Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio zern A.
So glad you showed up today.
I know, I found parking and everything nice.
Uh do you know what's ridiculous?
Yes, sit down on the actor Ving Rams. Okay, he's a little he's not ridiculous, aut Elizabeth, don't go for that. He got his dope ass nickname from his college roommate. His government name is Irving Rams. Yeah, it's Sunny Purchase, like a state University of New York. Purchase was told him he ought to shorten his name to Ving because he's more like a Ving than an Irv Irving. He's like, oh, think of Ving Rams. I mean, boom. Do you know
who that roommate was, Stanley Tucci? Right, that's amazing. But that's not what's ridiculous. That's just kind of cool. You know what's ridiculous. Stanley Tucci and Christopher Juicy Booty Maloney have never played brothers in a movie or TV show.
I mean, come on, that's ridiculous. That is absolutely ridiculous. O, good one, nice work. Do you want to know what else is ridiculous? Do you promising someone one trillion dollars?
Oh?
This is ridiculous crime A how do you say? Podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons it's always ninety nine percent murder free and one hundred percent what is it ridiculous?
Oh?
You damn right? Con men? Am I right? Oh?
Tell me about his sister.
I will never stop being fascinated by fraudsters and their ability to get people to believe things.
I don't know how they do it.
I'm jealous, I get I guess they're so confident in their con that they don't show that weakness that sows doubt.
I think that is actually a very big part of it.
Yeah, And as I was reading about the guy that I'm going to tell you about today, I kept thinking, like trying to imagine if I were the one trying to pull these things off. Oh really, Yeah, I would have been like laughed out of the room or forcibly ejected or like arrested every single time.
Actually, I don't know about that, Elizabeth. I think you could pull it off if you were convinced that, like you needed to do this to save like a boatload of like bunnies. You're like, Elizabeth, that guy over there.
If you do not con these three people.
They're gonna hurt all these lovely if you'd figure out a way you would do it. You go over, you charm them, you get them to believe your lives, and then they would con them because you'd have the confidence of you have to do it. The thing is you couldn't do it for yourself because then you know you're just conning someone to get some money to you know, thicken your wallet. Yeah, which ain't your style.
Well, I mean it's the act like you know, like if you're put into that position, perhaps so con man, they act like I know, they act like they're supposed to be here, which is what I would do if I had to save a boatload of bunnies. Yes, the guy that I want to tell you about, like he acts like he knows, but he doesn't exactly look like he should be there.
Hmm.
So it's like and that also fascinates me. He's a little sloppy and like he wears ill fitting suits okay, and so but he's this like excellent con man.
Is that to make people like Another part of being a con artist is to kind of distract where they think the thing is. Be it like, oh, I'm going to get this score right. They think I'm getting over on somebody, so they stop thinking about themselves. This guy's supposed to think he couldn't because he's.
Supposed to run with big money folks. And then the whole thing is the impression of this and it's just interesting, like especially later in his career. He there's like a British documentary that runs into him. Ah and like you see him and you're just like, oh that guy is he.
Makes sloppy work for him.
Yeah, kind of, I don't know. It's interest. So he's an excellent con man. He's like a mega con man, a con man sometimes called the trillion dollar con man with a tea?
Is this cat?
Russell King is his name? Never heard of him? He's a mysterious figure. I've been trying to get biographical information on him, and I've completely come up empty, over and over again. Really, all I know he was born in nineteen fifty nine, but I don't know where. I don't know anything about his upbringing, so like who knows? And I would say who cares? But it would be helpful to know much more about his background to better understand like his motivations. Sure, the angles he.
Works his compulsions.
Yeah, the first time he bubbles up is in the early eighties, and he was known then as this entrepreneur with a really extravagant lifestyle.
It was early twenties.
Yeah, he loved fast cars, high life. He was chairman of a company that owned media publications. It was called Celebrity Group Holdings, and at one point they wanted to buy the world's oldest toy store, Hamley's in London. Okay, that didn't pan out, so they went after Zodiac Toys, not associated with the Killer Ah, okay, more the inflatable watercraft. It was the UK's biggest toy store at the time, Zodiac Zodiac Toys, not the Killer. No, they just sold
a lot of hoods and decoder sets. It was exactly. It was just like chain of shops. They'd been in business from the sixties and they had been purchased two years prior by this other retail group who tried like new merchandising methods that didn't really translate to toysure and so king he bought it up and then it quickly folded, so more than ninety shops closed. Oh when this all fell apart down, But around that time nineteen ninety one, he reported his Aston Martin stolen and it was worth
And this is what I couldn't believe. I checked multiple sources for this number. It was worth six hundred thousand pounds. Okay, well, nineteen ninety one.
It wasn't a new one, right, it must have been like a customer.
I don't know. There was one article called it some name, and I don't recall off the top of my head something. But when I looked it up, that was a car from the two thousands, So it wasn't this.
And it wasn't the James Bond one from the sixties, to.
Say, but a six hundred thousand pound car is ridiculous.
In the fifties.
