Sport's Strangest Crimes

The 2007 Formula 1 season is hotting up, but it’s the action off the track that is really starting to burn. While Hamilton, Raikonnen and Alonso battle it out in Germany, It’s time for McLaren to face the guard dogs of Formula 1 - or, as they’re better known, the FIA. The team is off to Paris to defend themselves against charges of misconduct. But this isn’t any old trial. It’s one not only of rig...

The British Grand Prix is always a highlight in the Formula 1 calendar, but in 2007, you can cut the tension with a knife. Whilst Lewis Hamilton prepares for his first home race, behind the scenes McLaren is rocked by allegations of spying from Italy. It’s a bolt from the blue for F1 insiders: Nobody saw this coming, and especially not from ‘squeaky clean’ McLaren. And to make matters worse, Ferra...

Ferrari receives an alarming email - subject line: “Industrial Espionage”. In a sport of continuous engineering innovation, the last thing you want is rivals peeping at your secrets. But the spying alert comes at an especially bad time for the famous Italian team. On track, they’re in the middle of a team makeover, and behind the scenes, they’re investigating what looks like an internal sabotage s...

Excitement is in the air as the 2007 Formula 1 season gets underway. There’s a feeling that the World Championship is anyone’s for the taking. Michael Schumacher might have just retired, but Italian icon Ferrari is looking fierce and British powerhouse McLaren isn’t looking too shabby either. Under the guidance of legendary team boss Ron Dennis, the team looks like a strong contender once more wit...

In 2007 an improbable, low-fi crime nearly brought the high octane world of Formula One to its knees. Narrated by Pete Tong, Spygate draws in some of the most powerful men in the sports history and pits iconic teams McLaren and Ferrari against each other, all set against the backdrop of Lewis Hamilton’s record-breaking debut and his ferocious rivalry with Fernando Alonso. Buckle up - this season i...

From Nottingham to North Korea - how conman Russell King took the oldest club in the football league to the brink of oblivion with promises beyond their wildest dreams. All episodes will be available on Monday 21st February 2022 on BBC Sounds.

From the world’s oldest football league club to the communist dictatorship of North Korea, this incredible story has it all. It’s a tale of greed and intrigue that takes us on a journey from the streets of Nottingham to the Gulf kingdom of Bahrain. At the heart of it, a conman who fooled football bosses, a London bank and foreign regimes. Russell King’s audacious multi-million pound scam brought t...

A consortium called Munto Finance has taken over Notts County – the oldest professional football club in the world. Supposedly backed by millions of pounds from the Middle East, the club are promised riches beyond their wildest dreams. Sven Goran Eriksson is hired as director of football and England and Arsenal legend Sol Campbell joins the club on in a multi-million pound deal. David Beckham is r...

Alice Levine heads to Jersey to delve deeper into fraudster Russell King’s criminal past. She discovers how King enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle on the island, living in a lavish multi-million pound home with a swimming pool and set in acres of beautiful grounds. How he owned a collection of fast cars, hired private jets and enjoyed flights in a company helicopter. He was behind a business called...

Revelations about Russell King’s criminal past have done nothing to dampen the spirits at Notts County football club. The team and the fans are on roll, dreaming again, their sights set on promotion. Meanwhile, in one of the most bizarre episodes yet, the club’s director of football, Sven Goran Eriksson finds himself in North Korea – a guest of one of the most notorious regimes in the world. He’s...

Notts County were sold a dream of untold millions and Premier League football but it’s all come crashing down. Over the course of just a few months the club has racked up millions of pounds of debts and now they can’t even pay the milk bill. Sven Goran Eriksson has returned from his crazy trip to North Korea and conman Russell King has vanished. As the creditors come knocking, Sven and chairman Pe...

There’s nowhere to hide for serial fraudster Russell King. Holed-up in Bahrain, time has finally run out for the trillion dollar conman. On his tail, a detective who has spent 10 years trying to bring him to justice for his crimes on the island of Jersey. But Russell King has one last throw of the dice. Meanwhile Notts County, the football club he used and abused to satisfy his own greedy endeavou...

