The Trillion Dollar Conman

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BBC Radio 5 Live

Sport's Strangest Crimes

Factual: Crime & Justice

Sport

Money, sex, glamour, politics, violence - the stories behind sport's strangest crimes.

Sport's Strangest Crimes: The Trillion Dollar Conman: EP1: The Promised Land

EP1: The Promised Land

BBC Radio 5 Live - Sport's Strangest Crimes, The Trillion Dollar Conman, EP1: The Promised Land

How a fraudster used a football club in a con which stretched around the world.

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.

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 which brought the world’s oldest football club Notts County to the brink of oblivion.

The story begins at the club’s ground Meadow Lane. It’s 2009 and team has just managed to their football league status after years of fighting for survival. Out of the blue comes a knight in shining armour with promises of untold wealth from the Middle East and ambitions to catapult the club from the lowly fourth tier to the Premier League.

Enter former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson and England and Arsenal legend Sol Campbell. All of a sudden Notts County are surfing the crest of the wave – they’re off to the promised land. But is all as it seems? Or are dreams about to be shattered?

Sound designer: Paul Lewis
Producer: Nick Southall
Series Producer: Ben Robinson
Editor and Executive Producer: Carl Johnston

Sport's Strangest Crimes: The Trillion Dollar Conman

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