I think that one's absolutely ridiculous. But anyway, I mean, So he contacts his insurance company, yes, and they, of course they do some digging, not a whole lot, because they found the car in his garage. This d Jesus whoops. So he gets busted for insurance fraud. He did two years in prison for it, and Celebrity Group went into
liquidation while he was inside. Okay, and then Credit Corps sued the company for six hundred and eighty four thousand pounds alleging fraud by the celebrity group Boarded and so then like so that bubbles up in the press, and then it's about ten years before King pops up again. I don't know what he's doing in those ten.
Years in the UK.
He's in the UK. So this time it's around like the mid two thousands. He's part of a company called Belgravia Financial Services Group, okay, which just you know, sound well it's a neighborhood in London and it's trying to be sort of posish. But the company based in Jersey is I'm sure you know, as an island between England
and France. It's the biggest of the Channel Islands. And it's a self governing British Crown dependency and that means it has its own financial, legal and judicial systems, and it also it should come in as absolutely no surprise to you that I Google street viewed the place and I am desperate to go there really, to Jersey. Oh yeah, completely, Oh man, it's a blend of English and French and it's beautiful. I'd go and like drop the little map guy and random and be like, oh are you kidding me?
To my empty office over and over and over again. So financial services makes up forty of the goods and services produced by this thing.
I know about what they do. Yeah, basically money laundering type stuff that seems like.
And that that's why it wasn't weird that Belgravia Financial Services Group was located on this like relative smell kind of a red flag. Yeah. So two thousand and four, this guy named Duncan Hickman set up Belgravia, as we'll call it, and at some point Russell King came on board. Okay, and he and his wife lived in Jersey too, so that's where he's living at that point. I guess he'd moved there from England. Two thousand and five Belgravia Belgravia
made a move to buy Newcastle United the soccer Wow. Yeah, that did not go through, but it sets the stage and hints at what's to come. So the next year, two thousand and six, King he had a property in Hampshire and the place was like so big that he employed domestic staff there.
Can we call it old Hampshire? So I know which one is.
It's Old Hampshire and Old Jersey. This is just helping me so he has like this huge manse So I don't know what exactly he's doing that. He's like, he's in quote financial services. Who's to say.
I think he's one of those people in the British finance world who just kind of moves paperwork for people who are actually money laundering through the British territories exactly Cayman Islands.
Kind that's what's happening.
Yeah, he's like, oh, mon sac fons sake, I know all about that.
One of his workers, Nicolette McAvoy, she's married to a man who was injured on the job at a construction site legitimately legitimately, and King and his wife they connected the husband with a lawyer for him to get like the absolute most he could out of his claim, because he was originally set to get seventy five thousand pounds, but he wound up getting two hundred and sixty eight
thousand pounds after working with the lawyer. So King and his wife they're living in their place in Jersey and these guys are working up in Hampshire and they offer the McAvoy's jobs down in Jersey and they accepted and they moved to the island. So missus McAvoy, she made one and fifty pounds a month as a housekeeper. Okay, sure, yeah, the reason that's good, you know, like in the early aughts.
Yeah, I haven't hired a housekeeper in y forever.
Well here it gets sweeter though, because the husband works there too. In this compensation. King rented a four bedroom place for them one hundred yards from the giant farmhouse, and so he pays it.
Is making them caretakers, right, so to speak.
So they have this this, this place that he's rented for them in his name, so they're not paying any any rent. So the twelve to fifty a month that's income. That's just income. And it seems like everything's going to be okay for them at this point. So after all of mister McAvoy's claim money came in, King and then that guy Dunk and Hickman who started Belgravia, they convinced the couple to put their money in a fund controlled by Belgravia. Yeah, why not. They've hurdle the money.
They've already gotten them a bigger payout.
They're good with their money. So they invested two hundred thousand pounds and McAvoy said quote, I was promised a rate of interest between twenty and twenty five percent, the sort of money that sets you up for life or should be a or should be a giant red flag. Please everybody know that you don't get returns like that, and it's.
Too good to be true, as they say it most likely really.
So McAvoy he wanted to enjoy some of the money he'd been generating, and so he and his family they wanted to buy a house. And he was told that he had four hundred and twenty thousand pounds in the account. But King was like, you know what, leave alone, leave alone, don't touch it. Growing take out a mortgage. Do the mortgage. But McAvoy's like, no, I want the money. So they start having this like back and forth, and that's when
the trouble started. This is what macavoy said. Quote. I said, I wanted to close the fund and get my money. King responded with total hostility. I was treated really badly. I left the job straight away. In the week that happened, I got a letter from the landlord's solicitors saying that the rent had not been paid on the property over the last year. King was meant to have been paying it.
Oh his name isn't on the lease though, right, only King's only Kings.
But he's about to get the boot.
Yeah, so he just finds out that he would have been getting this news.
