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. Galloway said he had put off the meeting for several weeks and was suspicious from the beginning. Of the men, he wrote on his website that "neither of the two looked at all like an Islamist (which is what they later claimed to be); neither had a beard".