Episode 4 Fake Britain

Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

Welcome to Fake Britain.

Police!

In this series, I investigate the world of the criminals

who make their money at your expense.

And I'll be showing you how not to get ripped off.

Coming up:

We follow the authorities cracking down on the multi-billion trade

in fake designer clothes.

The message is, we're coming after you.

We're on the road with a Birmingham team

fighting the parking scammers.

They were robbing people. They were taking their money.

And the wonder woman headmistress

with a real MBE

and a lucrative line in fake qualifications.

It was just smooth extortionism.

And when is Mexican beer not Mexican beer?

When it's made by Chinese counterfeiters.

We don't know what's inside these bottles.

It's a blustery morning in Birmingham

and the city's Trading Standards anti-clamping team

is about to try and stop a man they believe is making his money faking parking offences.

He's licensed to clamp by the Security Industry Authority,

but the team believes he's breaking into cars, stealing the parking tickets inside

then clamping the vehicles for not displaying a valid ticket.

They're on a roof-top stakeout to catch him at it

and stop people like you becoming the victims of one of his fake offences.

It's fraud. What we intend to do is confront him, arrest him and interview him.

The team is backed up by West Midlands police.

As they watch and wait, news comes through from across town.

The person we're looking for has been stopped at a car park

on the other side of Birmingham.

We're going to go and formally arrest him

on suspicion of theft and fraud.

For a team whose main preoccupation is with stationary vehicles

they move pretty fast!

Hold him down. I'm in Digbeth. It'll take me five minutes.

He hasn't turned up to the car park we were expecting him

but he's at another car park they operate from off Broad Street.

So we're making our way there now.

He's been detained by the police until we get there.

Up there.

And when they do get there, the man suspected of fake parking offences is none too co-operative.

Sgt Temperaton. I'm arresting you on suspicion of theft from a vehicle.

You don't have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned

-something you may later rely on in court.

-Who's that, then?

He tries to do a runner. But not a chance!

Just calm down. Put your head down.

SUSPECT SHOUTS AND SCREAMS

The clamper is led off to the police station where he'll be questioned about what he's been up to.

CONTINUES SQUEALING PROTESTS

Calm down!

Meanwhile, the team make a search of his car

where they find the tools of the trade for someone faking offences.

His clamps and the credit card machine they believe he uses to take hundreds of pounds

from his victims.

Back at the station, while our happy clamper gets booked in, the team log in the evidence.

Sergeant Temperaton wants to make sure this clamper

won't be able to operate any more.

He calls the Security Industry Authority which licenses clampers

to see if they can get his licence taken away.

I've spoken to the SIA, Security Industry Association.

They are going to suspend him from operations.

Based on the fact they're suspending him, I can legitimately seize his badge

to prevent him committing further offences if we bail him.

With no licence,

he'll be unable to do any clamping.

Coming up, the team take on the company

that's building fake parking ticket machines

to falsify pay and display tickets.

It was accepting two-pound coins, but it wasn't registering on the tickets.

I felt absolutely devastated.

It's the early hours of the morning at a police station on the edge of Bristol.

A south-west England scam-busters team, with the Avon and Somerset police,

are about to strike a blow against the multi-billion-pound trade in fake clothes.

So this morning it's Operation Swell.

That comes from complaints made

about counterfeit clothing being sold openly at Bristol fruit market.

We're also linked to the stall's two vehicles, two Mercedes Sprinter vans.

The intention today is to stop those vehicles en-route to the market,

question the people on board, with a view to looking into the back of the van

at any counterfeit goods in there.

Team leader Alan Evans has had this group of market traders under surveillance for some time.

These people are travelling from up north. One from Birmingham, one from Lancashire.

It shows the value of their trade

that they're prepared to come down here.

They've been trading in these illicit goods for many years now.

They in fact supply - we believe they supply - the whole south-west of England.

We have marked police vehicles. We have road blocks on the M32.

We hope to stop these people and arrest them for being in possession of counterfeit products.

On the side of the motorway, an unmarked police car sits in wait.

They have automatic number plate recognition technology.

So as soon as the van passes the police car cameras,

they'll know.

And at 5.30am,

there they are, the two vans they're after.

The police get ready to make the arrests.

Sirens on, they pull the vehicles over.

