where had

20:00

he been? and what had

20:02

he been up to? Furthermore, as

20:05

doctors questioned him, his answers didn't

20:07

quite add up. They didn't

20:09

align with the story he claimed

20:11

about what happened to him.

20:13

It didn't go particularly well. Whatever

20:16

he thought, an Indonesia suffer

20:18

was supposed to say or supposed

20:20

to look like, didn't match

20:22

at all with the forensic profile

20:25

that the police checked after

20:27

interviewing him. Initially, it was... This

20:29

bizarre sort of story, you

20:31

know, missing person presumed dead, wanders

20:33

into a police station, you know,

20:36

this is bizarre, what's going

20:38

on, and then the more they

20:40

interviewed him and spoke to

20:42

him, they thought, hang on, this

20:45

doesn't quite sound right. Anne

20:47

appeared over the moon that her

20:49

long-lost husband had returned from

20:51

the dead. But once again, something

20:53

didn't add up. Police had

20:55

been quietly investigating her for months.

20:58

They noted her frequent trips abroad,

21:00

how she had used the

21:02

life insurance payout to rebuild her

21:05

finances, and how she seemed

21:07

ready to sail off into the

21:09

sunset. And then, the bottom

21:11

fell out on the whole enterprise.

21:14

A few days after John's

21:16

miraculous return, the Daily Mirror ran

21:18

an article on him. The

21:20

British tabloid had found a picture

21:22

of John online, dated from

21:24

July 2006. Well after his alleged

21:27

canoeing accident. In the photo, which

21:29

was posted to www. move

21:31

to panama.com, he and Anne are

21:34

standing next to a real

21:36

estate agent. Everyone wears a big

21:38

grin. The mirror even had

21:40

the pithy headline, Canoes this in

21:42

Panama. One of the tabloids

21:44

here in the UK got a

21:47

tip off of the picture

21:49

that I'd mentioned of. and John

21:51

standing beside a animal real

21:53

estate agent with a time stamp

21:56

in us from a year a

21:58

year previous to when John

22:00

had appeared in the police station

22:02

and I think with three

22:04

or four years after he was

22:07

missing so then it became

22:09

clear that okay this couple were

22:11

both in on us. Just

22:13

like that John and Anne's story

22:16

was well and truly blown.

22:18

Up next we unpack what really

22:20

happened when John battled off

22:22

in that canoe. and the consequences

22:25

that Darwin's faced once the tide

22:27

finally turned. Now, back to

22:29

the story. In late 2007, John

22:31

Darwin presented himself in a

22:33

London police station after being presumed

22:36

dead for nearly six years.

22:38

But his story that he had

22:40

suffered amnesia after a canoeing

22:42

accident soon fell apart when a

22:45

picture was found of him

22:47

and his wife and... alive and

22:49

well, shopping for real estate in

22:51

Panama in 2006. Once the

22:53

photo surfaced, Anne acknowledged that the

22:56

gig was up. Regarding the

22:58

picture, she said, yes, that's him,

23:00

my sons will never forgive

23:02

me. The Darwin sons were understandably

23:05

devastated when they learned the

23:07

truth about their parents, especially since

23:09

they had been unknowingly dragged

23:11

into the scheme. They'd initially thought

23:13

thus. One of his sons

23:15

might have been in on the

23:18

scheme because a lot of the

23:20

property after John died was

23:22

transferred into his son's name. So

23:25

basically they had thought, okay,

23:27

this whole family are in on

23:29

the scheme. And after speaking

23:31

to their two sons, it became

23:33

clear that they had no

23:35

idea they were shocked and appalled

23:38

at what happened. At first,

23:40

the Darwin sons caught off all

23:42

contact with both of their

23:44

parents. They released a brief statement

23:47

that said, There is bad as

23:49

each other. Dad told one

23:51

nasty lie and disappear. and he

23:54

said he was dead, but

23:56

she lied for six years. She

23:58

was the face of the

24:00

lies. She kept on lying even

24:02

when the evidence was so

24:04

overwhelmingly against her. She dragged us

24:07

through hell by forcing a

24:09

court case. The kind of the

24:11

idea that almost any crime

24:13

can be forgiven, like the worst

24:16

thing that you can do is

24:18

to lie to your kids

24:20

or to put them through that

24:22

level of... grief and upset

24:24

and like I said you know

24:27

at the end of the

24:29

day for what was quite like

24:31

low stakes 250,000 like it's

24:33

a lot but you know is

24:36

it enough to tell like

24:38

heart-wrenching lies like that to your

24:40

kids and potentially destroy the relationship

24:42

you have with them? John

24:44

and Anne Darwin had decided that

24:47

the money was worth lying

24:49

to their sons. They went through

24:51

with their scheme and for

24:53

more than five years, they pretty

24:56

much got away with it.

