The 'fake sheikh' and his greatest tabloid hits

The Princess Michael story.

Mazher Mahmood is British tabloid journalism's most celebrated undercover reporter - he has coaxed salacious gossip from members of the royal family and friends of Tony Blair and has brought more than a hundred criminals to justice.

His latest success cajoled tattle from Princess Michael of Kent, who spoke candidly while trying to sell a 6 million ($15.5 million) stately home to what she thought was a wealthy Arab prince.

Her dirty laundry was not that shocking. It was more amazing how the News of the World's investigations editor pulled off his scoop armed with a persona that is probably more well-known than some of his targets: the "fake sheikh".

It is an astonishingly successful device and has helped him net some of the most talked-about stories in recent years, and still they are taken in.

Actors and criminals have also been targeted, and the routine is well rehearsed.

The white jalabia is accompanied by a flowing robe and the agal, or headdress.

Then there is a black and gold robe, worn only by members of the House of Saud. A Rolex watch completes the look, along with a Ferrari or helicopter. He likes to puff away on a hubble-bubble pipe as he scams his victims.

Mahmood has ambivalent feelings about his creation. "Real sheikhs have my deepest sympathies. When I display the wealth they live with every day, it exposes greed and hypocrisy," he told his own newspaper in 2001 after he scooped hugely embarrassing opinions aired by the Countess of Wessex.

If he were a police officer, Mahmood would have a proud record. He regularly boasts of having helped secure the convictions of 134 criminals (though the Arabic disguise was rarely required to land the grim procession of low-rent paedophiles, people traffickers and villains).

His work is not without danger. Forced to inhabit a twilight world of aliases and cover stories, he refuses to be photographed. His stories are typically accompanied by a silhouette. There have also been very real threats to kill him. Some at the News of the World who admire his results privately question his approach.

It is an approach that has come under increasing scrutiny in the English courts. Radio DJ Johnnie Walker, exposed as a cocaine user, was treated with leniency because the court disapproved of the "sting" used to gather the evidence.

In stinging Rhodri Giggs, the brother of soccer star Ryan, for drugs, the trial judge asked prosecutors to consider bringing charges against Mahmood for supply and possession. Most spectacularly, a case relating to his Beckham kidnap plot story was dropped by police.

Princess Michael of Kent, 2005

The Princess apparently needed little encouragement to share her views.

Princess Diana was "bitter" and "nasty" and her former husband, Charles, was "jealous" of her popularity. He had merely married a "womb", she said. Prince William, meanwhile, was "too young" to marry girlfriend Kate Middleton.

The News of the World exploited the opportunity to get to the 60-year-old Princess - nicknamed Pushy - by the sale of her 17th-century manor house.

Mahmood hired a helicopter to convey him to the Princess's 6m pile, where he apparently found his quarry "falling over herself to flaunt her royalty".

In a second meeting at Claridges in London, the Princess, the daughter of Baron Gunther von Reibnitz, defended Prince Harry over the wearing of Third Reich insignia at a fancy dress party. "If he had been wearing the hammer and sickle there wouldn't have been so much fuss."

In a bizarre twist, she claimed to be able to secure a white tiger, emailing photos of herself feeding cubs to the reporter.

Countess of Wessex, 2001

So convinced was Sophie Wessex of the importance of Sheikh Maz, she bowed her head as they shook hands, NoW reported.

The setting was London's Dorchester Hotel. Also present was her business partner, Murray Harkin. They were lured with the prospect of a 20,000-a-month public relations deal for a Saudi prince.

Prince Edward's wife proceeded to share her views on members of the Government, the Leader of the Opposition and other issues of the day.

She described Tony Blair as "President" and referred to "frightening" tax rises and "pap budget" presided over by Chancellor Gordon Brown. The Prime Minister's wife "hated"the countryside and continued to work as a barrister only to "keep her hand in". The Countess was forced to resign from her public relations firm and prompted Buckingham Palace to announce guidelines to prevent what it described as a further "conflict of interest".

Soccer club owners, 1998

At a business meeting in a lap-dancing bar in Spain, Newcastle United bosses Freddie Shepherd and Doug Hall thought they were talking to an Arab millionaire.

Recorded word for damning word, the chairman and his vice-chairman let rip with a torrent of indiscretions.

"Newcastle girls are all dogs, England is full of them," Shepherd said. During a trawl of sex bars both men spoke candidly about their preferences - dismissing former Newcastle and England manager Kevin Keegan as "Shirley Temple" because of his saintly ways. They boasted they sold 600,000 replica shirts a year.

So sensational were their indiscretions that the newspaper made its tapes available to listen to on a phone line. Thousands took the opportunity. Shepherd and Hall claimed they were victims of "entrapment" and "gross deception".

Actor John Alford, 1997

The former child star was enjoying celebrity again as a baby-faced firefighter in London's Burning when he met Mahmood at the Savoy Hotel.

Mahmood had initially approached the actor offering the prospect of a 100,000 deal to help launch a nightclub in Dubai.

Crucially for a later case against him, a videotape made of the meeting showed him accepting 300 to buy Class A drugs. He was immediately fired from his job.

What happened next was to be played out in the courts. While the actor admitted he was "technically guilty" of supplying cannabis and cocaine, he maintained he was the victim of entrapment.

In May 1999 he was jailed for nine months for drugs offences. During the trial, Alford was shown bowing to the reporter who he believed to be a sheikh.

The Beckhams, 2002

Mahmood's revelation that a criminal gang of eastern Europeans planned to kidnap the wife of footballer David Beckham was hailed as his greatest-ever scoop. So high were the stakes that the reporter, working with a team of investigators, tipped off police in advance.

The gang, he said, was plotting to make the snatch outside the Beckhams' Hertfordshire home and demand a 5 million ransom. The reporter had infiltrated the network by feigning an interest in trading stolen goods. After a surveillance operation, police arrested five people in London. The drama was photographed and appeared in the following day's NoW.

Police said the men were arrested for allegedly trying to sell items stolen from Sotheby's auction house. But the prosecution's case collapsed in court in June 2003. One of the alleged gang unsuccessfully sued the newspaper for libel.

- INDEPENDENT