Step out of the vehicle, please. Come round this side.

There are four people in the vans.

Right, you're under arrest under the Trade Marks Act 1994

on suspicion of carrying counterfeit goods.

All deny knowing anything about what's in the vans.

-Is this your van?

-No.

-Do you have any identification on you?

Nothing at all?

While the police read them their rights,

team leader Alan Evans has a provisional look at what's on board.

What we have here is counterfeit Adidas and Nike sweatshirts.

The suspects are searched before being taken away for questioning.

We'll seize this, have it examined, we'll confiscate the vehicles

and then determine what action we need to take

in relation to these goods.

The haul was destined to go on sale to people in the city of Bristol.

But the only place today's haul is going is a police lock-up.

The final total is over £90,000 of counterfeit clothing.

A very good result for the whole of the south-west scam-busters team. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

People who are trading these goods are linked into organised crime.

These are produced by migrant workers in this country.

They're paid peanuts for producing this product

and they're actually in a form of slavery.

We will seize these goods today and the vehicles they're trading in.

We're sending out a message. We're going to come after you. We won't tolerate this here any more.

We'll not only take your goods, but your vehicles and your houses if we need to.

Later, we take a look at a fake Lowry painting.

Probably one of the best fakes I've ever seen.

And the artificial aristocrat who almost made a fortune out of it.

I paid him a £220,000 banker's draft.

Hundreds of thousands of people all over the country

are working towards a better job, a new career or promotion by getting better qualifications.

After the studying and exams, the big day will come when you finally get your reward.

But as I've discovered, the student awarded this had worked hard at college

and paid thousands in fees for something that was totally worthless.

Because it's a fake.

Willesden, north London.

An undercover investigator is visiting a further education college.

Local trading standards have had reports that this school, and the principal that runs it,

offer not so much an education,

as an educa-sham.

They trusted her to produce the course she said she'd produce

with a qualification at the end of the day. And they were conned.

I hope one day she will get a real good reward for what she's done to people.

The school, TCS Tutorial College,

was owned and run by this woman, Dr Roselle Antoine MBE.

She'd been awarded it for services to adult learning and community development.

The media had dubbed her a wonder woman.

ITV's This Morning programme even profiled her.

Dr Roselle Antoine, MBE,

has dedicated her life to helping children who are all-too-often left behind.

Auvalyn Howell signed up to a course at TCS Tutorial College

after arriving in the UK from her native Jamaica.

She was desperate to get UK nursing qualifications

that she could use when she returned to the Caribbean.

I saw this advert in the paper.

You could get official qualifications which seemed very promising.

Enticed by the prospect of a nationally recognised NVQ,

she responded to the ad and soon after got to meet the "wonder woman" herself,

Dr Antoine, shown here in a publicity video talking to students.

I know, from experience, that what you ask for, you get.

She seemed a very intelligent woman. Very honest.

Very educated. I was very impressed.

So Auvalyn signed up for an NVQ in Access to Nursing,

£850 for a one-year course.

This was my future. It was an investment in me.

My parents borrowed the money with the expectation

after I finished my course I'd be able to earn and help them repay that loan.

At the end of her year on course, there was no sign of the NVQ Auvalyn so badly wanted.

When she complained, Dr Antoine managed to convince her

to continue her studies at TCS.

Every year she said the examination board had changed something

and I would have to re-enrol and get another visa from the Home Office to study

and I would have to pay different fees.

I think she just did it for us to constantly enrol.

It was just smooth extortionism, that's what I'd say it is.

Desperate for her qualification,

Auvalyn stayed at TCS for four years, paying £8,000 of fees in total.

Eventually, she was awarded her qualification,

an NVQ in Health and Social Care.

Only problem was, it was a fake.

Later, we find out how the authorities went under cover

to bring the "wonder woman" of Willesden crashing down.

Once we looked at the footage, we thought that nailed the whole case.

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for coming.

David Smith is an art dealer.

He specialises in the works of the great artist L.S.Lowry.

Today he's at an art auction and he's got his eye on one painting in particular.

It's a very famous painting.

If you don't know about it, the catalogue should tell you most of what you need to know.

If he buys it, it won't be the first time he's owned it.