Otherwise, exactly exactly, so he said quote. I confronted him on the phone, and he said it was none of my business. I said he had to sort it out straight away, and he said he would deal with it in his own time. The next day, my wife was dismissed. Oh yeah, he can't pay a check, are Yeah, so they're just they're twisted in the wind. Two thousand and eight, Hickman died and it was it was sudden that it
was unexpected. It was a blood clod. It wasn't anything nefarious, yea right, But Russell King took it as an opportunity to make his move. So he starts just selling off Hickman's stuff, like unbeknownst to Hickman's wife.
Oh so it's not even like does he have like next of kin.
He's got a wife sitting collectibles, all of his humble figurine, selling them off, all of his cut crystal. And then he turns around and he just bleeds Belgravia Financial Services Group Dry just drains it. So in the course of three months he managed to pull out six hundred and seventy one thousand pounds and hide it in Swiss bank accounts. Belgravia obviously goes under the Macavoys. They're still trying to get their money back, but at this point that's just
never going to happen. Meanwhile, King he's living it up, first class airfare everywhere. He stays at the Ritz Carlton, he dines at fine restaurants and all those fast cars that he loves, and he's also acting like he has absolutely nothing to do with this whole mess. So he became known for never being a sonociated on paper with any of his cons so like he wasn't on the on the lease, Belgrave, somebody else, Belgravia, Belgravia, I don't know.
Let's say it both ways, Belgravia. He's never on paper, and then when he was, he'd deny it. His famous response to everything was quote, I have never been a shareholder, director, trustee, or beneficiary like and then of whatever operation he was being questioned about, so it was just always I've never been a shareholder, director, trustee or beneficiary like just overcially exactly. So his lawyers told the press that quote King acted as a spokesman for Belgravia, which collapsed last year, but
deny he had any formal connection to the group. Mister King's family was a declared investor in Belgravia, and consider that it is owed a substantial amount of money, said a spokesman. So they're victim too. Yeah, but mister King never worked for, nor was he a director of BFSG, which is the entity being investigated, and would like to put on the record that it was he who called in City of London police. So yeah, he's trying to be the victim here.
Trying to be a spokesmodel and event and a victim.
I love that he's the spokesman. Two thousand and eight busy year for him. He somehow managed to get a forty nine percent share of First London Bank and like this somehow is that? He said he was managing billions of dollars for the Bahraini royal family.
So sweat equity.
Yeah, I managed billions with a bee. They bought this, The people bought a First London Bank bought this. That wasn't all, he said he had a huge international mining company and that the mining company had a deal with the country to be able to mine all of their coal, gold and minerals.
You know, cobalt and stuff.
North Korea. Yeah, so he goes around telling everyone that it's one of the biggest mining companies in the world. Huh, and that the assets were worth nearly two trillion dollars. It's with a tea, yes, And oh, by the way, they're about to go public soon and then watch out because there's gonna be even more money.
North Korea loves capitalism.
That's one thing they always say about. Everyone's going to want to get a piece of it. You want to get in on that market. Like, hey, had anyone in the mining industry heard of this company?
No, of course not, does the country company even exist?
But first London Bank was like, oh my god, you're amazing.
Did he have like really fancy PaperWorks with the seal.
And like golden Boss.
Yeah, they're like, look at that seal.
With the first London deal set, he really did take on forty nine percent of the shares and that was based solely young false confirmations from the Royal family of Rain. So then he sets his sights on a new target. Let's take a break, we come back. I'm going to introduce you to that target, Zara Elizabeth Zaren. Can I introduce you to the Bahraini royal family.
Before we get there? This guy's this King that you've been telling me about. He's of no relation to the American grifter Sean King. Right, just happened to be similar last names.
Maybe they're cousins. I just wanted to I was like, family resemblance. I'm noticing it.
But as you were saying, go ahead, I'd like to meet this Bahraini royal family.
Well, we're not going to meet them just yet. What I wanted I want to do is is talk about some other stuff. Other stuff. Oh my god, you like that show Ted Lasso, right?
Oh, but the soccer and then the coach and the mustache and I do I enjoy that?
Yeah?
I don't know anything about it because I don't watch teev.
I like Roy, I don't have to hear you're gonna.
Go no, I'm not. I watched it and I loved it. It's funny, it's poignant, it's insightful. My goodness, the characters, like you said, Roy, those writers created like really fantastic, nuanced, layered characters, yes, and fun love stories. Yeah. And then and they kept surprising as they evolved, not like an oh, it's an evil twin way, but like it was never cheap. Yeah.
Then there's the football or the soccer angle. We got ted fish out of water learning the nuance of the beautiful game is pale called and we're just starting to get hep to that in the US. So like Major League Soccer as it's called here is really growing and they're great teams with huge talent. And then we have our own little team here, Oakland Roots. Yes, Marshan Lynch is one of the owners, as am I. I too am an owner, Yes, and so is producer Dave. So
is producer Dave. It's a fan collective, but I really do like preferring to myself as a team owner. It's fun and especially with like the departure of the A's may I spit on their grave, people have really gravitated towards the room. I've noticed that. Yeah, the games are super fun. It's like a really collegial atmosphere. I enjoyed the game, Yes, it's yeah, you had a good time.
