Mark Darwin, receiving the house as what appeared to be a maternal gift and selling it as a normal property transaction, was not a knowing participant. He was used. This too is part of what the courts considered when assessing the scheme’s full human cost.
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## The Photograph’s Journey
The photograph that Mario Vilar took in July 2006 in the Panama City offices of Move To Panama traveled an interesting path before it appeared on the front page of the Daily Mirror on December 5, 2007.
It was, initially, a routine piece of estate agent documentation. Property firms photograph clients as a matter of record. The image of the Darwins—posed with Vilar, looking like prospective buyers being guided through options by their agent—was the kind of photograph taken dozens of times each week in property offices around the world. It documented a transaction. It would have been filed and largely forgotten if the people in it had gone on to complete a straightforward property purchase in Panama without further incident.
Instead, it was posted on the firm’s website. Movetopanama.com was a public-facing marketing site for a business that was actively seeking international clients. Having photographs of happy clients on a firm’s website is a marketing strategy. The photograph was, from Move To Panama’s perspective, a demonstration that international buyers came to them and trusted them. It was public.
By December 2007, the Darwins’ story had broken. John Darwin had walked into the London police station on December 1. The story of the canoe-man’s return was news. The connection to Panama was known—it came out fairly quickly that the couple had been planning to move there. And someone—a member of the public, unnamed in available accounts—decided to search Google Images for the combination of “John,” “Anne,” and “Panama.”