Episode 10 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

In this series, I'm going to be investigating the world

of the criminals who make their money at your expense

and I'm going to show you how not to get ripped-off.

Coming up, fake cosmetics.

We reveal the multi-million pound industry of counterfeits in the UK.

Pure organised crime.

These people are making huge sums of money from their criminality.

And they might not give you the look you were aiming for.

It was an immediate reaction. My eyes were watering, my skin went blotchy and red.

We follow the Driving Standards Agency as they track down

the impersonators whose fraud puts every driver on the road at risk.

People are obtaining licences without ever having taken a test or a theory test.

Frankly, they wouldn't be fit to drive on the road.

And at the airport, we reveal how fakers try to fool the UK Border Agency

and smuggle tens of thousands of pounds of drugs into the country.

It's a good thing we don't believe everything that's on there. "Study material."

I've got 13 kilos of cannabis. Not quite the same thing, really.

We've all looked at the driving skills of others on the road sometimes

and thought, how on earth did you ever get a licence?

And the terrifying truth is that there really are people out there

driving right now who have never passed the examination.

They are the driving test fakers.

Getting a driving licence usually means hours of lessons

and a nervous session with a driving test examiner.

But in the world of the professional faker,

there is a way to get on the road without ever passing your test.

The Driving Standards Agency believe they have identified a gang

who have carried out more than 300 test impersonations on behalf of others,

putting many unqualified drivers in the lane right next to you.

As day breaks over the south east of England, police officers and investigators

from the Driving Standards Agency are hitting the road

on their way to raid a number of addresses they've linked to a gang

they suspect of arranging hundreds of fake driving tests.

To effect an arrest on a female

involved in the impersonations when conducting the theory tests

and indeed doing driving tests, if you like, on behalf of other people.

This is the woman they're after.

Her name is Sara Gellner-Ward but at driving test centres

she'll pretend to be whoever has paid her enough money to take their test for them.

And she's not alone.

This man is also part of the driving test fakers' gang.

Investigators think he's the ring leader.

This CCTV shows him at driving test centres at Derby and Grantham on the same day,

but he passed his test long ago.

He's been paid to go and pass tests for other people.

People are obtaining licences without ever obtaining or having taken a test or a theory test.

Frankly, they wouldn't be fit to drive on the road.

The woman officers have come to arrest today

is believed to be charging £800 to take a theory test

and up to £1,800 for the driving test itself.

The police arrive at the suspect's block of flats in force,

but when they knock on the door, no-one answers.

They're left with no choice but to force their way in.

Police!

Police officers!

But it soon becomes apparent there's no-one home.

There's nobody in.

We've deployed some uniformed officers to look for her. We have a car registration number.

It's my hope that she'll come back during the morning and we'll be able to arrest her.

And something they've found looks very familiar.

I understand it's in one of the CCTV images

of the lady

when she's doing one of the tests.

It's fairly distinctive.

And it's not long before the head of the Driving Standards Agency's

anti-fraud team turns up some potentially telling evidence.

What we've got here is credit card bank details

which show almost 40 tests booked with the DSA,

which shows that this individual has at least paid for those tests.

40 tests in three months.

It's a crucial piece of evidence because it shows the link

between her and the fraud that we're investigating.

And that's not all. Also in the flat is a diary.

That was a diary found in the premises, which clearly shows

dates and test centres

which we believe are the test centres that they've been to

to carry out tests for other people.

This diary is going to be excellent evidence for us in court.

But with no sign of the suspect,

the police decide to move on to other members of the gang.

Intelligence has come through that a key piece of evidence

is currently parked outside a house a few miles down the road.

We've traced a hire vehicle to an address there

that has been linked to some of the tests

that have been taken fraudulently.

The hire car in question is sat in the drive.

That vehicle has been used to take driving tests,

fraudulently using fake identities to actually take the tests.

With another significant piece of evidence in their possession,

the police have got one last address they want to visit.