It took me to that one that was as an owner. I gott to sit in the owner's box.
That was awesome. Yeah. I think one of the benefits is there aren't really ever any away team fans there. Yeah, that's just all roots fans singing songs and like rocking, all the cool merch.
And all the good Oakland A's vibe has translated really well for that kind yeah.
Yeah, so other parts of the world have that, but like in a more intense manner. And I mentioned ted Lasso, So let's talk English football Premier League kind of like with the NFL or college football. Here fans are serious and they're rabbit they oh yeah, And it's very location specific, so like people in the US, they'll cheer for college teams like that they didn't attend the institution. Always point that out. It drives you nuts. Never been to that place.
That's not what it's about you. I've never been Tribbeth. They're just saying, I'm a member of this tribe. You don't have to go to the college to be a member of the tribe.
That's how you viewed, or at least set foot on the campus is showing. I'm just telling me Oh my god, my snob shows all day every day. I have friends who cheer for teams in like Alabama, like you've ever been there? No, no, never set foot in the state, but roll tide it so like they haven't ever been in the same state, let alone. Okay, So how it works a.
Football Yeah, definitely, Baseball, basketball, almost every American sport.
Which is your addition, Buffalo fan?
Yeah, Buffalo bells. Yeah, yeah, so I've been to Buffalo though, that's true.
Okay, So I'll allow it, as I always like to say, I'll allow it.
And I turned my nephew onto the team and he now goes to Buffalo Bill's game. So so how about that?
Yeah, you started it. That's deep. In England, there's some blurring of the boundaries, but buy and large people support their locals.
Well yeah, it's much more of like pride of their area.
Yeah, and there are rivalries like Sunderland and Newcastle comes to mind. They hate each other. Up in Glasgow, my dear green place, there's Celtic and Rangers. And that's the straight up blood fuel because you've it's in the same city, different sides of the river, but it's sectarian. So that's like a whole other.
Yeah, it's a whole like Protestants first, Catholics, right, and then like they get out their colors.
Oh yeah, tribalism, tribalism. Anyway, people feel great loyalty to their teams and families go to matches and cheer the team through generations. It's all very ted Lasso and like with the Oakland Roots, some of the teams are fan owned, keeping it real.
Oh yeah, that's true. I forget about this. One of the summer owned by Hollywood people.
Too, right, right, and you see't yeah, something like that, and there's the Goddess the Middle Eastern like interests coming in and buying big teams. One of the fan owned teams was Nots County FC in Nottingham was founded in eighteen sixty two, the oldest professional football club in the world, famous for their forest, yes and the sheriff. They're there.
Their first f A Cup was in eighteen seventy seven. Wow. Yeah, they're like they're the older they were there when they founded the league, yes, and so they certainly have had their ups and downs through that year. In the early two thousands, they were really struggling, like especially financially.
Where are they relegated to even know they had fallen out the premiere?
Definitely premiere, but I don't know. Yeah, but they were they were like they were struggling, and the fans like they still supported them and when and they were fan outs by the packers, yeah, kream Bay exactly. Yeah, so the fans are supporting them, and then when a takeover offer appeared, it was like a gift from heaven. Take this team. Now there's money, Oh that way, for God's sake. So please, you know, we have such heart if only someone would put money into it, much like you know.
Yeah, So they won the investment. They're hoping with a new ownership life blood.
So they get approached by a representative of Munto Finance.
Wait a minute, I'm starting to get worried again.
M U n t O Monto. I know I'd let you send it drift on memory. Monto is a subsidiary of cod Back q A d b a K Investments to be a spellingst and that representative of Monto Finance none other than Russell kings King Rust King. So he had driven Bill Gravia into the ground and taken on almost half of First London Bank by saying that he managed the wealth fund of the Bahrain royal family. And then now he's out to buy up Notts County.
Why not?
Why not? Why nots County? So he showed them a bank guarantee from First London, saying that Monto Finance had the cash and the intention of buying the football club more fancy paperwork. Oh yeah, he said he was the go between. He was a representative of Monto. Monto, the subsidiary of cod Back, was supposed to be like this Swiss based trust of the Shafee and Hyatt families referred to as quote Middle Eastern and European based families. Okay,
spreads that spreads. So in truth, Russell King is Monto, and he had that guarantee from First London, but it was totally worthless and it was cooked up and made from a department that didn't even exist anymore in the bank, so it's just completely stationary, Like.
Give me that gold pen, I'm going to put some fancy stuff on here.
So King bought the club for one pound yea, and he promised to just flood him with Middle Eastern and they get the best players and the best coach. That coach former England national team manager Sven Goren Erickson, whoa yeah. So in June of two thousand and nine, King and this guy Nathan Willett, who's another Jersey based pronuncier. He approached Ericson through a third party. They wanted to make him an incredible offer, money he hopefully could not refuse.
