1. Lord's
Lord's 2008, Allen arrives by helicopter with $20 million and a plan to change cricket.
Sport's Strangest Crimes · BBC Radio 5 Live
Audio is streamed directly from the publisher (open.live.bbc.co.uk) as published in their RSS feed. Play Podcasts does not host this file. Rights-holders can request removal through the copyright & takedown page.
Show Notes
Lord's 2008. The most sacred ground in cricket had never witnessed anything like it. Across the London skyline a helicopter appeared and slowly descended onto the hallowed turf. From within emerged a tall, brash Texan who was greeted by the great and the good of cricket. With him was a box of money, and not just a few quid....$20 million. The man was Allen Stanford and he had an audacious plan to revolutionise the game of cricket. One match for $20 million - winner takes all, the loser gets nothing. But who exactly was Allen Stanford, why was he willing to splash out $20 million and why was he being entertained by the English cricketing authorities?
Meanwhile thousands of miles away in the USA, unbeknown to those gathered at Lord's, a file with Allen Stanford's name was passed to the FBI.
Greg James sets off on his journey to tell the real story of Allen Stanford - The Man Who Bought Cricket.