How GPS tracker hidden inside a Mercedes rental sheds new light on mystery death of oligarch-obsessed teen who fell to his death from Thames tower block opposite MI6 HQ after spending a night with gangster 'Indian Dave' and millionaire crypto boss

A GPS tracker hidden inside a Mercedes rental car has shed new light on the mysterious death of an oligarch-obsessed teenager who fell from a luxury tower block after spending a night with a gangster and a millionaire crypto businessman.

Zac Brettler, 19, plunged to his death from a fifth-floor apartment overlooking the River Thames opposite MI6 headquarters at 2.24am on November 29, 2019.

The public schoolboy had spent several hours inside the property with its owner, gangster Verinder 'Indian Dave' Sharma, and Akbar Shamji, a former bankrupt turned crypto investor.

Brettler had been posing as a 'Zac Ismailov', the son of a dead Russian oligarch, and Sharma and Shamji believed they stood to gain from the teenager's share of a fake £6billion fortune.

When it failed to materialise, they confronted him at the flat at the Riverwalk development on the Thames. Hours later, Brettler jumped to his death - with his fall caught on CCTV from the MI6 HQ.

His death remains shrouded in mystery as both men spun a web of lies and blamed whisky and sleeping pills for their poor memory when they were arrested on suspicion of murder. The Met Police took four days to visit the flat and failed to speak to key witnesses or test evidence such as blood-like stains on the walls.

While Sharma was arrested on suspicion of murder, he would never reveal what he knew about Brettler's death. He was found dead in the very same flat the next year, leaving the teen's parents in the dark about their son's last night.

As questions continue to be asked over what happened that night, The Sunday Times has reconstructed Shamji's movements using data from a small black box which was fitted inside the red rented Mercedes. 

The small state-of-the-art GPS device was deliberately designed to stop criminals noticing it. 

Data obtained from the tracker shows that Shamji was driving around the capital in the early hours of the morning.

It contradicts facts that he gave during interviews at Charing Cross police station in December 2019 and March 2020. He told officers that he went home at midnight, hours before Brettler's death.

But it has now emerged that he was driving around London as late as 2.12am when he received a phone call from 'Indian Dave'. That minute, he changed direction and sped back to the flat, arriving at 2.33am - a minute before Brettler leapt to his death.

The data also shows that Shamji met two people in the hours after Brettler's death: his wife, Daniela Karnuts who is a fashion designer to celebrities including the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Sussex, and Peter Land, an actor who was married to the late Dame Gillian Lynne.

There is no suggestion either are implicated in any wrongdoing. 

Despite Scotland Yard having a duty to pursue all 'reasonable lines of inquiry', detectives failed to analyse the data in detail. It was looked at by a junior officer who made errors in her analysis, it has emerged.

Bungling detectives never confronted the suspects with the visible inconsistencies, nor did they contact new witnesses.

The data from inside the car begins on November 27, 2019 - when Shamji returned to London from a business trip in Turkey.

He cut his trip short as Sharma was becoming increasingly agitated about not receiving any money from Brettler's supposed fortune.

'No more messages please till you land,' he told Shamji, adding: 'And then arrange a meeting with him.'

Shamji warned Brettler about 'making promises … and not coming through on them'.

He landed at Heathrow at around 10pm on the 27th, where he was picked up by actor Peter Land. There is no suggestion Mr Land is implicated but he was never interviewed by police despite being the only person to spend time alone with him before Brettler's death.

The following day, Shamji told Brettler he would pick him up so that the pair could go to Sharma's flat. At 7.16pm, Brettler said: 'Ready when you are.'

CCTV shows Shamji on Brettler's street at 8.18pm. At 8.43pm, they were just around the corner from Sharma's flat when the vehicle stopped for seven minutes before Shamji took an unnecessarily long route to get to the property.

At 8.50pm, the pair went into Sharma's flat and spent hours together, interrupted only by 'Indian Dave's' daughter, Dominique.

After Brettler's body was found, Shamji told police he left the property at midnight and went home. He later said it was 'just after' 1am when he had driven home to Mayfair.

CCTV shows he left the flat at 1.20am with his dog and Dominique, leaving Brettler and Sharma alone upstairs. 

They spoke in the car par for about 20 minutes before parting. Shamji got into his car at 1.50am and called Sharma but got no answer. He drove off down the river before looping back on himself.

He then went north towards Victoria and his Mayfair home, which was a couple of miles away.

He went on to turn off the main roads into the back streets of Pimlico, where he formed a box-life route to turn around. He continued towards home but in an inefficient manner.

Shamji attempted to call Sharma again at 2.10am but did not get through again. Police did not quiz why he took a strange route home and repeatedly called Sharma.

He told officers that he went to sleep 'heavily intoxicated' at about 12.30am. But in reality, Shamji was still on the roads when he received a phone call back from Sharma at 2.12am.

He then changed his route, heading northeast towards Buckingham Palace rather than onto Mayfair. 

The pair stayed on the phone together as Shamji approached the roundabout by the palace. He then sped up to 50mph, more than twice the speed limit, as he raced down the Mall towards Trafalgar Square.

He was clocked at 38mph as he drove past Whitehall and Downing Street - before coming to a halt after the Houses of Parliament. Two minutes later, he ended the nine minute, 10 seconds call with Sharma.

Shamji arrived back at the Riverwalk entrance at 2.23am - half an hour after leaving Sharma's flat.

By 2.24am - the same minute Brettler jumped to his death - Shamji had left his car and walked into reception. 

At 2.26am, Sharma rang his daughter for three minutes. Shamji arrived on the fifth floor at 2.30am and stayed inside Sharma's flat for 11 minutes. 