So King at the time he's living in the Dorchester Hotel and so they decided to meet up there. Zaren closed your eyes. I want you to picture it. Yes, you are a London Society matron, an aging Sloane ranger. Your full name is Rowena Stonebridge, Forester, or blythe Manchester. Everybody knows you as Toppy. And when I say everybody knows you, that's everybody who's anybody. It's June two thousand
and nine. You're meeting a friend for afternoon tea at the Promenade, a charming restaurant located inside the Orchester Hotel. The gentlest of classical chamber music pieces plays in the background. Guests sip tea and eat delightful petaphores and finger sandwiches. You adjust your airmese scarf and catch a glimpse of yourself in the deco mirror next to the tufted, oversized banquette in which you sit surrounded by silk chintz pillows.
Your friend is running slightly late, but that's to be expected. She's ninety two years old and hard of hearing. She does at least wear a hearing aid. Years of raising your voice and conversation with her are blessedly over. It takes a while for her to navigate here with her driver. Oh, you've been told that she used to throw the most elaborate and scandalous parties at her country estate. You were too young to have been there, but you struck up
a friendship years back. She's dreadfully funny, darling and sharp as attack. A group is seated at the table. Next year's three men. One looks like any other London banker, slick and besuited. Then there's a dapper man with preceding white hair and wire glasses, another impeccable suit, bringing up the rear as a mountain of a man. He sports a mustache and goateee, and his eyes they're like those of a snake hunting not to be trusted. Oh, perhaps
you've been watching too many of those detective shows. The cozies, Miss Marble and the like. You aren't sure how or why you've gotten into them, but when you have a moment at home, say after tennis, you indulge in watch an episode or two. Following right behind the group is your friend, Lady Margaret Bettington Gigglethorpe Hughes, also known as Bunny. She's being led to your table by the h D. She delicately places her bird like bones in the chair
on the outside of the banquette. Oh, I don't like sitting in those things, the scooching and the inching over not ladylike. Her attention is taken by the three men at the next table. You know who that is, don't you, she whispers. You have no idea. The one with the white hair, she says, that's Sven Goren Erickson. He used to be manager of the England national team. Uh, you say, you never much followed the sport, and that always seems
to make you the odd man out. You ask about her day, chat about new gallery openings and the ascot, but her attention keeps getting pulled to the other table. My dear, she says, all those years of my hearing slowly drifting away from me like so much a canoe untethered on a pond. Did provide me with one benefit? What's that, Bunny? You say? I can read lips and those men are having an absolute corker of a conversation. No, you tell her to spill it. She fills you in.
Those two men want to hire Erickson to Notts County. Ooh, that's a reach. They say they want to take the team to the Premier League and even further stretch. But they send something about fixing up the stadium, an academy and buying feeder clubs. Oh, it's all very exciting. Bunny is loving this. You know that Ericson could put a log on my fire anytime, Bunny says with a smirk, Bunny, you gasp. Oh he's no Jose Mourinho, but I do like the cut of his Chit wait, wait Ericson just
reached out and shook their hands. He said he'd take the offer. Well, my stars, I think we just saw a very big deal go down. And you did Saren did, I did, Toy and Bunny copy, and Bunny witnessed the whole thing. So king makes Ericson the club director of football His contract included a clause entitling him to eleven million euros worth of shares in a little known company called Swiss Commodity Holding SCCH.
There the company is going to be owning the team. So he's going to be an owner.
Now it's just it's not they're not owning the team. It's another company.
Oh, just something else. He's like, oh, you'll be part of this other thing we got, man, that's where the real money.
That's where the real money is. And they asked him, could you please be an ambassador for the company's overseas interests.
Oh, so you be the spokesmodel now.
So they told him that SCH had a total portfolio value more than one hundred and sixty billion Swiss francs.
I think that's a lot, Elizabeth, that's.
A lot of money. Yeah, And he's they say, you know, they focus on natural resources, infrastructure, industry, all that kind of stuff. So news, well people's stuff.
It's like gold or shiny. We probably like it.
So news like spreads that Notts County has been taken over by this mysterious consortium Monto Finance, and that Saven Goren Erickson is the new director of Football.
People are losing it, yeahs.
And then the team starts signing great players goalie, Yeah, Casper Schmeichel was signed for a five year deal at one point five million pounds a year. Okay. There were even rumblings that the David Beckham, who was playing in LA at the time, could be signed up, like they're going to bring the bender back. So everything was getting very exciting for not can.
You imagine being one of them in that little town. You've had this crappy.
Football tape forever.
Now suddenly they're talking about the David foot, David Beckham's left.
Foot, and it's such a study my left foot. It's such a story. Now I'm just imagining Daniel day Lewis taking the pitch and being like, I'm it's method. I'm just going to learn this. No, it's just like this is this oldest storied team with like all this history. Exactly the rejuven nation. I mean, they wanted this for so long. September two thousand is I telling them.
They're going to open the factories back up, Like we're going to start building the ships again or whatever.
Was the industry of their grandfathers. We're doing it again. Oh, We're going to have an a stadium at Howard Terminal.
That's what that is.
