Sheik and awe!

THE cold steel of the gun barrel meant business as it pressed hard into Mazher Mahmood’s forehead.

“You wanted to see a gun? Well, here it is bro!” growled the balaclava-clad gangster as he thrust his pistol square between our top undercover reporter’s eyes.

Maz glanced to the left. A second crook had grabbed his informant and was holding a huge machete to his throat.

As the News of the World’s Fake Sheik, Maz had tangled with the Taliban, outsmarted people smugglers in Albania, and always walked away with a sensational story.

But now, held at gunpoint in a secluded corner of a north London park, he wasn’t sure if he’d walk away full stop.

In his explosive new book, Confessions of a Fake Sheik, Maz reveals the secrets behind his legendary stings that have jailed more than 230 villains. . . and the terrifying moment he thought his job would finally cost him his life. He was probing how easy it was to buy a gun on the streets of Britain. Just hours into the investigation, Maz, posing as an Asian drug dealer, had already found a deadly pistol for sale.

Only problem was, it was now loaded, cocked and pointed at his head. And the man with his finger on the trigger was a deranged Yardie crack addict.

“That was my closest brush with death,” says Maz. “The crooks were double-crossing us. Instead of a £1,500 deal for two firearms this was an armed robbery, pure and simple.”

Meanwhile, in an unmarked van across the road, Maz’s colleague Conrad Brown was filming the scene on a special night vision camera.

On the wrong end of a gun barrel, Maz had to think fast.

“I tried to calm the gunman telling him they could have the £1,500 if he left us alone,” says Maz. “As I pulled out the cash he lowered the weapon.

“The gang got their money but still gave us a kicking. My informant was left unconscious.

“But, given the circumstances, we got off lightly. . .

“The life of a Fake Sheik— where I disguise myself as a multi-millionaire Arab with full robes and an entourage of flunkies—isn’t all five-star hotels, limos, yachts and dining with the rich and famous. I’m more likely to be in a crack den nailing drug dealers or exposing arms dealers, paedophiles and corrupt politicians.”

But putting on the glitz certainly worked in nailing one world-famous supermodel Maz caught living a double life as a vice girl. The star beauty offered our fake sheik the sexiest night of his life—for a mere £40,000!

“That’s the most expensive hooker I ever exposed,” says Maz. “But she only got a £14,000 downpayment before we made our excuses and left!”

Maz’s success has a high price, too. He receives numerous death threats and was menaced by the Czech secret service after they caught him, Conrad and their towering bodyguard Mahmood Qureshi—known as ‘Jaws’ for his mouthful of diamond-studded gold teeth—with fake papers.

The trio had another close shave just days after 9/11 when they crossed into Afghanistan to infiltrate the Taliban.

The terrorists turned out to be very keen on their new English friends. Particularly Conrad. “One of the elderly Afghan warriors was gently stroking his knee,” chuckles Maz. “It was the first time they’d seen a white boy and, in an area where homosexuality isn’t uncommon, the fighter clearly took a shine to our Conrad!”

But our team’s cover was almost blown in a mosque piled high with guns as they sipped foul-tasting tea with a veteran mujahideen leader.

Maz recalls: “While Conrad and I politely sipped, Jaws interrupted the meeting by requesting milk and sugar.

“This was an insult to our Taliban hosts and I gave him a dirty look, telling him firmly, ‘This ain’t bloody Starbucks, just drink it as it f***ing comes!’ Luckily, no one there spoke English.”

A trip to Albania to expose the local mafia’s sinister people-smuggling operation put Maz’s neck on the line yet again. He writes: “Asylum seekers were flooding into the UK claiming to be victims of the war in neighbouring Kosovo, but most were bogus—Albanians out to scrounge off Britain.”

By befriending the minder of gang boss Artian in a seedy taverna, Maz found himself face to face with Mr Big —who bragged how he had sent nearly 1,000 illegal immigrants to Britain.

With the evidence on tape, Maz returned to his hotel and was writing the story when the phone rang. It was his informant, who frantically told him to get out because the mob had rumbled him. Maz and Conrad dashed to the coast and at dawn managed to avoid Mr Big’s network and blag their way onto a ferry to Italy—with the help of $100 bribes hidden in their passports!

Maz’s own network of underworld contacts came in handy when a wronged crook called for his head on a platter—in particular Lenny McLean, known as the Guv’nor after making his name as a bare-knuckle fighter, bouncer and criminal linked to the Krays. “We had a mutual respect for each other,” says Maz. “One time I was warned by cops that a fraudster I’d exposed had put a £10,000 contract on my head. But bizarrely, days later, I got a call from the crook promising we were all square with no hard feelings!

“I thought the cops had warned him off. But years later I discovered Lenny had made it known that I was his personal friend and anyone messing with me was taking HIM on.”

On the right Maz picks his favourite front-page scoops which shamed a host of big names including former England soccer boss Sven Goran Eriksson, his FA mistress Faria Alam and smarmy royal butler Paul Burrell.

But Maz is just as proud of the investigation that exposed a relative unknown, Essex glamour model Claire Kent. She got her 13-year-old daughter hooked on cocaine and planned to SELL the child’s virginity for £30,000.

“She was the most evil mum,” says Maz. “And all because she wanted drugs and a new car.”

Maz got the story from a contact in the porn industry who was appalled when Kent approached him with the idea of filming her underage daughter having sex for the first time.

Armed with Maz’s damning evidence Scotland Yard arrested her and her kids were taken into care.

Although Maz has received many plaudits and awards there is one accolade that really moved him.

He had learned of a twisted couple who were raping the children housed in the council-approved homeless hostel that they ran.

Through a contact on the inside Maz laid hands on four videos of the vile pair abusing youngsters and stashed them in his hotel room. But someone had tipped off the couple that he was from the News of the World—and hours later there was an unexpected knock at his door. Maz writes: “It was the hotel manager, shaking with fear. He told me to leave immediately through the fire exit as two villains had turned up at reception clutching large bags, demanding to know my room number.

“They told him, ‘We’ve got two shotguns. Tell him he’s a dead man. We know what he’s up to!’ ”

Maz made his escape and handed his evidence to the local police. A few days after the story was published, he received a letter from a 13-year-old girl—one of the innocent victims.

The scrawled note, touchingly riddled with spelling mistakes, said: “Thank you for rescuing me and saving my life. You are like Superman! You are my hero. You saved me from this evil man.”

Maz says: “I framed that letter and put it up on the wall of my office. It was acknowledgement that my work had saved at least one child from the clutches of a sex monster.

“It was one of the proudest moments of my career.”

GOT a scandal Maz should probe? Email maz@notw.co.uk or call his team any time on 0207 782 4402.