This is the house where the man they're after lives.

Police enter the premises to arrest the suspect

and, thankfully, he's at home and not out taking a test.

They believe he's carried out numerous impersonations

at driving test centres across the UK.

And that t-shirt he's wearing is the same one he had on

in the CCTV footage.

They also search the suspect's car, where they recover his Sat Nav.

They hope it will show exactly where he's been driving to

which could well be driving test centres.

And the woman they were looking for at the first location,

Sara Gellner-Ward, later handed herself in to police.

Today has been a great success.

We've captured the main suspect. He's just been arrested.

Police executed a search warrant and we've obtained a large amount of evidence from that property.

Those that have been arrested have been transported back to the police station.

They'll be interviewed, the evidence will be put to them, and we'll see what they want to say.

The Driving Standards Agency team's suspicions proved to be correct

and the gang were all given jail sentences.

This man, Christopher Buckland,

received two years behind bars for his role as a test faker.

Sara Gellner-Ward and another woman were also convicted

and given 20 and 24 months jail.

Worryingly, this is just one of over 700 fake driving test cases

the Driving Standards Agency is currently investigating.

Fake benefit claims cost this country billions of pounds each year

and take money away from people who really need it.

Benefits payments can add up to hundreds of thousands of pounds

and there's one extraordinary case that demonstrates how hard

one very unscrupulous individual was willing to work to get money

he had no right to.

This footage from Morocco shows a man dancing happily at his own wedding.

This footage of the same man was shot by surveillance officers

from the UK Border Agency in London

investigating him for a massive fake benefit claim.

He was registered as profoundly disabled,

yet he was walking down the street.

An investigation by the UK Border Agency revealed he was responsible

for one of the most audacious frauds ever committed

against the UK benefits system.

On the scale of it and the cheek, if you like, of the person,

I think it's pretty serious

and ranks up there as one of the most audacious frauds I've seen.

The man's name is Mohammed Bouzalim

and, as the team led by Robert Coxhead investigated him,

they discovered that over a nine-year period,

their target had received nearly £400,000 in benefits.

He claimed to be paralysed from the neck down and bedridden,

needing constant care.

But officers had had a tip off that he wasn't ill at all.

His entire claim was an elaborate con to steal benefit money from the state.

These images were taken of his flat whilst a team from Camden Council

are inside carrying out routine checks on his condition

to confirm he still has the physical disabilities he claims benefits for.

They reported back to the UK Border Agency officers what they found.

They find him sitting in a chair,

he's got a blanket pulled up to his neck,

shaking, unable to do anything,

unable to move, unable to help himself.

His carers are present.

But after the council team leave,

it seems something very strange has happened.

A short while later, low and behold,

there's Mr Bouzalim walking out the door,

able to open the door unaided,

and walks off, we think, to his local shop for whatever purpose.

But certainly a miraculous recovery.

This was the moment UK Border Agency officers' suspicions were confirmed.

They soon discovered everything about Bouzalim was fake.

Investigations revealed he had claimed asylum in the UK as an Afghan,

saying his father was murdered by the Taliban,

but in fact he was a Moroccan whose parents were alive and well

and also in London claiming benefits.

Now officers knew they had enough evidence to prove he was a faker,

they knocked on his door.

He actually answered the door which we were quite pleased with.

He came across as able-bodied, obviously an intelligent man,

and made no claims he was disabled whatsoever.

We found a certain amount of the equipment that had been provided to him

in a cupboard not being used.

Tens of thousands had been spent modifying the flat

to cope with Bouzalim's supposed disabilities.

The whole flat had been fitted out for someone severely disabled.

There was a hoist from the bed

that would take you to the kitchen and the front room.

This flat was equipped for someone with severe disabilities

which Mr Bouzalim didn't have.

But what officers discovered he did have were identity documents

that enabled him to live a double life.

