[20] On 30 March 2006, Respect Party politician George Galloway said that Mahmood, using his "fake sheikh" disguise and working for the News of the World, attempted to trap him in a sting operation at a meeting in the Dorchester Hotel with businessmen from the Middle East.
[25] Media commentator Roy Greenslade accused Mahmood and the News of the World, in its use of "subterfuge", of adopting practices which "debase journalism.
"[15] Galloway wrote to Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner and Michael Martin, the Speaker of the House of Commons about the incident.
[28] In his letter to the Speaker's office, Galloway also claimed that Mahmood had in the past deceived Diane Abbott and had sought a meeting with Jeremy Corbyn, both also prominent anti-war MPs.
[12][27] Other politicians featured in Mahmood's investigations included David Mellor, the former Secretary of State for National Heritage, who had resigned following an affair and the revelation of the unwise acceptance of the gift of a holiday,[29] and Environment Minister Tim Yeo who was revealed to have fathered a child outside his marriage.
[32] In January 2006, Mahmood met England head coach Sven-Göran Eriksson, posing as a businessman interested in opening a sports academy.
[35][needs update] In May 2010, Mahmood exposed snooker player John Higgins and his agent Pat Mooney for apparently agreeing to fix the outcome of future individual frames which would not necessarily alter the course of a match.
[36] Higgins subsequently issued a statement denying he had ever been involved in match fixing, and said of the meeting, "I didn't know if this was the Russian mafia or who we were dealing with.
[38] Mahmood's name came under the limelight once again when, in August 2010, he posed as an Indian businessman to expose the cricket bookie Mazhar Majeed who claimed Pakistani cricketers Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt had committed spot-fixing during Pakistan's 2010 tour of England; the team was accused of deliberately bowling three no-balls.
However, the men were later found not guilty following a trial at the Old Bailey, with the judge criticising the News of the World for not checking the credibility of the story.
In addition to Greenslade's criticisms, politician George Galloway also sought to challenge him,[8][17] while some lawyers have complained that Mahmood has sometimes broken the law without clear public interest justification.
[11] In 1999, after a Mahmood investigation exposed the Earl of Hardwicke and another man as drug dealers,[43] the jury sent a note to the judge explaining that they had reached their decision to convict the two men with great reluctance.
[15][17] Mahmood discussed criticisms of his methods in a televised interview in 2008 with the BBC's Emily Maitlis on The Andrew Marr Show.
The subsequent trial collapsed after it emerged that Mahmood's main informant, Florim Gashi, had been paid £10,000 and could not be considered a reliable witness, and was later deported from the UK.
[47][48] In 2004, Mahmood led an investigation into exposing the creation of a dirty bomb, through the supply of the fictitious substance red mercury, to three men from a supposed terrorist group.
[8] On 21 July 2014 the trial of the R&B singer-songwriter and former X-Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos, brought about by a Mahmood drugs sting operation, collapsed.
To support this position, he called a former Mahmood associate, Florim Gashi, who told the court he helped the reporter "make up stories for his newspaper".
[13] Judge Alistair McCreath told Southwark Crown Court that he thought Mahmood had lied in giving evidence.
The Fake Sheikh Exposed, broadcast on 12 November 2014, was presented by John Sweeney and produced by Meirion Jones and Owen Phillips.
[52] The programme aired despite legal efforts by Mahmood to prevent recent pictures of himself being shown, and a request from the Attorney General to stop the broadcast.
The programme also included unseen footage of Mahmood rehearsing with a known drug dealer for the entrapment of former Page 3 model Emma Morgan.
"[54] The programme also revisited the collapse of the Victoria Beckham kidnap plot, re-interviewing witness Florim Gashi, who worked with Mahmood on several occasions and who was on the payroll of the News of the World.