24:58

So what really happened after John

25:00

paddled out in his canoe

25:02

on that fateful day in March

25:04

2002? John gave that question

25:06

some thought before setting things into

25:09

motion. One day he took his

25:11

canoe out into the sea,

25:13

peddled out until he was sort

25:16

of out of side. then

25:18

sort of veered, went further up

25:20

land and landed in at

25:22

a beach and then pushed the

25:25

canoe and the paddle back

25:27

out into the water. And where

25:29

he lives is not too

25:31

far from a kind of a

25:33

shipping lane. So I think

25:35

the impression was basically to give

25:38

the impression that he'd floated somewhere

25:40

out, he'd got into some

25:42

sort of difficulty, he perhaps maybe

25:45

had drowned and then the

25:47

canoe eventually would wash up ashore

25:49

smashed up into tons of

25:51

tiny pieces that they could recover

25:53

that they could see what

25:55

happened there but they wouldn't obviously

25:58

find the body All of

26:00

that went according to plan. From

26:02

there, Anne went up the

26:04

coast, picked John up, and drove

26:07

him out into the countryside. She

26:09

left him with a month's

26:11

worth of supplies to camp out

26:13

and lie low while the

26:15

drama of the search unfolded back

26:18

home. He'd said that he

26:20

slept under the canvas with only

26:22

the rations that he brought

26:24

with them for about a month,

26:27

under which time he... grew

26:29

a beard, so I managed to

26:31

obtain a walking stick and affected

26:34

a limp as part of

26:36

his new identity before he could

26:38

come back. Then, about three

26:40

weeks after the smash canoe was

26:42

found, John quietly returned. He'd

26:44

grown a beard, adopted a fake

26:47

limp, and taken on a

26:49

new identity. As Carl Finwick, he

26:51

posed as a tenant in

26:53

one of the Darwin's rental properties,

26:56

doubling as a handyman. So

26:58

essentially, Darwin just put on a

27:00

flimsy disguise and moved in right

27:02

next door to his wife.

27:04

It seemed like she spent a

27:07

lot of the time while

27:09

John was living in the flat

27:11

next door. So they were

27:13

kind of two adjoining flats, number

27:16

three and number four, number

27:18

five. But they were also connected

27:20

by a some sort of

27:22

secret passageway. So John could basically

27:24

sort of scurry between the

27:26

two and live this sort of

27:29

concocted life for himself. It might

27:31

have seemed like a pretty

27:33

sweet setup, but there were drawbacks

27:36

as well. For one thing,

27:38

the Darwin's lived in a state

27:40

of constant tension. John had

27:42

to be ready to hide at

27:44

a moment's notice. Here's Anne

27:46

from the same morning show, speaking

27:49

about their arrangement during that

27:51

period. Well if

27:53

we didn't have family or friends

27:56

visiting then he was mainly in

27:58

my house fortunately we had a

28:00

gravel driveway so if cars approached

28:02

we could hear them come. It's

28:04

constantly looking out of the window.

28:07

If the doorbell rang I always

28:09

looked to see who was coming,

28:11

who it was. And of course

28:13

even with his beard and fake

28:16

limp John couldn't risk going out

28:18

too much. He didn't want to

28:20

have his cover blown so he

28:22

was pretty much stuck at home.

28:25

Also with John technically out of

28:27

the picture All of the work

28:29

necessary to profit off this game

28:31

fell to Anne. I would say

28:34

it was hardly a picture of

28:36

marital bliss because it seemed like

28:38

it was mostly him directing her,

28:40

making sure that she cashed in

28:43

the life insurance, chasing down various

28:45

bits of sort of pensions that

28:47

he was entitled to from the

28:49

various jobs that he had, and

28:52

trying to get her to use

28:54

that to pay off. his debts

28:56

and then steadily sell off the

28:58

different investment properties that they had.

29:01

Darwin was also eager to leave

29:03

the house and travel abroad where

29:05

he wouldn't be recognized. To do

29:07

that, he needed a passport. So

29:10

he's still an identity. Using the

29:12

birth certificate of a real person,

29:14

John Jones, who had died young,

29:16

he secured falsified documentation and flew

29:19

to Kansas City. There he met

29:21

a woman he had met online.

29:23

They agreed to invest and land

29:25

together, but Darwin had another motive.

29:28

He was also hoping for a

29:30

romantic connection. When he showed up

29:32

in Kansas City, however, the woman

29:34

rejected his advances and the deal

29:37

went south. So Darwin returned to

29:39

the UK, 30,000 pounds poorer, and

29:41

with a bruised ego. In November

29:43

2005, Three years after his alleged

29:46

disappearance, Darwin made another attempt to

29:48

get away. He flew to Gibraltar,

29:50

just south of Spain, to check

29:52

out a 42-foot catamer. The plan

29:55

was for him and Anne to

29:57

spend their days sailing around the

29:59

world. But he got cold feet.