When using the name Mohammed Hussini he pretended to be disabled,

but when he used his real name of Bouzalim, he used a fake Belgian passport

to qualify for, amongst other things, cheap education.

I think there was a certain arrogance about this man.

As I say, he was a very intelligent guy

and I think he was surprised he'd been caught out.

He'd committed fraud against various organisations.

He had £137,000 from Camden Council.

£70,000 of housing benefit.

£74,000 of income support.

£60,000 from the independent living fund.

£15,000 disability living allowance.

And money from several other organisations,

totalling nearly £400,000.

And it's not just a case of taking money.

Specialist housing in the area is in short supply.

Of the Camden housing stock,

flats of this nature for the severely disabled are a very scarce resource,

but here was Mr Bouzalim using this flat

and depriving someone else of it.

And whilst searching his house

they came across the video of him dancing at his wedding.

It made very compelling evidence in court

to shatter his claims of disability.

Mr Bouzalim initially tried to plead that he was mentally unstable,

but the strength of evidence provided by the UK Border Agency

completely undermined his attempted defence.

At the ends of the trial,

Mr Bouzalim came into court with a nurse and in a wheelchair.

However, the doctors and the consultants

could find no evidence of any real medical illness.

He subsequently pleaded guilty to multiple charges of fraud and immigration offences.

He was given six years and eleven months jail for his crimes.

His brother and sister received suspended jail sentences for their role as his accomplices.

The investigation revealed that they were fraudulently posing as his carers

even though he didn't need care.

This is a complex fraud

that was being practiced by a highly intelligent man.

Mr Bouzalim has attended a number of universities

and at the time of his arrest he was studying a PhD,

so this is a man who obtained numerous certificates

testifying to his intelligence.

It's just a shame he decided to use it in the way he did

and defraud the UK taxpayer.

When it comes to make-up,

something like a foundation cream from major brands

could cost up to £50.

And with prices like that for the real thing

it's no surprise that the fakers are getting in on the make-up act.

One recent survey discovered that British women spend around £9,000 of their lifetime's earnings

on different make-up and beauty products.

And women are investing their time in make-up, too.

The survey found that on average, 330 days of a woman's life are spent putting make-up on.

People trust that what they're rubbing onto their skin is safe.

But our investigation reveals that dangerous fakes are on sale across the UK.

and that it might be harder than you think to tell the difference.

This is Wembley market - a bustling hive of trade

in the shadow of the UK's world famous football ground.

But this footage of the market is being shot by private detectives

who have got a trader here in their sights.

This man is suspected of selling large quantities of fake cosmetics

to unsuspecting members of the public.

He doesn't realise that he and his employees are under surveillance

by former police officer Dave McKelvey.

Dave specialises in tracking down counterfeiters

who sell fake high-end merchandise like jewellery and cosmetics.

It's far easier to sell counterfeit goods

than it would be to sell drugs or guns on the streets,

and the profits are substantially higher.

Dave has identified market traders and online sellers

who are dealing in counterfeit make-up.

He thinks there's great risk for many buyers.

There's a real health and safety issue.

You've got chemicals such as mercury within these products

that effectively are being rubbed on the skin.

You've got young ladies...

ladies buying this stuff believing it to be genuine.

It's not genuine, it's fake.

Dave is investigating the seller on behalf of some of the companies who are being counterfeited.

Today, he hopes to gather a vital piece of evidence.

This woman and a male investigator will make a test purchase and record it on a concealed camera.

Dave suspects this will prove the staff on the stall

are telling buyers that all the goods are the real thing.

You've got to be very, very careful.

The fact is, if you got caught over there,

you wouldn't have a chance

because obviously you'd be set upon by any number of the criminals

that sell these goods, so you've got to be very careful, you've got to be very covert.

But the test purchase goes according to plan.

Our people were there going through the various items on display,

picking them up and showing them,

and the suspects were then trying to say they are genuine.

Clearly they're not. Clearly they're fake.

They're completely undervalued and they are fakes.