So September two thousand and nine, the Sun newspaper does a piece naming Russell King as the man at the center of the Notts County takeover. Everybody like that, and they told the story of his Aston Martin insurance fraud, prison time. Oh wow. And the club was like, you know, so, I think he's just a quote strategic consultant. And he negotiated the contracts on the club's behalf. Nothing right, as King always said, I have never been a shareholder, director,
trustee or beneficiari. My name is I do not own a mansion or a yacht. The thing is at Notts County. He had people call him Lord Voldemort. What after the Harry Potter book familiar He must he who must not be named. I don't know, I never read that. Yeah, he must he who must not be named? And so they weren't like supposed to see and he's naming him. Yeah, he's like the guy Voldemort. Don't say Russell King, say the name you're not supposed to I'm him, call me Spartacus.
Let's take a break and let's ruminate on this. Whole Voldemort thing. When we get back, I'm going to let you know how this whole Knots County thing shakes out.
Please all right, Zarah Elizabeth.
So we got Sven Goran ericson, Yeah we do. Is he here?
He's right here now the lobby, David Beckham, But just his left foot.
He's in the lobby too.
Just as.
Keep David Beckham's foot in a jar.
Don't tell anything, but Daniel David Lewis, why do you have his foot because he's not left foot.
I saw the movie. It's my left foot, not his. I paid for the ticket. I just have a whole wall of left feet in jars.
You know that Daniel day Lewis started becoming a cobbler. He could make you some shoes from all your left feet.
I heard he's coming out, so true. I heard he's coming out of retirement.
Yeah, he did for his son. He's going to be direct, fast, imperious, a love than his son's directing. Perfect family Elizabeth family, family.
Family, So Goren, Eric sven Goren, Detective Bobby, Detective. No, this is making it so much better, Detective sven Goren. He's all in. He's making serious money. Under the promise that he'll be given all the resources he needs to take the team to glory, no expense spared. So this is September two thousand and nine. By the next month, Russell King, the man behind, winto finance. He convinces Ericson to go with him to another country on a junkt.
Ox spokesmodel stuff.
Yeah, he's this is the spokesmodel part of it. I told you. He says, we're going to go to talk to the leaders of this country about setting up their team for the following year's World Cup. That country, yes, North Korea.
On the plane he's like.
Reading always goes back to North Korea with this, how did you read your ticket? Wall? So Erickson later told The Guardian quote, I went on the nineteenth of October to North Korea together with Russell King and Nathan Willett. He said, when I went home from there, I started to have doubts because of what I saw in that country and what happened after that. So Ericson King will it and then this rep from the Shaffee and Hyatt
families made the trek. So remember those were the families that were the money behind I.
Thought that was lbs I just assumed that was there actually was a rep for the the problem.
The Guardian tracked down the big money guy from those families, an war Shafee. Yes, he's really the head of the family consortium, the rep that went on the trip, not from the family. In fact, family has nothing to do with this. I know it comes as a shot, but.
It spelled really close. It's really chef d So people make this mistake all the time.
It was like with your ab scam where they just like got an Italian guy training ex so Ericson goes there fully believing that he's going to like drum up some goodwill football for help, help the North Koreans get on the pitch and give it a shot. And he did. He met with football folks there, like the president of the football Association, the coaches of the national team. He even watched like games and trainings, so this was all really going This is really happening. And they asked for
how did they get on this? I don't know. I feel like if I knew more about his origin story, this would click more for me.
There's so many things happening in international hotels around the world we just do not know about and this is one of those things.
At some point, multiple times, I stayed at a hotel in another country where you're like, yes, something weird.
Yes, yes, I think I told you about the one. I was like, I was in a progue. I was like, it's only me, and like this other business guy in this hotel, and like I don't think he's a hit man, but he ain't a businessman.
I was in a hotel and nice, and there was a guy who had like a locked briefcase that he took to the diners in this hotel and then he'd just been carried it. He had dinner with it, and then he went back to it. I suppose his room to like take aim at. It was outside of his window, but it was like a nice hotel. Anyway, it's going down. There's stuff going on in the European hotels, International finance.
So like Eric's is there. They're trotting him out and they're like the North Koreans are asking him for stuff like year shoes, shoes, literally, can I get a pair of shoes? You got some extra shoes Adidas?
How about some balls?
And then they're like can you send us coaches? Coaches? People actual not buses like people, and then like can you make connections for us? And like King was like, oh yeah, pay for all that stuff. So Ericson's promising them all sorts of stuff. I'm totally going to hook this up for you. So Erickson gets back and he has no way to contact the North Koreans. King is brushing him off. So like Ericson's going around setting stuff up on his end, like Okay, I'm going to need like eight pallets oft.
He's like if you guys get some shoes, Like.
He's like, when you're not shipping shoes to Elizabeth, United States can from that? I have serious Adidas probably, I know. And so Ericson's like setting everything up, but he's basically forced to ghost the North Koreans because King and Willett kept just like putting it off like yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll get.
To that, and they're contacting him. Can North Koreans contact him?