30:01

And then all of a sudden

30:04

John got like incredibly particular about

30:06

certain things and then backed out

30:08

of it. And I think the

30:10

sense that he got, this was

30:13

a guy who kind of, like

30:15

the idea of being someone who

30:17

could sail around the world on

30:19

a boat, but you know, when

30:22

push came to shove, then kind

30:24

of backed out in the very

30:26

last minute. Shortly

30:29

after the Catamaran incident, John and

30:31

Anne started to think about moving

30:33

to Panama, in addition to the

30:36

affordable cost of living and the

30:38

beautiful tropical landscape, there was also

30:40

the fact that Panama was outside

30:43

of British legal jurisdiction. It was

30:45

on a joint trip to Panama

30:48

in July of 2006 that John

30:50

and Anne were photographed by a

30:52

real estate agent and a mistake

30:55

that would eventually be their undoing.

30:57

But at the time, they liked

30:59

what they saw and put plans

31:02

in motion to retire to Panama.

31:04

Over the next year, they made

31:07

a couple return trips, buying a

31:09

two-bedroom apartment and a 200,000 pound

31:11

estate near Panama Canal. But then,

31:14

in June 2007, just as it

31:16

seemed the Darwin's had everything all

31:18

set, they got thrown a curveball.

31:21

They'd only managed to both live

31:23

over there for six months, I

31:26

think. Before... the panoman government changed

31:28

their rules and overseas residence I

31:30

think had to have a certificate

31:33

of good stature or some sort

31:35

of documentation from the police basically

31:37

that they'd pass so in order

31:40

to pass enough checks to be

31:42

able to reside which obviously John

31:45

wasn't going to be able to

31:47

provide as someone who was living

31:49

under a fake identity. The

31:53

new visa rules put John

31:55

and Anne and a bind.

31:57

They needed a way to

31:59

get the UK government to

32:01

sign off on their... paperwork,

32:03

but of course they couldn't

32:05

do that if John was

32:07

still presumed dead. So they

32:09

got creative. Very creative. Yeah,

32:11

his idea was that he

32:13

was going to turn stuff

32:15

in as a missing person,

32:17

claim amnesia, claimed that there

32:19

had been some sort of

32:21

horrible mix-up, and that his

32:23

wife would then... say, oh,

32:25

I'd acted in good faith,

32:27

I'd presume that he was

32:29

dead, I'd claimed this life

32:31

insurance, but you know what,

32:33

we're happy to pay that

32:35

back. Now, this is all

32:37

just a complete misunderstanding. At

32:39

this point, John and Anne

32:41

had sold their rental properties,

32:43

made a tidy bundle, and

32:45

bought their apartment in Panama.

32:47

So even though they would

32:49

rather have kept the money,

32:51

it was feasible to give

32:53

back the £250,000 pound insurance

32:56

payment. But on top of

32:58

all of the holes in

33:00

their story, that damning Panama

33:02

photo came out and sealed

33:04

their fates. John and Anne

33:06

were both arrested in December

33:08

of 2007. The following month,

33:10

both were charged with insurance

33:12

fraud for falsely obtaining money

33:14

from a teacher's pension scheme

33:16

and for obtaining money for

33:18

the department for work and

33:20

pensions. Basically, the British government

33:22

came after them for every

33:24

single penny they acquired illegally.

33:26

And on top of that,

33:28

John was also charged with

33:30

making false statements to obtain

33:32

a passport. In a gut-wrenching

33:34

turn, Anne's two sons testified

33:36

against her for the prosecution.

