Sport's Strangest Crimes

After the groundbreaking $20 million cricket match, Allen Stanford was headline news across the cricketing world and beyond. He had delivered on his proposal to create a unique piece of sporting theatre, a cricket match the like of which had never been seen before. So as England's mens cricketers headed home following their defeat in the million dollar match, their counterparts in the West Indies celebrated their victory.

However away form the celebrations in Antigua a couple of former Stanford employees have started a chain of events that could have huge implications for Stanford and his huge business empire. But billionaires don't shy away from a fight, especially when everything could be at stake. Sensing danger Allen employs all the tools at his disposal to try and stop the whistleblowers in their tracks.

After attempted undercover operations, revelations from whistleblowers and numerous investigations going back years, the authorities in the USA decide to move against Sir Allen Stanford. In doing so the shocking truth behind his business empire is at last revealed to the world.

However, big questions remain: Will he face justice? Where is the money? What will happen to thousands of investors? How will the cricket authorities react to the news that the man who 'bought cricket' is not all they thought he was? What about those who assisted his criminal activities throughout the years?

In the final part of 'Sport's Strangest Crimes: Allen Stanford The Man Who Bought Cricket', Greg James discovers who the real Allen Stanford actually is and the truth about his business empire.

A cold and stormy night in Ireland is made even more terrifying by the presence of armed and masked men.

“We’ve come to take Shergar, we want £2,000,000”

Kidnappings were not unusual in Ireland at this time, except most of the time it was humans that were taken... some never came back.

Who would want a horse? A stallion that no longer raced?

This is the story of the world’s most high-profile kidnap...of a horse. Welcome to Epsom, the year is 1981 and Shergar, a prized stallion, has just won the 202nd Derby by ten lengths - the longest winning margin in the race’s history. Owned by the Aga Khan, the millionaire community leader, the champion horse gained international prominence and was regarded as a national hero during a difficult period in Irish history. On a cold winter night in 1983, a group of armed men entered the Ballymany Stud in balaclavas and stole the stallion declaring: "We have come for Shergar. We want £2 million for him." The codeword for future negotiations was to be King Neptune. While the facts of this case have been widely reported, this series unpicks the theories about the disappearance. We’ll revisit all the bizarre events that took place after the kidnap, from psychics to horse skulls to negotiations led by English journalists. We unpick the police case and the comedy character leading it, trilby-wearing superintendent James Murphy and meet the sport’s journalist Derek “Tommo” Thompson who was flown to Belfast to negotiate the release. Using archives, news reports and new interviews, we go along on a ride that has some strange turns, oddball characters and juicy conspiracies. Almost 40 years on from his kidnap, we look back at a story that gripped the world to try and understand why the horse’s legacy still lives on. Told by the Texan tones of Vanilla Ice, we’ll reveal some of the strange theories that made this Irish story go global.