So buyers are told they're getting the real thing at a knockdown price.

One of the operatives returns with the footage and a bag full of test purchases.

And Dave has recorded vital video evidence to prove what's happening.

Subject one in...into the vehicle.

A few days later and Dave is in the car park

just behind Wembley market at closing time, waiting for his target to leave.

He plans to follow the suspect back to wherever he is storing all his stock.

If Dave can find the address, he can arrange for police

and Trading Standards to raid it and arrest the man.

He just has to stick close to that van.

If you work it out, he's probably taking

most of the ones we've done in the past,

upwards of £2,000-£3,000 from one Sunday's work.

Sometimes more.

Which...that's all tax free.

Potentially, he could be earning £5,000 a week cash in his hand,

£20,000 a month, not paying tax on it,

damage is being done to the brand.

We're off.

Dave will use his years of experience in the police to secretly tail his suspect.

He's got two other investigators in separate vehicles to help him.

Towards the exit, offside indication.

Up ahead is the van full of suspected fake make-up.

If the trader is going back to his storage facility

then Dave will have an address and can set up a raid with the police and Trading Standards.

That's if the van driver doesn't spot he's being tailed.

He's driving quite aggressively, he's driving quite fast.

The target van is off the main road and onto an industrial estate.

Dave thinks he must be heading to a storage unit.

Time to take some photographic evidence.

That's the bloke.

And with those snaps, Dave's got the evidence he needs

and can pass on what he's discovered to the manufacturers

and Trading Standards.

A very good day.

We've identified the storage unit,

we've seen them unloading God knows what,

but you'd think there's a substantial amount of counterfeit goods in the unit.

We'll now put the job together, let the rights holders know

and brief either Trading Standards or police.

On the High Street, manufacturers like Estee Lauder, MAC and Benefit have all been alarmed

following seizures of fakes by Trading Standards in the Midlands.

Recently, there was a really worrying development

that came thorough from Coventry Trading Standards.

It actually showed that one of the counterfeit products

which was our Bad Girl Lash Mascara contained mercury.

It could cause all sorts of problems from loss of sight to irritation,

but also it can go into the body though the eye

and that can be dangerous for every part of your system.

Unsurprisingly, legitimate make-up manufacturers have to follow

strict guidelines about what they can put in their products.

There's a really lengthy compliance procedure when you're making products.

Cowboys and fake traders have no interest in following these strict compliances.

Why would they?

So consumers are buying products that they think are genuine

but are potentially harmful because of the ingredients that are being used.

Which is bad news for make-up buyers like Laura Barrie,

who recently made several purchases from eBay.

I bought from eBay a foundation.

I realised quite quickly after using it, it wasn't a benefit.

It was an immediate reaction. It was really uncomfortable,

really sore, my eyes were watering, my skin went all blotchy and red

and it was going all over my cheeks and down by me jaw line here.

It was immediate - you could tell something was wrong straight away.

I was worried because I didn't know how long it would take

for the reaction to go down or if it would get worse.

And if you've bought a fake,

there's very little the real manufacturer can do to help you.

It's completely out of my hands because I wouldn't know what's in these products,

where they were from, how they were produced.

It's such a shame.

Fortunately, your rash disappeared.

We've had customers complaining about fake products where they've had more than just a rash.

They've had to go into hospital because of the side effects of these fake products.

And a brush with fake make-up has certainly changed

Laura's attitude to shopping.

As a result of what happened, I'd be a lot more cautious about buying anything online.

And although the products are fakes, the packaging could fool most people.

The crazy thing about these counterfeit products is that they actually scan through our tills.

Whenever anyone brings a product back for any reason,

we open the package because that's how we can tell if it's a fake or not.

But even if the machines get confused sometimes,

staff have become skilled at spotting the fakes.

Here I have two baskets.

One is full of counterfeit products and the other is full of real products.

I'm head make-up artist for Benefit and I can't tell the difference.