The painting looks great. It's a lovely picture. Just a pity it isn't by Lowry!

It's probably one of the best fakes I've ever seen.

The story starts back a few years ago when David got a tip-off from a business contact

about a rare painting being sold by one Lord Maurice Taylor.

The painting, The Mill Street Scene,

was for sale as an original oil by L.S.Lowry.

I arranged to meet him at his house, a beautiful house. A Bentley on the drive.

You can see the lifestyle that he's living.

He was very convincing. I had no reason to doubt

at all that the painting was wrong.

But it wasn't just Taylor's title and lifestyle that convinced David Smith

he was buying a bona-fide Lowry.

He produced a blue bound valuation, insurance document, from Bonhams in London

for four to 600,000.

So we had no reason to doubt at all that this painting wasn't genuine.

David agreed a £330,000 price for the painting

to be paid in instalments,

the first of which was due.

We agreed a figure for the painting

and I paid him a £220,000 banker's draft.

Delighted with his purchase, David went home to share the good news with a fellow dealer.

I got home, emailed an image of the painting to somebody

who said, "Don't go near it. We've seen it. It's not right."

My partner asked me what had happened. She thought someone had died. I was grey.

It was a life-changing moment.

He asked for his money back. Taylor refused to do this.

Taylor said, "If you want to get the police, do so."

Which, with his business on the line, David Smith duly did.

This man had deceived us

and potentially taken away our livelihood and our home.

Detective Constable Dave Newton took up the case.

In order to find out whether L.S.Lowry had painted the Mill Street Scene or not,

he took it to the then Head of Galleries at the Lowry Centre.

I do remember, when I first saw this picture,

across the room, I thought, "It looks like the real thing."

It's only when one looks at the top half of the picture that things don't look so convincing.

Something's not right here.

The sky itself is the wrong colour.

In a Lowry sky, an industrial scene like this,

you would see a far bigger range of colours.

The buildings themselves, the mills, they're far too precisely done.

There is a figure that I feel is very self-consciously meant

to reference the self-portraits that Lowry often included in his pictures.

The figure leaning on his stick with a hat.

The signature is not quite fluid enough.

There are just too many doubtful elements to be able to say that this was by Lowry.

Later, we discover it's not just the Lowry that's fake.

So was the person that sold it.

He duped people into believing that he was a real lord.

Out there, on the front line in the war against fakes

is the UK Border Agency.

Every day, their officers intercept some of the millions of tonnes of fakes

that find their way into the UK via our ports and airports.

You'd think they'd seen it all,

but every now and again, the fraudsters come up with a completely new kind of fakery.

Southampton Docks, one of Britain's biggest and busiest deep-water ports.

Each year, millions of containers come through here.

Today, UK Border Agency Officer Phil Dunn is interested in just one.

We've got a container that's showing it's beer arriving from China,

not renowned as a great producer of lager.

From an importer we've checked out and we're not happy.

We'll examine the box and see what's inside

then do further checks on the contents themselves.

Phil's gambling that his hunch is right

and there's something fishy about this beer coming to the UK from China.

But inside are indeed boxes of beer.

But hold on, Corona? That's Mexican beer - from China?

And Phil's suspicious, too.

Looking at it, the quality of the labels looks quite poor.

And the packaging is very flimsy. I haven't seen it in supermarkets like that.

Certainly not the quality we'd expect of what is technically a premium beer.

It's certainly not a Mexican beer in from China!

The team begin to unload their haul.

We're taking a few more boxes out

to see if the whole container is full of Corona or there's anything else in there.

And to see how much is in there, because if it is counterfeit, we have to see how much there is.

We want to see it's all the way through. We haven't had a lot of counterfeit beer here.

But anything that can be copied will be copied.

It soon becomes clear the whole container is packed to the brim with a hooky Mexican lager.

It goes to the back of the container. It's uniform to the back.

While the rest of the team tally up, Phil wants to make some comparisons.

He heads to a major high street retailer to buy the legitimate item.

This looks good, me on duty!

This is a normal four-pack of Corona Extra beer.

We'll look at this and compare it to what we find in the container.

Back at the port, and Phil compares what he's bought with what he's seized.

The quality is much better in the packaging.

Then the bottles themselves.

They're at a consistent level, compared to these bottles. The labelling is different.

