The Fake Sheikh

Everybody has a secret.

And it was our job to discover that secret

whatever it took.

As News of the World journalists, we could get to anyone.

It didn't matter who you were.

Actors,

footballers,

models,

even royals.

Didn't matter who.

Anyone was fair game.

Back in the 90s I was a model,

living this jet-setting lifestyle.

And one night, I flew home to London.

It was late at night, I got off the plane, I got a taxi back home,

and I felt refreshed, I'd just had a lovely break.

I was on top of the world.

Whoever you were, we'd sting you, we'd catch you in the act,

all snapped, recorded and filmed.

Just as the presses were about to roll, you had to make that one last phone call.

When I arrived back at my flat,

I saw that my answering machine had the blinking light on,

which told me I had a message.

And it was somebody from the News of the World.

It wasn't an easy phone call for either party,

and 99 percent of the time they either slam the phone down

or decline to comment.

It was a message informing me that I would be in the News of the World

the following morning on a drug scandal,

and would I like to make any comments?

I just...

I think I needed to sit down. In fact, I did.

You knew their life would change and they knew too.

So, you almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

I remember just sitting on the floor in complete shock.

I didn't know... I didn't even piece the story together

with what had just happened.

I was thinking, what is this about? What are you talking about?

It's a moment where your blood just drains from your whole body.

It's that complete panic, you know, that fight or flight

and you just go, what has happened?

My life is ruined, it's over.

I just want my life back.

If your phone just started ringing at home late at night,

on a Friday, Saturday morning,

the last person you wanted to hear from was Mazher Mahmood.

The Fake Sheikh.

The trial of Mazher Mahmood, the journalist known as the Fake Sheikh

has opened at the Old Bailey.

It was so unbelievable it was believable.

You know, this can't be fake.

For 30 years, he has reveled in hiding his identity.

His anonymity, his secrecy, was the key to his entire act.

The self-styled king of the sting,

turning up to court every day beneath a balaclava.

I think he was ruthless, dishonest, and a merciless individual.

Mazher Mahmood has been behind huge tabloid scoops,

things like uncovering match fixing in Pakistani cricket

and a plan to kidnap Victoria Beckham.

Maz played on this caricature

that money literally could be no objection.

If you got close, you could grab your share of it.

I hate to say it.

He's very, very, very good at what he does.

People are going to think that this never happened, but it did.

Strange as it may sound,

you may not believe it, but this actually did happen.

Let's go back to the 90s.

I'd done time in prison for fraud,

and when I came out, I had no work, but I wanted to be a journalist.

So I got in touch with Mazher Mahmood.

He wasn't called the Fake Sheikh then, he was Mazher Mahmood,

and he said to me, "Do you want to work with me?

Come and see me, and you better bring some stories."

At that time I was known as the pizza man, the man who always delivers

So one night I get a call from a man calling himself Dr. Rangwani.

He's a well-respected, 62-year-old GP,

a married family man with two daughters, from Solihull in Birmingham.

So he explained, he said, "I'm telling you in confidence,

I'm having trouble with a girlfriend."

He'd been having a 15-year affair,

and she was claiming that he was the father of her three sons.

This would leave his reputation, both professional and personal,

in tatters.

So Dr. Rangwani says,

"I've been thinking. You've been to prison..."

I said, "Yes, I have."

He said, "You must know killers, murderers."

"I've come across them, yes."

He said, "I want her dead."

I said, "Okay, I'll see what I can do."

I had to make a decision. One was either...

...go to the police,

which is what a normal person would do,

or go to Maz.

So I called Maz.

He said, "Look, this is what we're gonna do.

I'm gonna come to Birmingham."

"So we're going to book a room in the Hyatt in Birmingham.

I am going to be the hitman."

Rangwani for a minute would never imagine

that he was a reporter for the News of the World.

The first thing Maz would do on any sting was bug the room from floor to ceiling.

And then it was my job to bring Rangwani into the meeting.

So, knock knock and we walk in, and I glance around the room,

and the most telling thing I see is there is a wash bag

placed on the table.

We had to catch Rangwani bang to rights.

We had to get it on camera.

And you could clearly see in the footage

Rangwani admitting to wanting his mistress killed.

Frankly, it was shocking.

You want it to look like an accident, or what?

That is, you know what to do, I leave that entirely up to you.

But you want her killed?

Off my life and scene...

Maz says, "Great, 5,000 pounds, cash.

You have to pay half upfront and half when the job is done.

So a few days later,

we arranged to get the money from the doctor.

We had a van near the meeting point

where our tech guy was hiding with a video camera.

We had to get Dr. Rangwani on camera handing over the money.

That would be crucial evidence of intent.

So, Rangwani comes out,

Maz said to Dr. Rangwani, "Okay, where's the deposit?"

He gets out an envelope. Unbelievable footage.

That's the money, yeah?

That was crucial evidence of intent.

So, Maz then said, "Right you will hear from us when it's done."

The footage is quite shaky,

but we needed to catch the doctor's reaction.

On his way back, Rangwani does a triumphant fist pump into the air.

Maz says, "I've got him."

So Friday goes by, Saturday morning,

Maz rings me, "Right, everything is set.

When he rings you, and he's going to,

you tell him that it's going to happen today."

He said, "You've got to be realistic,

when he rings, run up and down the stairs, get out of breath.

Yeah, make your voice sound stressed.

Record that phone call and make it realistic."

He calls in the afternoon, and I'll never forget the words.

He rings, I answer, press the record.

"Yes? Yes, Doc?"

And he says, "Is it done?"

I said, "What?"

"Is she done? Is it done?"

I said, "Yes, it is done."

He was arrested on the Saturday afternoon,

the story went in on the Sunday, and there it was.

Big spread.

Dr. Rangwani was a respected man.

The judge, Mr. Justice Alliot,

said he invented a mass of elaborate lies to try to get away with his crime,

but had shown not a flicker of remorse.

Dr. Rangwani, after being found guilty, he was sentenced to seven years in prison.

I was really grateful to Maz, because I was an ex-convict,

and that association with Maz, the prestige that came with it,

gave me my self-confidence back.

That now, I was doing something purposeful.

I've been a policeman a long time,

and I don't think this would've ever come to court.

had it not been for the way it'd been investigated by the newspapers.

The 90s was the golden age of tabloid journalism.

Imagine a world without the internet, without a mobile phone.

That newspaper is literally where you got your news from.

And so, we had the power to mould the way people thought.

Nobody today should underestimate just how big the News of the World was in the 90s.

It was massive, it was the paper everybody talked about.

It was the biggest selling Sunday newspaper in the world.

It was always some scandal or some celebrity or politician

who'd been up to no good

and you'd learn about it from the News of the World.

Mazher and myself were both undercover investigators

for the News of the World, but we were completely different,

because I was there to sell newspapers and entertain and titillate,

he was there as an avenging angel to send people to jail.

But he didn't socialise with us, he didn't drink with us,

he stuck with his own little team.