We've given Lisa one of the fakes seized by Dave Mckelvey at Wembley

to compare it to the real product and see if she can spot any giveaway signs that it's a fake.

They look remarkably alike.

I still couldn't tell the difference by looking at them like this.

But once they're open, the difference is clear.

This is the real one and it starts as a cream.

With this product, the counterfeit, it's a powder.

The actual product inside is completely different.

This is such a good example of the fact they don't know how to make cosmetics.

This is a pure fake.

And across London, in Wembley, at least one fake trader

has been caught out.

Earlier, we saw how private investigator Dave Mckelvey

had covertly filmed this man selling fake make-up on market stalls.

When Dave submitted his evidence to the authorities,

the man was arrested and has since been charged.

Dave photographed much of what was found

when Waltham Forest Trading Standards raided his lock up.

All the goods from the various stalls that were being run

would be placed into suitcases

so when we carried out the search with police,

we recovered all of those goods which we could tie into the stuff

that we had seen being sold at the markets.

Genuine value if it was real, probably in excess of £100,000.

This is organised crime - pure organised crime.

The seller has now had his operation in London shut down.

Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world

with planes landing every minute in peak time.

It's where many of us fly out on holiday from,

but it's also where much of what we buy across the country arrives,

from machine parts to frozen foods.

But what you don't see on your way through checkout

is the cat and mouse game between the smugglers trying to move drugs

and counterfeit goods in to the UK through the airport,

and the officers from the UK Border Agency who examine

many of the packages coming in for any signs of a fake shipment.

It involves searching thousands of packages every day.

Today, the team are looking for counterfeit goods or concealed drugs and firearms.

This package has caught Officer Glen's attention.

It's very heavy and he's not sure it is what it says it is.

It's supposed to be study material so it could be exam papers,

sometimes it's students returning and they put their folders in there.

They don't feel like text books, so Glen wants a closer look.

It's really solid. Nice square pack.

Probably kilo blocks in each one.

The contents feel familiar to an experienced officer.

Yeah, cannabis, it is.

They've put it in heat-sealed bags to try and detect the smell

but the smell is quite strong. It would be an interesting study!

If the whole box is full of cannabis,

it'll be worth tens of thousands of pounds in profits

to the drug ring that were trying to bring it in illicitly.

Whenever we find drugs or anything, there's some kind of fakery in the description.

They always describe things as not what they are.

They're just trying to throw us off the scent with that description.

Of course, drug smugglers aren't going to tell officers

what they're really putting in their shipments,

and the officers need to confirm that this is illegal narcotics.

What we do now is what we call a field test

and it verifies that it is cannabis.

We're going to put it on a filter test.

This tests for heroin, opiates, cocaine, cannabis.

The chemicals in that tiny tube will mix with the substance

from the packets and cause a reaction.

If there's a thick line next to the letters THC on that tester,

this is cannabis.

It's that one there we're looking at, so that's a result on that.

The test confirms it's cannabis

and with 13 items at roughly £3,000 per packet,

the team have seized nearly £40,000 of narcotics in one hit

thanks to Glen's vigilance.

It's a good thing we don't believe everything that's on there.

That's definitely fake. "Study material."

We've got 13 kilos of cannabis. Not quite the same thing really.

And having made one major find, the team have called in another colleague

to help search for any more drugs, and they think they might have spotted something.

One of my colleagues has found a package

which is similar to the one that Glen found.

We suspect there could be cannabis in here, as well.

This one is also described as study material.

The team have found a further eight packets in another shipment.

That's another £24,000 the smugglers have just lost.

The two found packages were marked for an address in Yorkshire.

Amarjit will inform officers there of what's been found,

as well as letting other airport teams know.

We've had a very successful morning.

We've had two drugs jobs. Seizures are going to be progressed upwards to the international crime team.

The drugs were passed to police officers from West Yorkshire to investigate.

In one year, Amarjit and his colleagues in the airport search teams

seized several million pounds' worth of cannabis.