Also a lot of bottles are carrying this about units, alcoholic units.

This looks like it's been done properly.

This one, we suspect this could be counterfeit Corona.

But Phil's concern about the beer isn't just about the way it looks.

The main problem is towards the public health.

We don't know what's in the bottles.

People are drinking something and not getting the product they expect.

Back outside, the team are finishing unloading and the full scale of the haul becomes clear.

There's 28,800 bottles in this container.

Sales value, that's about 30 to £35,000-worth.

This will get handed over to our team who'll take it further.

They'll contact the rights holders

and further checks will be made to see if it's counterfeit or genuine.

Since we filmed,

the Border Agency at Southampton have discovered the beer definitely is fake Corona.

But the bottles themselves are real.

The fakers just recycled old bottles with their own cheap lager.

How many times have you paid up for one of those, stuck it in the car window and not looked at it?

Our next story might make you pay a bit more attention next time you use a pay and display.

Because it's possible you may have just bought a fake.

At an undisclosed location in Birmingham,

the city's anti-clamping team is hard at work.

They're on a mission to rid the city of an endemic problem of fake parking enforcement.

The biggest problem the team have is with a company called Car Clamping Securities, or CCS,

run by Stephen Ryan.

They run a string of pay and display car parks across the city

but at one particular car park, CCS recently hit on a new way of making money,

by faking the ticket you bought.

Kirsty Butlin chose to park at one of their car parks in Digbeth,

after seeing they offered all-day parking for £2.50.

I put in the machine a £2 coin and a £1 coin.

Because I'd put £3 in, I thought I'd have the full day's ticket.

Because I was in a rush, I just put it in the dashboard.

You wouldn't think to check the ticket. You trust the machines.

When she got back, Kirsty's car was nowhere to be seen.

I panicked. I didn't know what to do. So I called the number on the board.

And CCS told her she'd only bought a £1 ticket which had run out

so they'd clamped and towed her car.

I felt absolutely devastated.

Kirsty was directed to the company's lock-up,

where, for a fee of £295, she was given back her car.

I had to actually borrow money.

I was absolutely gutted.

Kirsty was mystified as to how the £3 she'd put into the machine

had only given her £1 of parking.

And she wasn't the only one.

The anti-clamping team were soon getting other identical complaints

from furious motorists.

Tariq Mohammed decided to try some test purchases at the car park in question.

We started putting two £1 coins and a 50p coin and it registered correctly.

Then we put a £2 coin in and we found it wasn't registering the £2 coin.

It's indicating fee paid £1, when I've stuck in £3.

So we thought, "What's going on here?"

Trading Standards left the dodgy ticket in their car.

Sure enough, when the ticket ran out, CCS's two truck was there in a flash.

Just as it had been to so many other victims.

To get the car back, Tariq went to CCS's compound.

He took the opportunity to ask them a few questions.

But was it bad luck, a mechanical error, or was something sinister afoot?

Tariq's team decided to take a closer look at that machine.

Using his powers as a trading standards officer,

he seized it and took it away for expert testing.

They discovered it had indeed been deliberately modified.

It was a chip. They call it an EPROM. That chip was deliberately programmed to accept

£2 coins and not register them on the tickets.

But who had got the chip specially programmed like this?

The culprit had left a clue.

It had the guy's name on there! S.Ryan. You can't get better than that!

The team arrested Stephen Ryan and charged him with conspiracy to defraud

and possession of an article for use in fraud.

He was found guilty and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

So far, none of the victims has got their money back.

They were robbing people. They were taking their money.

They should get what they deserve and everyone should get their money back.

Coming up, the team get wind that something strange is happening with yet another CCS ticket machine.

Auvalyn Howell had come from Jamaica to get UK nursing qualifications.

I saw this advert in the paper

which seemed very promising.

Unfortunately for her, the college she chose to get them from was this one,

run by Dr Roselle Antoine, MBE.

She seemed a very intelligent woman.

Very educated.

I was very impressed.

After four years of study, Auvalyn had finally obtained the NVQ she was so desperate for.

It had cost her £8,000 in fees.

By this time, TCS Tutorial College and Dr Antoine

were coming to the attention of Brent Trading Standards.

They were contacted by a number of students deeply unhappy by what was going on.

