Dash Pictures, Matthew Lorenzo and Sky produce doc about swindler businessman Russell King

UK indie Dash Pictures started to produce the feature documentary "The King of All Cons" (w/t), in association with Matthew Lorenzo Productions and Sky about businessman Russell King who fooled a stock market-listed bank, duped an England football manager and a former Head of Military Intelligence, bought a football club and negotiated a trillion-dollar deal to extract all of North Korea’s mineral reserves. The Sky Original film will be launched on Sky Documentaries and NOW in 2025.

Former Sky Sports presenter turned producer Matt Lorenzo has unparalleled access to this mind-boggling story and all its key players. Enabling him to recount the incredible chain of events directly from the inside - as King had hired him to handle his PR at the time. Using a mix of archive footage and interviews with the main players including Sven Goran Eriksson and England footballer Sol Campbell, the action travels between the riches of Bahrain, The Dorchester Hotel, Formula 1 and the City, to Meadow Lane, the humble home of the world’s oldest football club Notts County, stopping off in the darkest, most dangerous country on the planet, North Korea.

Jack Oliver, Head of Co-Productions at Sky, says, “We’re very excited to be co-producing 'The King of All Cons' (w/t) which at first appears like it could only be a work of fiction. But it really happened and Matt was there as it all unravelled. Working with Matt again after our success with 'Hurst The First And Only', also produced by Dash, and 'The United Way With Eric Cantona' has been great - we can’t wait to see this complex and character-driven documentary come to life.”

Executive producer Matthew Lorenzo adds, “I’ve been collaborating with Daniel and the Dash team for a good few years now. We work well together and between us, we have the right skills to get the most out of a huge story: to bring out the drama and the emotion, and to give some of King’s victims a chance to have their say. I think Sky have established a deserved reputation for making some of the best documentaries out there at the moment and it’s good to be working with them once again.”

Daniel Sharp, executive producer, comments, “Leaving a trail of destruction in his wake, Russell King committed fraud after fraud, each one more fantastical than the last. This is documentary gold - comical, shocking, occasionally horrific but always entertaining and constantly underwritten by a sense of malice and lack of empathy.”