Money laundering, the FBI, drug cartels, Ponzi schemes, extra marital affairs, off shore banks, and of course some cricket. For the past 12 months, Greg James has been trying to find out who exactly is Allen Stanford.

Lord's 2008. The most sacred ground in cricket had never witnessed anything like it. Across the London skyline a helicopter appeared and slowly descended onto the hallowed turf. From within emerged a tall, brash Texan who was greeted by the great and the good of cricket. With him was a box of money, and not just a few quid....$20 million. The man was Allen Stanford and he had an audacious plan to...

England's mens cricketers are preparing for a match that could change their lives forever. A one-off game that could net them $1 million each with one run, wicket or catch. It's a unique and extraordinary sporting prospect bankrolled by Allen Stanford. But how? Wasn't he just a washed up business failure from Texas? After the collapse of his gym business Allen is declared bankrupt. However a chanc...

After leaving the island of Montserrat, Allen moves his growing banking empire to the newly independent island of Antigua. Here he quickly realises that cricket is THE sport in the Caribbean, the game that everyone loves and follows and hatches a plan to invest in a new T20 tournament in the West Indies. He invests millions of dollars, signs up the greats of Windies cricket and sets the ball rolli...

Antigua, 1st November, 2008. Months after landing his helicopter on the Nursery Ground at Lord's, complete with a box of cash in tow, Allen Stanford's dream is now a reality. The waiting and talking is over. One cricket match for $20 million. The winning players will walk away with a cool $1 million each, the losers will get absolutely nothing. One catch, one wicket or one run could be the differe...

After the groundbreaking $20 million cricket match, Allen Stanford was headline news across the cricketing world and beyond. He had delivered on his proposal to create a unique piece of sporting theatre, a cricket match the like of which had never been seen before. So as England's mens cricketers headed home following their defeat in the million dollar match, their counterparts in the West Indies...

Just a few months after the $20 million cricket match in Antigua, a perfect storm is brewing around Allen Stanford and his sprawling business empire. There are 'red flags' everywhere and with the financial world imploding the authorities in America are under pressure to act quickly before it's too late. But taking on a billionaire is not for the faint-hearted, there can be consequences. Both the F...

After attempted undercover operations, revelations from whistleblowers and numerous investigations going back years, the authorities in the USA decide to move against Sir Allen Stanford. In doing so the shocking truth behind his business empire is at last revealed to the world. However, big questions remain: Will he face justice? Where is the money? What will happen to thousands of investors? How...

This is the story of the world’s most high-profile kidnap...of a horse. Welcome to Epsom, the year is 1981 and Shergar, a prized stallion, has just won the 202nd Derby by ten lengths - the longest winning margin in the race’s history. Owned by the Aga Khan, the millionaire community leader, the champion horse gained international prominence and was regarded as a national hero during a difficult pe...

A horse is kidnapped in the middle of the night. His name was Shergar. He’s not just any horse, he's a prize-winning racehorse owned by an enigmatic spiritual leader, made famous for winning the 1981 Epsom Derby by 10 lengths. A celebrity, a symbol of hope for Ireland, but mostly a real money earner. He was retired and ready to produce more prize-winning offspring, when suddenly he was taken. Vani...

A cold and stormy night in Ireland is made even more terrifying by the presence of armed and masked men. “We’ve come to take Shergar, we want £2,000,000” Kidnappings were not unusual in Ireland at this time, except most of the time it was humans that were taken... some never came back. Who would want a horse? A stallion that no longer raced?

The international press had a field day, filling the front pages and the lead item on the news. The world was now watching the case develop. A horse kidnap dominated our screens. Gossip, rumours, lies, confusion. The papers get tip offs, false calls and leads that sound legitimate. Then suddenly the kidnappers have one weird request: they're ready to negotiate, but want to speak to three English j...

The Europa 3, unsuspecting sports journalists get flown to Belfast, over 100 miles from the crime scene to a farm belonging to horse trainers the Maxwells. Phone calls ensue, back and forth, details change, voices get more menacing. The police are on hand to try and trace the calls, but for some reason, they can’t find them. Suddenly negotiations stop, there is a pause, then one final phone call.