They'd signed up for a number of courses, specifically an NVQ.

But our investigations revealed that the college and Miss Antoine were not authorised to offer NVQs.

It's a criminal offence to offer an educational course when you're not authorised to do so.

She was producing bogus certificates in relation to that course.

The whole operation was just one big con.

Which, unfortunately for Auvalyn,

meant that the NVQ certificate that she'd studied for for four years and paid £8,000 in fees for,

was nothing but a fake.

What's that? That's nothing!

'I got a fake NVQ certificate.'

'It's basically worthless because there's nothing I can do with it.'

Because it's not even worth the paper it's printed on.

Deeply worried by what was going on,

Simon needed to get hard evidence that Dr Antoine

was openly advertising NVQs to potential students.

I decided to send in one of my investigators undercover.

She was able to meet directly with Miss Antoine

and the whole meeting was recorded on a covert camera.

And it didn't take long for Dr Roselle Antoine to show her true colours.

It's regarding NVQ 3, is it?

Once we looked at the footage, we thought that nailed the whole case.

In relation to the NVQ in Health and Social Care,

we estimate she was enrolling somewhere between 20 and 30 students a year.

On an average year, she was probably making in excess of £30,000 from students on that course.

But Dr Antoine's scam was about more than just fake qualifications.

She was also acting as a fake immigration advisor,

giving her overseas students help with their visa applications.

This came to the attention of the Office of the Immigration Services Commissioner,

the body that regulates immigration advisors.

You have to be qualified to provide immigration advice and services.

Roselle Antoine wasn't qualified. If you're not qualified, it's a criminal offence.

We searched her offices and removed some of the student files which clearly showed

applications were being sent from the college.

Dr Antoine was only too pleased

to oversee her students' immigration applications while they were paying fees.

But if, like Auvalyn, they asked too many questions,

her approach seemed to change.

She didn't submit the applications. She told the students she would,

and then the students' visas expired and they were then illegally in the UK.

Once the students had left the country, they wouldn't be able to make a complaint.

As far as she was concerned, the matter would be finished with

and she would have made thousands of pounds.

And delving deeper into Dr Antoine's background threw up more lies and deception.

It became quite clear to us that Antoine was a fraud.

Her real name was Roselle Thompson.

And we found she'd been convicted previously of fraud in the name of Thompson.

Mark's investigations showed she'd even lied about her doctorate.

Antoine had said in an interview that she had a doctorate from the University of West Indies.

We made enquiries with the university and they didn't know anybody by the name Antoine

or by the name of Thompson.

Brent Trading Standards and the OISC brought a joint prosecution against Roselle Antoine,

charging her with illegal immigration advice and fraud.

She was found guilty and sentenced to eight months in prison.

'I feel so angry. I'm not ready to forgive her yet.'

She expressed no remorse for what she's done. She's destroyed my life.

Despite this,

Auvalyn is determined to make a success of her life.

I plan to rebuild my life by acquiring my education.

I want to do nursing and I will. I will be a nurse one day.

I will be somebody that matters to my society one day.

My dreams will come true.

You work for the organisation that regulate these qualifications.

How does the law stand on who can and can't give out nationally recognised qualifications?

Colleges, if they're offering or claim to offer regulated qualifications

should get those qualifications through one of the 160 awarding organisations that we regulate.

-Anyone else is breaking the law?

-Absolutely.

The rules are different in Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, but the principal is the same.

Anybody who's looking at different colleges to do a course,

how can they be 100% certain that that qualification is genuine?

First, ask which awarding organisation is the college working with.

Contact that organisation to make sure that relationship is in place.

If not, there may be fraud taking place. Go to Trading Standards or the local police.

-What should ring alarm bells?

-Examples that don't seem right are courses that seem very quick.

Courses that are either very expensive or very cheap for what they offer.

People who guarantee a pass. No-one can guarantee a pass.

These are the sort of things that would immediately raise red flags.

-Any tips on prevention, stop it happening?

-Contact the college

and ask questions. Ask to visit the college. Ask to talk to previous students.

It's good practice to have an open day, or ask to sit in on a class

to make sure the level of teaching, the pace, is what you're looking for.

Do your pre-college homework before your real homework starts!

