What happened to ‘the Fake Sheikh’ Mazher Mahmood as Tulisa opens up on I’m A Celeb about cocaine drugs bust sting
Tulisa Contostavlos opened up on I’m A Celeb tonight about how she was caught in a drugs bust sting involving the infamous reporter Mazher Mahmood.
The N-Dubz singer was famously arrested in 2013 on suspicion of supplying £800 worth of cocaine.
This came after she was reported to the police following an undercover investigation by the journalist often known as ‘the Fake Sheikh’.
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The singer spoke about it in a conversation on today’s episode of I’m A Celeb, where she told Strictly dancer Oti Mabuse that 13 is an important number for her, which includes the year 2013.
She told Mabuse: “2013 was the year I was set up by a British newspaper, for concern in the selling of class A drugs.
“The guy’s name was Mahmood and basically, I was approached by a big movie company and they sent me a tweet or a DM from their official account to audition me for a movie role.
“I’d dabbled in acting, so this opportunity for me was huge.
“I was having meetings with these producers, they flew me out to Las Vegas, first class flights, limousines, 5 star hotels.”
After revealing she was offered £3.5 million, Tulisa says: “So I was told, as I wasn’t an actress, I was less likely to get the role and the only reason I would get it is if I was the girl in the role, and the girl in the role was this bad girl from London who was constantly up to naughtiness, rolling with gangs, up to all kinds of naughty stuff.”
She says every time they’d meet up ‘they’d ask for drugs’, before saying: “After months and months, eventually they got a number and it was of someone that wasn’t even a drug dealer, it was an aspiring movie producer and I wanted to make a hook up as well for that person, but I didn’t know anyone that could do that.
“Long story short is they ended up ordering £800’s worth of cocaine from the number that I had given them. Then before I knew it, I was being arrested in the concern of the selling of Class A drugs and I was facing four years in prison.”
The case fell apart after it was revealed that key witness Mazher Mahmood had altered evidence, namely the statement of his driver, in order to try ensure Tulisa's conviction.
Mahmood was a self professed ‘king’ of sting operations.
Often pretending to be a Sheikh to gain access to celebrities, he has been sued multiple times for his controversial methods to try and catch celebs in sting operations.
Mahmood’s reputation did not recover from the revelation he had altered evidence in the Tulisa case, with him later receiving 18 months prison time for perverting the course of justice.
He was suspended by The Sun in July 2014 after Tulisa’s trial collapsed.
Among his famous stings is a ‘kidnapping plot’ he claimed to reveal of Victoria Beckham.
News of the World was later sued after it came out that Mahmood’s main informant, Florim Gashi, had been paid £10,000.
Topics: Crime, Drugs, TV, TV and Film, Tulisa, Im A Celebrity
Michael Slavin