If you've been to a gym recently, you may have seen a few of these things before.

They're suspension training systems

and they've become massively popular with athletes across the world

for building core strength and general fitness.

And you can even buy your own system and use it at home.

Some fitness instructors specialise in training people on the kits.

Suspension training one of the most popular forms of exercise in UK,

mainly because it uses all the muscles all the time. You're working the whole body the whole time.

And the strength and quality of the system is crucial

because they have to take a person's full body weight for much of an exercise.

But as these systems have grown in popularity with the health conscious,

they've started to attract the attention of fakers

making weak and untested counterfeits

and selling them on at a huge profit.

But instructors think there's a reason why safety is key to the product.

If this equipment was a fake and it gave out,

I would fall flat on floor.

I'm almost putting my whole body force through the kit.

If it snapped, I really would be hitting the floor.

TRX are a market-leading brand and were delighted that their system had become so popular.

But when they looked at online sales, they were horrified.

They saw an enormous number of fake websites were offering counterfeit systems

and telling buyers they were the real thing.

Matthew Januszek is a UK dealer in suspension systems

and has become very familiar with the hunt for online fakes.

TRX have found in the region of 10,000 units globally

that they've been able to identify.

They've also been successful in closing down

150,000 re-sellers of fake products.

And as the company began to act to seize fake products,

they noticed something very worrying for anyone who'd bought one.

One of things we've noticed about all the fakes, without exception,

is that the quality of stitching

and the way these things are put together

is very basic and in a very cheap way.

What we find is within a few weeks of using the fakes,

is that these things fail.

You could be lucky and not injure yourself,

or you could be unlucky and injure yourself quite badly.

In this box is a fake TRX kit

that has been ordered from a website based in China.

It was sold as the real thing but at a discounted price,

although still nearly £100.

Thousands like this have been sold to unsuspecting UK consumers

but a quick examination of some areas that are vital to safety

reveals that it's a fake.

This is what you'll be suspending yourself on.

This is attached with the webbing and this stitching is also crucial.

It's very easy to come away. It's light stitching.

If you're going to be using this with any kind of body weight,

this is the area where it's going to fail.

This has been very badly finished.

You'll see it's just been snipped off.

If you see anything like this,

this is a tell-tale sign that you're not buying the original item.

All of those parts are key

to holding up someone's body when they're using the kit.

Were any of them to fail, it could be a disaster.

But that's exactly what happened to professional instructor Stephen Doody.

He bought a batch of TRX systems online

and one gave out just as he was teaching a new client to use it.

I was furious. I really was.

At the time, we had a lot of clients, as well.

To happen in a personal training session, we had classes,

so potentially it could ruin the business.

Stephen had bought his kits from what he thought was a legitimate vendor,

but when he examined the rest of the batch he had, he found they were all flawed.

The stitching was of low quality.

The cam buckle was slipping an awful lot.

The carabiner steel not being strong, that was starting to bend.

Slowly after that, the handles.

Just little impurities, imperfections,

that should be finished the whole way and it wasn't.

Personal trainers like Stephen have lost money on the fake gear,

and Matt thinks all prospective buyers of suspension systems need to be careful.

There seems to be a very profitable black market business.

You'll see that it's extremely lucrative.

We believe, in a lot of cases,

people see this as a fantastic business opportunity

and are probably not considering some of the consequences

of supplying these products.

So while the market for suspension systems might be going strong,

the fake kits certainly aren't.

Fake identity documents are the quick route to getting

a job in the UK when you have no right to work here.

But the fakes don't have to be as obvious as a passport or a driving licence,

as investigators from the UK Border Agency regularly discover.

It's the early hours of the morning

and enforcement officers in West London are about to mount

an operation against suspected illegal workers.

We will be going to...

We know that employed persons

are unlawfully present in the United Kingdom

and so we've encountered them on a couple of occasions now.

