A PHONY SHEIKH DUPES CHER—AS WELL AS F1’S KEN TYRRELL

SULAIMAN AL-KEHAIMI WAS SON of a former Saudi ambassador, but he aimed higher—and succeeded for awhile. It’s an oft-told tale (see “Arab Cleared of £300,000 ‘Con Tricks,’ ” The Guardian, November 8, 1999; “This Faux Saudi Arabian Prince Wooed Tyrrell’s Formula 1 Team WIth Money That Didn’t Exist,” Jalopnik, October 7, 2022; and “The Untold Story of an F1 Icon, a Mysterious Trickster, and Cher,” The Race, December 25, 2024. And, in particular, the following tidbits are gleaned from Crispian Besley’s wonderful Driven to Crime.

The Call-Girl Con. One of Beirut-born Al-Kehaimi’s scams, Besley recounts, “appeared to be to ensnare targets by offering the in-flight services of call girls as an incentive to invest with him, but this soon backfired because Crown Prince Khalid [a real Saudi royal] learned of it and terminated the arrangement. No deals were ever done and the aircraft was impounded in 1996 at Standsted airport after wage and fuel bills had gone unpaid.”

Cher’s 50th. “Attracted by the glamour of Hollywood,” Besley observes, “he posed as a film producer looking to finance the next blockbuster hit. He had met the singer Cher in 1995 at a restaurant there and she was deceived by his apparent wealth and made to believe that he would finance a film project of hers.”

Besley continues, “He told her that he was a big wheel in Formula 1 and, choosing the best backdrop for the image he was trying to create, took her to the Monaco Grand Prix in 1996. Ken Tyrrell’s beleaguered outfit was desperately short of funds and he targeted the long-established and very successful team owner as the one who might be most open to his approach as a potential future sponsor.”

Besley relates, “He told two of Tyrrell’s senior staff, Bob Tyrrell and Rupert Manwaring that he would be bringing his ‘girlfriend’ Cher to the race and would be hosting a post-race 50th birthday party for her with 500 guest at ‘his’ $30 million château in Cap d’Ail.”

The Bait Taken. “After he duly arrived in the paddock with the celebrity in his arm, the team took the bait and over the course of the weekend Al-Kehaimi and his associates announced a deal to buy a 51 percent majority stake in the ailing team for $12 million. To celebrate, he invited members of the team to join him and Cher at the party.”

“However,” Besley relates, “the château wasn’t his and he wasn’t even renting it.”

Well-Crafted, Sorta. “According to Business F1,” Besley recounts, “he had viewed it a few weeks previously with an estate agent who was marketing it for sale. During the interview, an associate had managed to take the keys to the property to a locksmith and quickly had copies cut before returning them to the house. This accomplice had also memorised the gate entry and alarm codes while watching the agent tap them in.”

Full marks for the accomplice.

The Sheikh’s Gift to Cher. Besley describes, “Video footage of the party showed assembled guests referring to the host as ‘your Excellency’ and ‘the Sheikh.’ At the lavish event, Al-Kehaimi’s party piece was to give the embarrassed Cher her ‘birthday present,’ the keys to a lime-green Lamborghini Diablo that was parked outside the château wrapped in a huge red ribbon.”

Hardly Longterm Thinking. “The car,” Besley observes, “wasn’t his either as he had simply borrowed it for a test drive from a local dealer. Although he promised to have it shipped back to America for Cher, she never saw him again.”

And, I’m confident, nor that particular Diablo.

Accused, But…. Besley described, “Al-Kehaimi was arrested in 1998 after allegedly trying to fraudulently obtain money from a woman by telling her he could influence the release of her brother, who had been in jail for 10 years in Dubai without trial, if she paid him sums totaling £83,700…. It was alleged that he had woven a web of lies to perpetrate the frauds, the charges including one of attempting to obtain property by deception and another of defrauding the Tyrrell team of $100,000 in expenses…. The prosecutor described Al-Kehaimi as ‘a prince among confidence tricksters.’ ”

You’re tellin’ me.

Here’s the Kicker. Besley concludes with “The virtually penniless 39-year-old maintained that the money given to him was for legitimate business transactions and that he had every intention of paying back his creditors. Astonishingly, the jury believed him and he was cleared of five charges while the judge directed that he be acquitted of the sixth.”

Gad. Just one of Crispan Besley’s wonderful 66 tales in Driven to Crime: True Stories of Wrongdoing in Motor Racing. (See also “Driven to Crime,” SimanaitisSays, September 11, 2023.) ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2026