33:38

As she later said in

33:40

an interview, it was a

33:42

real emotional low. That

33:45

was the first time I had

33:47

seen them since the previous October

33:49

when I left for Panama and

33:51

As he left the witness box

33:53

our eyes met and they were

33:56

just so dark and angry and

33:58

that was a horrible thing to

34:00

witness. On July 23rd, 2008, both

34:02

John and Anne were convicted of

34:04

fraud and sentenced to more than

34:06

six years in prison. Anne's sentence

34:09

was actually three months longer than

34:11

John's. Anne got slightly longer than

34:13

John because she pleaded not guilty

34:15

and she relied on the defense

34:17

that no longer exists, but did

34:19

at the time it was the

34:22

time. It was the time. It

34:24

was the time. It was the

34:26

time. It was the time. It

34:28

was the time. It was the

34:30

time. It was the time. called

34:32

marital coercion. Her defence was basically

34:35

that everything that she did, she

34:37

did because she was in a

34:39

kind of an abuse event, sort

34:41

of controlling relationship and felt that

34:43

she kind of had to follow

34:45

every step of the plan that

34:48

John had laid out and didn't

34:50

have much choice otherwise. The judge

34:52

and the jury didn't quite by

34:54

that. Anne later claimed that she

34:56

wasn't surprised by the verdict. but

34:58

she was taken aback by the

35:01

harsh sentencing. I always expected to

35:03

be found guilty. I just hoped

35:05

that there was a way that

35:07

I could prove that I hadn't

35:09

gone along with it willingly. And

35:11

that was why I didn't plead

35:14

guilty in the first place. When

35:16

it came to sentencing, I'd been

35:18

given no indication at all that

35:20

the sentence would be anything as

35:22

severe as it was. So that

35:24

came as a total shock. John

35:28

and Anne both served their time,

35:31

partway through their prison stance and

35:33

filed for divorce. With some time

35:35

on his hands and always thinking

35:37

of ways to make money, John

35:39

came up with yet another get-rich

35:42

quick scheme. Whenever there's an opportunity

35:44

to try and make a quick

35:46

book, he is going to try

35:48

and cash in that he wrote

35:50

a memoir while he was in

35:52

prison and had the pages of

35:55

it smuggled out. and it was

35:57

a salacious tell-all. about how he'd

35:59

managed to concoct this scheme and

36:01

almost get away with it, while

36:03

also detailing the numerous affairs and

36:06

sexual dally answers that he had.

36:08

I think the only problem they

36:10

had with it was that he

36:12

didn't realize that in the UK

36:14

anyway, that you can't turn a

36:17

profit from your crime. So, you

36:19

know, if you're writing a tell

36:21

old book about your crime, you're

36:23

not able to sell it and

36:25

profit from it. Anna

36:28

also published a book about

36:30

the entire ordeal from her

36:32

perspective. It was called Out

36:34

of My Depth. Anne actually

36:36

released an autobiography I think

36:38

maybe seven or eight years

36:40

ago, and she donated any

36:42

of the profits from us.

36:44

I'm not sure how well

36:46

it's held. Her autobiography kind

36:48

of ends with her saying

36:50

that she's now sort of

36:52

been back in touch and

36:54

is trying to sort of

36:57

repair her relationship with her

36:59

kids. and is trying to

37:01

basically kind of make sense

37:03

of everything that's happened. John

37:05

and Anne were both released

37:07

in 2011 after serving about

37:09

three years of their six-year

37:11

sentences. The British government recovered

37:13

all of their ill-gotten gains

37:15

by selling the property they'd

37:17

bought in Panama. While Anne

37:19

focused on mending the relationship

37:21

with her sons, John continued

37:23

with his plans to pursue

37:25

romance and live lavishly. For

37:28

John, he's gone the exact

37:30

opposite way and has completely doubled

37:32

down on his plans to

37:34

live kind of quite extravagant, ridiculous

37:37

lives. I think part of

37:39

the conditions of him getting

37:41

released early were that he wasn't

37:43

allowed to go overseas. He

37:45

completely went against those within a

37:48

couple of months to go

37:50

on a date with some Ukrainian

37:52

woman in Ukraine as kind of,

37:55

you know, those international matchmaking

37:57

type sites. That didn't quite work

37:59

out, but he... is now

38:01

I believe married to a

38:03

Filipino woman who is many decades

38:05

younger than him and they

38:07

are both last I heard both

38:10

happily living in the Philippines.

38:12

So it looks like John finally

38:14

got the happily ever after he

38:17

was chasing. He never quite

38:19

became a millionaire but he did

38:21

get his 15 minutes of

38:23

fame and a lasting dose of

38:25

notoriety from the press. one

38:28

of the tablets here a couple

38:31

years ago to find out kind

38:33

of what was happening and he'd

38:35

said ridiculously that he was considering

38:38

though I think at that stage

38:40

he was definitely in his late

38:42

60s possibly early 70s but that

38:45

he was going to join the

38:47

Ukrainian army in the fight against

38:49

Russian invasion. I quite enjoyed the

38:51

fact that They spoke to his

38:54

wife as part of this when

38:56

they tracked him down and I

38:58

think she said something along the

39:01

lines of, if he does, I'm

39:03

going to make sure that I

39:05

have very good life insurance. It

39:08

sounds like John may have finally

39:10

met his match, someone who knows

39:12

how to spot an opportunity for

39:15

personal gain when they see one.

39:17

That's kind of where they've ended

39:19

up. I think probably the last

39:22

few decades could have been a

39:24

lot easier for Anne if... John

39:26

had maybe just accepted the fact

39:29

that he is kind of just,

39:31

yeah, a bit of a diluted,

39:33

sort of horny boomer. Thank you

39:35

for tuning in to The Opportunist.

39:38

This episode was written by Nani

39:40

Okwalagu, produced by Abby Newhouse and

39:42

executive produced by Connor Powell. We'll

39:45

be back next week with new

39:47

stories about people seeing an opportunity

39:49

to get ahead. and taking it.

39:52

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