The Betting Syndicate Fraud: How a Former Police Officer Stole £44 Million / Layezy Racing
They Walk Among Us - UK True Crime
They Walk Among Us
4.5 • 6.8K Ratings
🗓️ 12 April 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A former Kent Police sergeant. A grandfather. A man who spent years telling over 6,000 people their money was safe in his hands. Michael Stanley ran the Layezy Racing Syndicate, a horse racing betting scheme he claimed was virtually risk-free. For years, the monthly reports he sent out appeared to prove it was working perfectly. They were complete fabrications…
*** LISTENER CAUTION IS ADVISED ***
This episode was written by Rosanna Fitton. Research by Benjamin Fitton.
Illustrations and production direction by Rosanna Fitton.
Audio editing by Joel Porter at Dot Dot Dot Productions.
Narration, additional audio editing and mixing, and script editing by Benjamin Fitton.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This episode contains distressing themes. |
| 0:09.6 | This podcast is intended for a mature audience. |
| 0:14.2 | Listener caution is advised. |
| 0:19.6 | When people invest their money, it's vital they trust the person handling it. |
| 0:25.5 | Who better than someone whose career was dedicated to surfing the public. |
| 0:30.7 | Thousands of people in the UK would face financial ruin after becoming involved in a betting syndicate run by a former police officer. |
| 0:40.1 | There had been considerable profits, but the syndicate fell apart in early 2019, leaving |
| 0:47.0 | victims with empty bank accounts and no idea what to do. |
| 0:51.5 | Tens of millions of pounds of their hard-earned savings seem to disappear into thin air. |
| 0:59.0 | Welcome to They Walk Among Us, a podcast dedicated to UK True Crime. This is the 60th in a series of bonus episodes. |
| 1:16.0 | Thank you. is the 60th in a series of bonus episodes. At the centre of it all was an unlikely coneman Michael Stanley, a former Kent Police |
| 1:22.2 | Sergeant and grandfather. |
| 1:24.9 | A self-style trude analyst of horse racing, he claimed to have an investment system |
| 1:30.2 | that was, in his words, virtually risk-free. It was supposedly foolproof. He assured his |
| 1:37.9 | investors' extraordinary returns if they would just invest with him and trust his knowledge. |
| 1:46.0 | Stanley claimed he knew what he was doing, declaring he could turn £1,000 into $13,000 in just four years. |
| 1:53.8 | Astonishingly, for a while at least, the monthly reports he sent out appeared to confirm |
| 1:59.1 | that everything was working exactly as promised. |
| 2:03.1 | Still behind the glossy paperwork and confident reassurances, the reality was far different. |
| 2:10.9 | Michael Stanley was running one of the largest Ponzi schemes ever seen, a fraud of such |
| 2:16.7 | magnitude that the judge who sentenced him said it |
| 2:19.5 | went far beyond most frauds, even serious frauds. This is the case of the lazy racing fraud. |
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