Before you spend your money, Dom, do your homework. Check it out and keep your records.

Thank you very much.

In Bristol,

the south-west scam-busters team are unloading the fake clothes they seized on the motorway.

With a street value of over £90,000, it's a considerable haul.

But it's just a drop in the ocean of the trade in fake clothes.

The British public spends an estimated £3 billion on fake clothing every year.

The vast majority of it comes in from the Far East through our ports.

One of the biggest in the country is Thamesport in Kent.

Today Border Agency Officer Neil Brown is on his way to revisit

two containers of goods he impounded a couple of days ago.

We have about 9,000 pairs of trainers here.

They've come from Hong Kong.

They've been selected for examination by us on the basis of some paperwork irregularities.

Having looked at them, taken some samples and sent them to the mark holder,

we're now certain that they are counterfeit goods.

This container's been tunnelled.

See how far back it goes. The boxes have already been removed.

There's about 4,000 boxes of trainers in this container.

The size of the haul is alarming.

Two container-loads.

This one is packed with fake Tiger brand shoes.

Here we have a Tiger brand trainer.

The container's full of these, about 4,000 pairs.

The only way we'd know if it was counterfeit

is to refer it to the mark holder for verification.

The second one is floor-to-ceiling with fake Adidas.

Adidas trainers.

Once again, they're very high quality trainers.

They look like the genuine article.

But they are, in fact, counterfeit goods.

Manufacturers Adidas and Tiger will now decide what happens to the haul.

Either they'll take possession of them, or they'll ask the Border Agency to destroy them.

They could also choose to take legal action against the exporter.

The street value of all these fake trainers could be up to £400,000.

If you think that a pair of trainers sells for between 20 and 40 quid,

9,000 pairs is obviously a considerable amount of money.

These two containers full of trainers worth £400,000

shows just how huge the profits in fakes can be.

Which is why people like this man get involved in the trade in fakes.

Amit Sharmah imported thousands of fake clothes and sold them online.

His victims thought they were buying designer brands like Diesel and Dolce & Gabbana.

Instead, they got substandard shoddy garments.

Despite costing pennies to make,

people paid hundreds of pounds for clothes they thought were the real thing.

Sharmah was shown to have made over £1 million out of his illegal business,

money he spent on a life of luxury.

Trafford Trading Standards prosecuted Sharmah for trade mark offences.

He was found guilty and given a 21-month prison sentence.

Art dealer David Smith paid nearly a quarter of a million pounds

for a painting he believed was by L.S.Lowry.

The painting looks great. It's a lovely picture.

Only problem was it was a fake sold to him by this man, Lord Maurice Taylor.

Taylor said, "If you want to get the police, get them."

Art experts had told police they did not believe it was an original Lowry.

Something's not right here. The sky itself is the wrong colour.

DC Dave Newton traced the previous sales history of the painting.

It showed not only had the mill scene never been near Lowry's brush...

It was never sold to Taylor as a Lowry painting.

..but that Lord Taylor knew it.

He purchased it in 2004 for £7,500.

It was sold as an "after Lowry" for that amount of money.

An "after Lowry" is a painting done in the style of the artist as a tribute.

It was never meant to be sold as a genuine Lowry.

Until it reached Lord Taylor's unscrupulous hands, that is.

Further investigations into Lord Taylor also threw up big questions

about his aristocratic credentials.

His title might have sounded grand, and, indeed, a grand is all it cost him - online!

All that his title gave him

was an eight-by-eight-inch of ground somewhere near Scotland.

He'd duped people into believing that he was a real lord.

Armed with all this evidence, DC Newton arrested Taylor.

The case went to court and Maurice Taylor was convicted of six counts of fraud,

including deceiving Bonhams to gain an insurance valuation.

He was sentenced to three years in prison.

The judge called him a cheat and a total dishonest man.

I cried.

It was a release of emotion.

But Cheshire police didn't leave it at that.

A financial investigation saw them pursue Taylor's assets through the courts.

He will have to pay back £1.15 million or face a ten-year jail sentence.

The assets already seized have gone to pay back David Smith's losses.

To celebrate the return of his money, he's looking to spend some of it at a local auction

featuring a certain painting.

Having originally agreed to pay Lord Taylor £330,000 for it,

David's hoping the Mill Street scene

will be considerably cheaper this time round!