When detectives confronted Shamji with CCTV of him returning to the flat, he admitted he had gone back and had probably gone for a cigarette and walk before going to 'make sure [Brettler] was ok'.

He said he found Brettler and Sharma 'chatting', 'getting ready' for bed and brushing their teeth. 'We hugged' and 'said goodnight', he said. But in reality, Brettler was dead at this point, with officers failing to challenge Shamji on this.

Shamji would change his story again, saying he could not remember if he spoke to Brettler or if Sharma was awake.

At about 2.45am, Shamji got in the lift and walked down to the Thames. He stopped outside where Brettler had landed and looked into the water. A coroner concluded: 'Mr Shamji was looking for Zac.'

He then got back into his car and drove north towards Mayfair, but headed south over Vauxhall Bridge first. This was an unusual route to take - and not one a sat nav would recommend - raising questions over whether Shamji wanted to look at the river from a different angle. He was never asked.

Minutes later, he called Sharma again but the gangster did not pick up. 

At 3.38am, Shamji finally arrived back at his home on Mount Street, where his wife Daniela Karnuts was furious at him for going 'out so late on a school night'. He claimed she made him sleep in the car.

At 3.52am, Shamji attempted to call Sharma twice more before driving to Edgware Road, where he spent several hours. There is no suggestion his wife is involved in any wrongdoing. 

She texted him and others on a WhatsApp group that morning: '[Shamji] had a function at his gangster friend's and decided to sleep in the car outside our house.' She added: '[He] also decided it must be a great idea to drive round drunk because he has not challenged his luck enough yet in life.' 

She also sent a message about the 'effects of ketamine' but Shamji replied: 'I did not drink and drive.' 

Ms Karnuts replied: 'You were hammered, stop lying, at least keep that last inch of dignity.' She was never interviewed by police - nor was Land, whom he spent hours with afterwards.

The GPS shows that after sleeping on a side street, Shamji spent hours driving around central, east and north London, between 6.10am and 1.58pm. He arrived at Land's home in Swiss Cottage, north London, and his vehicle remained parked outside the property for two-and-a-half hours.

Since the death of Brettler, Shamji has spent time in Mayfair, Los Angeles and the Dominican Republic, where is rumoured to have applied for a passport. 

The Met has insisted that the investigation was 'impartial', 'professional' and 'subject to a detailed review'. A spokesman told the newspaper it would 'need to review' its action 'in detail' before confirming if errors were made.

It is the latest information to come to light as Brettler's parents continue to criticise the investigation, insisting their son was not suicidal like the Met suspected, but was trying to escape Sharma.

Scotland Yard detectives believed the teenager took his own life and reportedly only visited the apartment four days after his death.

But they have been heavily criticised by his grieving parents for missing crucial evidence with questions remaining as to why they decided not to forensically test smears resembling blood on the walls in the bathroom and bedroom.

A 'couple of metres of glass' had also been wiped clean on the balcony where Brettler is believed to have jumped. But again this area was never tested.

The teenager was eventually found at the base of the tower block with a broken jaw - the cause of which could not be determined - and injuries to his hip, which smashed into the embankment wall, according to The Times.

His parents - Rachelle and Matthew Brettler, both 61 - have always thought their son was trying to escape from what was inside the room and have accused detectives of showing 'no curiosity'.

The youngster had become enamoured with wealth during his time at Mill Hill School in north London, an exclusive £30,000-a-year boarding school where many pupils were the children of Russian oligarchs.

In order to play up his connections, he had adopted multiple different alter egos, including that of a Kazakh man, a friend of Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk and the son of a dead Russian oligarch.

The teen's heartbroken parents deny that he was suicidal - saying he emailed his mother on the night he died about booking a driving test and his overnight bag contained enough clothes to last several days.

'I knew Zac and it just wasn't right,' his father told The Sunday Times.

'The overnight bag he'd taken, the messages he'd sent, the plans we'd made. It didn't sit well with anybody, not out of any stigma issue, but it didn't. Also, who commits suicide in front of someone else?'

Sharma and Shamji were both arrested on suspicion of murder but neither were ever charged. Sharma later died in 2020 in the same flat from an apparent drug overdose.  

Prior to his death, Brettler was calling himself Zac Ismailov.

He told new friends that he had recently inherited his late father's fortune but he was being blocked from accessing it by his mother, who lived in Dubai.

He got to know the Shamji after they agreed to become prospective business partners.

The businessman then put Brettler in touch with Sharma, who lived alone in an apartment at the Riverwalk development, in the hope he could give the teenager a home while he resolved his 'inheritance dispute.

Messages in the run up to Brettler's death showed Sharma was getting more and more interested in the teenager's wealth, writing on the morning of the tragedy: 'I'm thinking f*** this little kid.'

Poplar coroner's court held an inquest into Brettler's death and recorded an open verdict in 2022.

A Met Police spokesperson said: 'This was an impartial, professional investigation which was subject to a detailed review by homicide detectives from the Met's Specialist Crime Command, who did not work directly with the Senior Investigating Officer.

'The investigation lasted a number of years and we dedicated significant resource to finding answers.

'We robustly challenge the assertion that there were 'serious errors and gross incompetence' in the investigation.'

In regard to the black box data, they added: 'We would need to review the statement in detail and speak with the officer before being able to confirm if the errors alleged by the Sunday Times are accurate. Regardless of this, we have a detailed record of the locations of all individuals, confirmed by CCTV and phone data. We know that Akbar Shamji was not present in Verinder Sharma's flat at the time that Zac Brettler fell to his death.

'We do not believe that any alleged GPS data errors, even if proven to be accurate, would present scope for changing the findings of the police investigation.

'We submitted a file for perverting the course of justice to the CPS who declined to charge. We are confident in the quality of the evidence presented.'