No, So he's just how they're all supposed to. They don't have his contact and he's just like m yeah. And then the truth though, is that King trotted Erickson out to North Korea in order to juice up the deal they were trying to make with that phony mineral custy.
That's what I was figuring.
Yeah, so Ericson said, quote, I was in the palace and they were handing over to the North Korean government so called shares. I asked them how much that was, because at the same time, we couldn't pay the milk bill at Notts County. And what they told me was not millions, it was billions of dollars. They used my name at the end. It became a big, big mistake.
So he knows that they can't pay the milk bi.
They literally they could not pay. Someone came into Ericson's office and we need and he's like, we don't have that. So while in North Korea, king made a deal. The communist leadership signed a contract to give that fake mineral company the rights to mine the country's gold, oil and iron ore Sure, why not? And then in return for a billion dollars from Bahrain. Okay, So he's like again I'm just the go between here. Oh yeah, And it should be noted that the Kingdom of Bahrain had no
idea about any of this. I was guessing that.
And also I don't understand why North Korea would want a billion dollars from Bahrain and not actual other resources.
Yeah. Yeah, it's just so by the end of the year, everything in Notts County is starting to fall apart. Thank god, the press all over it. The details about how King had duped a lot of big names and companies and organizations is coming to light. It's making a lot of people look bad.
The son is selling papers, oh yeah.
Hot ones, and then King he ran off to Bahrain. Really so that part was some contact. So by the beginning of the next year twenty ten, Bahrain they're like not too pleased with their new residents, making us look like a joke. Because like a Jersey based company called Close Finance reached out to the Kingdom and asked them to like get in information on King because he owed two million pounds to them. And then you know, the Jersey government like they they order King's assets frozen for
that two million Bahrain. They're happy to help.
They're like, we don't pay him.
Well, so they're like, okay, we'll set up a travel ban so he can't leave Bahrain. And then they know he's there. They know he's there and they'm go, this guy, we can't give him. They want to keep them I don't know, so he can't leave, and they freeze his assets so that, you know, to get that two million. And so remember he had the posh estate on Jersey. If we had sold it, it would pay off that debt.
But he never had his name on anything, and the house was owned by a trust of which he's the beneficiary. The trust was managed by Barclays and they were pushing back on selling the house to resolve the debt. So King couldn't leave Bahrain, but it didn't stop him from crafting new cons, this time in publishing, the lucrative world of pub He wanted to get into publishing, so he started something called Golf Digital. And this is all under
an alias of course. The first title that he had was Food and Travel Arabia.
Oh but wait, this is like the too early twenty teens. This is like peak BuzzFeed years. Like, oh, I've got a digital empire. People are like, oh, yeah, we throw money at that. We're gonna do one for the Golf States or something.
Yeah. It's not journalism, yeah okay, yeah, it's basically advertising.
Yeah.
So the first title, Food and Travel Arabia. King starts getting these like huge ad contracts and then free stuff by massively inflating the circulation numbers. That was the play that I was working for a while before they pivoted the video. That was the move. So for a while he tried to peddle a fake Middle Eastern version of the Financial Time.
Okay, I figured that was something he tried.
He uses the prestige of the name Financial Times to get big advertising contracts and then making all these deals with UAE based luxury retail brands. He's a part owner of a bank, and then like all these hospitality groups for free stuff. They only released one issue of Financial Times Arabia.
He's basically making an in flight magazine.
Yes, a scam completely on the internet. Yes, July twenty seventeen. That's the one issue. None of the staff or the freelancers ever got paid. And of course Financial Times had nothing to do with Financial Times Business Arabia. This went on for years his magazine scams. In March of twenty seventeen, Food and Travel Arabia hosted the Food and Travel GCC Awards at a five star hotel in Dubai. It was
this like lavish affair. All these top industry professionals are there, Junket City, Russell King's wife, and I don't have a lot of info on her either.
Did.
She attended the gala, introduced herself as Francesca Jackson phenomenal fake names. Jessica Jackson's great. It sounds like it's near money. Yeah, the King, he was usually like, his aliases at this point are Barry Appleby wow, yeah, or John Taylor, not John Taylor of Duran Durant.
Or John Taylor of the San Francisco forty nine ers.
Right, so we each have our own John Taylor, our personal John Taylor. That's not it, not Jonathan Taylor Thomas of what actually was? He was like, hello, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, But Jonathan Taylor's one of those you're just striking a deal. Sounds like, oh, yes.
He once again is near money, comes from money, but also is not really memorable. You're like, it's John Taylor Thompson.
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it is, it's it's not memorable. But also when you put the three names, I start thinking serial killer.
That's true, there's that too, but he means the two, right, Jonathan John Taylor.
John Taylor, Yeah, he is Barry Applebee, which is also great. So when we go on junkets, you have to check into hotels. Is Barry Applebee and I'll be Francesca Jackson. All right, that's the deal, deal Apple and then producer Dave's John Taylor, not of Duran Duran. So the hotel loved Francesca Jackson. They just fantastic, seems fun. Oh she was.