We are going to attend the auction. And we're going to see what the picture goes for.

It's being sold without reserve by order of Her Majesty's Court Service

following a confiscation order.

Would I like to buy it?

Lot 156. Someone start me at £5,000.

A large part of me would like to buy it.

I've got 3,000 to start me. I'll take one.

The sensible part of me says, "Don't."

3,200. 3,300. 3,400. 3,500.

3,600. 3,700. 3,800. 3,900. 4,100.

4,200. 4,300. In the room.

4,400. 4,500. In the room.

4,600. 4,700. 4,800. 4,900.

5,000.

At 13,500. Are you all done now?

Thank you very much.

A little bit cheaper than it was previously!

This is the Lowry that we bought three years ago,

or, as it turned out, not the Lowry that we bought

for £330,000.

We want to put it on the wall at home and laugh at it every time we see the picture.

That's just what we're going to do. It's a great end to a miserable three years.

We've been out with Birmingham Trading Standards anti-clamping team.

We saw how they caught Car Clamping Securities boss, Steve Ryan,

for fiddling one of his machines to give out fake tickets.

It's indicating fee paid £1 when, in fact, I stuck in £3.

Today, information has come through that at another car park in another part of town

CCS has been modifying more of their fake parking ticket machines.

We're here looking at an ongoing investigation into Car Clamping Securities.

Fresh allegations have come to light in relation to ticket machines in Summer Lane.

Members of the public have complained to the team

that the machines aren't giving them the amount of time they should for the money they've put in.

Sound familiar?

The team arrive at the car park

and use marked coins to try and establish what's wrong with the machines.

It says there please pay 50p per hour or 3.50 all day.

We've put in £3 and instead of the machine giving us six hours, it's given us four hours.

So if someone was to put that in their vehicle, they could get clamped and towed away

if they thought they had six hours.

The ticket is all the evidence Tariq needs to seize the machines and shut down the car park.

He phones CCS to let them know.

My name's Mr Tariq, from Birmingham Trading Standards.

We're inspecting two of your ticket machines in Summer Lane.

Could you send someone down?

I spoke to somebody who purported to be the owner. She can't make it for a few hours.

Then somebody calling himself a representative of CCS arrives on the scene.

-So, mate, who are you?

-My name's Nathan.

Do you work for CCS?

Not yet, I'm just a rep for them.

-Rep in what sense?

-Just helping out as I can.

Sergeant Temperaton isn't too impressed with that job description.

I'm not being funny, but I don't know who you are.

I won't discuss the investigation with you without knowing who you are.

OK. What's your full name?

I've got to issue this.

Nathan what?

Sgt Temperaton warns the company rep that if he doesn't co-operate, he'll arrest him.

With no option but to co-operate,

the company rep agrees to open both the machines for Tariq.

Can we start with this one first, mate?

And inside is another of the infamous CCS EPROM chips

believed to be doctoring the machine.

In a nutshell, I won't go into details,

but it doesn't give out what it's actually stating.

Tariq wants to give it away for expert testing.

We're going to be seizing these.

CCS's representative is far from happy.

-We are going to take them.

-These machines are now being seized.

And so CCS impound two more of CCS's fake ticket machines.

I feel good. We've stopped people from being clamped and towed away.

We've identified the problem at an early stage.

We're just here to enforce the law.

And with no working ticket machines,

for the rest of the day at least, parking here is free.

At Tilbury Docks in Essex, the Border Agency have found the perfect way

to deal with fake designer clothes.

They've intercepted another consignment of fakes from China.

To make sure it never hits the streets of Britain,

they decide to destroy it themselves.

This is a consignment of goods we intercepted at Tilbury Docks.

It's a private import from China.

When we started to unload it, we found a load of different clothes, trainers and shirts.

We've had confirmation from the rights holders that this consignment is counterfeit.

As it's only a small amount, we're going to destroy the goods locally.

What we'll do is cut the suits up...

..smash the watches up...

..cut the trainers up...

..and then the items will be bagged and we'll take them to a local incinerator

and destroy them there as well.

A great result for the Border Agency.

The only place these fake clothes are going is up in smoke.

That's all from Fake Britain today.

Bye for now!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd