The Trillion Dollar Conman: 1. The Promised Land

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

The story begins at the club’s ground Meadow Lane. It’s 2009 and the team has just managed to maintain 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-Göran Eriksson and England and Arsenal legend Sol Campbell. All of a sudden Notts County are surfing the crest of a wave – they’re off to the promised land. But is all as it seems? Or are their dreams about to be shattered?

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