She was a brassy lady. They loved her. So they loved her so much that they signed a barter agreement with Golf Digital for goods and services worth nearly eighty thousand dollars, just like right there on the spot, and the hotel covered the costs of the award scala and the several VIP rooms, so like they didn't have to pay for anything food and travel. Arabia reciprocated by awarding them the best destination hotel and also best casual chic restaurant during the ceremony.
I'm look confused that the whole gala event decided her presence was a gift and basically paid for everything for her and they went and won stuff too.
Yeah okay, yeah, so King he lived in Bahrain for more than a decade and he was just being slippery and getting all sorts of money and gifts and special treatment for little or nothing. But then in twenty eighteen he gets extradited to the UK for that Jersey stuff.
They don't mess with Jersey.
So he was charged in the Jersey Royal Court with twenty five counts of fraud and larceny. And this is going back to the two thousand and eight stuff. Crown Advocate Matthew Jowett said the misappropriation was quote something in the order of sixteen million pounds. Oh, yeah, that's a misappropriation.
Yeah.
April twenty nineteen, he pleaded guilty and got sentenced to six years imprisonment for stealing six hundred and seventy thousand pounds from Belgravia.
So much.
Yeah, that's that's how much they could track.
Yeah, when he bled them out, you're saying right, so.
Much money was taken out. The court heard that liquidators were left with just sixty four thousand pounds in the firm's accounts when all was said and done of sixteen million, and they were only able to pay creditors four point two pence for every pound they were owed. Yeah. Four months later he also got in order to pay back three hundred and twenty thousand pounds or get more jail time.
He got out in twenty twenty one. Wow. Yeah, it's important to note that he's only ever been arrested in charge for the Belgravia case, nothing else that I told you about.
It's like they want to incentivize criminals to only go for this type of crime because you don't get punished for this type of crime. It's like, look, don't go in robbing banks with guns. Go up and rob my rich friends and we won't do anything about it.
Exactly. There's a really good BBC documentary Panorama, you know that, Like that's like their sixty minutes, like their investigative reporting. That panorama there's like a thirty minute overview the whole thing called the Trillion Dollar con Man, and you get like they track him down and do the old school Mike Wallace door shove a camera in your Field's so good? But yeah, are you when the children were abandoned? That one's before he got he got arrested. But it's it's
it's awesome. It's really good. Anyway.
All I know is Path TV or Path films that the documentaries I know, Yes, British it's really old.
It's good panorama, IM right in that panorama, Zaren, What is your ridiculous takeaway?
I mean I kind of just like tripped into it a second their back which is basically still big. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous that that is the message from the world of jurisprudence and crime. But it's the only thing I garner from all these stories is well, if you're going to do it, rob the biggest company and then bleed it dry and then act like, well, what could I do? Talk to a lawyer, and they just keep doing that, and people are like, oh, what can
we do? Yeah, because I mean like you might get eighteen months here or there. I mean you may have to do maybe some people don't want to talk to you at the next Derby Days, but other than that, it seems like you'll be fine.
My ridiculous I'm really like fascinated by how you can throw out any kind of like mildly Middle Eastern thing and everyone's just like, oh, big money, they got money, I'll take it the sands. Yeah, And they don't think, they don't think to contact anyone.
They buy into what they expect foolishness with the money.
Yeah, just yeah, exactly, just extravagant spending the money into a failing footbook.
Yeah.
Interesting, And so that's my takeaway. You know what else, though, help me? I U right now, I think we're on the same page. What is it, mister Applebee? Talk back?
Yeah, I hi.
I wanted to tell you guys about my coworker who has a Pokemon side hustle where he uses the ct X ray scanner to look at inside unopened Pokemon card packs and then he can maximize resale value by either selling the unopened packs with nothing good or opening up the ones with rare cards and selling those individually. And I think that's ridiculous.
Oh wow, that's amazing. That's pretty cool. Think about all the people who either a have to wait forever to get into a point where CT scan or get charged through the nose by their you know, it's not covered by insurance. And this guy's scanning Pokemon acts.
I don't know for certain, but CT is the chromatomography right then, So it's like the three D and they're using positrons, which means they're using like antimatter they're using he's using antimatter to see through Pokemon cards.
I love that. I both love it and hate it.
I know you too.
That's it for today. You can That was a great talk back. Though. You can find us online at ridiculous Crime dot com. We're also at Ridiculous I'm on Twitter, on Instagram, email Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com. Leave us a talk back, Leave us some good ones. We love them. On the iHeart app, it's free. Download it. You got all sorts of other apps floating on your front?
What's one more? Come on now reach out. Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett, produced and edited by spokesman for the RC Royal Family Dave Cousten, starring Annale Rutger as Judith. Research is by Notts County Official Timekeeper Marisa Brown and Notts County Milk Delivery Gal Andrea Song Sharpened Hear. The theme song is by North Korean football stars Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. Post wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and makeup
by Sparkleshot and Mister Andrea. Executive producers are Bahrainy Advertiser, Ben Bollen and Aston Martin Ripoman, Noel Brown.
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