The UK Border Agency carried out 6,500 illegal working operations

in the last year,

and the company they are looking at today have already had one visit.

The main part of the team will be going into this building.

They were fined for employing illegal workers at a different

facility they operate, but the UK Border Agency suspect they're still

doing it at other branches, and they're about to find out for sure.

As they arrive, they've found one man trying to make an exit,

and inside the main loading bay there is a collection of workers, most of whom are from India.

The UK Border Agency team need to find out

if everyone has visas to work here.

We've just arrived at the premises. We've secured the premises.

We had somebody from the workforce trying to abscond as we arrived.

We're now looking at all of the employees

and having a chat with them to see if they're of interest to us.

One man they're talking to is being evasive about his full name.

You know what your full name is, OK?

Why don't you tell me?

-No, I just...

-It's not a 'just', it's quite a simple, clear question.

-Yeah, I know. Sorry, I forgot that.

-What do you mean?

The man doesn't even work here.

He had just driven up in his van to collect some wholesale fruit and veg.

If he'd left ten minutes earlier he'd have escaped the operation.

You've got no permission to work so I'm therefore arresting you

as a person liable to be detained.

We will be making arrangements for your removal back to India.

The man has told officers he has his family living with him

and according to records, they have had numerous appeals to stay here turned down.

No wonder he wouldn't give his name.

And this man definitely shouldn't be here.

OK, you're an overstayer here since 2006.

Therefore, you're arrestable, so I'm arresting you.

You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence

if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court.

Overstayers are amongst the most common types of fake workers in the UK.

They will have entered the country with a valid visa

but not left when the visa ran out.

Few reliable statistics exist to detail how many people overstay

and get jobs in the UK, but this man will now be held at a removal centre nearby

whilst they confirm he can be returned to his native India.

Another man has been arrested for using a fake document.

The team have checked his application for a visa

and found that he used a fake student's letter to justify staying in the UK.

Well, he's a student, and his student visa has expired.

He's submitted an application for a further stay,

but we believe that the documents that he's submitted in support of that application are counterfeit.

The man insists an agency in India dealt with his visa application

and any fake claims about his status were made by them.

Officers will note his claim and investigate.

Your agents submitted false documents for you?

That's what the answer says.

It's basically saying, I got my visa through my agent

who submitted a letter from the college which was counterfeit, which I found out here.

In the UK. That's what it's saying. What you've said.

You just need to initial at the end of that, here.

That stops anyone else adding anything on.

The man made an application with his real passport and name

but the college paperwork was false.

The UK Border Agency team have seen things like this before.

Well, clearly the belief when those documents were sent off

was that they'd be sufficiently good to convince the Home Office

but, equally, it would appear in this case they weren't.

The company employing the arrested workers could be liable

for a £10,000 fine for each one of them.

And last year, the UK Border Agency served nearly 1,900 such fines

on UK employers.

We've made three arrests - two of them are men who've overstayed their visas,

and the other one is a student

who has applied to have his visa extended

but he's submitted in support of that application forged documents.

Further checks confirmed this man was a fake student.

He fraudulently claimed to be studying at a UK college,

but they had never offered him a place.

They wrote this letter, detailing how the man was a prime example

of an ongoing fraud involving many fake students,

but they've singled him out as one of the worst,

having an application that had forged college signatures

and letterheads and even forged references.

He gained a student visa from the UK under false pretences

and was only ever here to work.

It's not unusual.

With a large number of students coming to the UK

and a large number of them applying for further leave,

we do quite often encounter forged documentation

that's sent in in support of those applications.

Illegal workers with no right to take jobs in the UK

are believed to cost the economy millions and drive unemployment up.

Last year, UK employers were fined £7 million

for employing illegal workers - hardly a cost saving measure.

The man with the van has a case pending in court

but the fake student and the overstayer

were taken to Colnbrook Removal Centre.

The fake student was recommended for removal,

but is currently undergoing a judicial review.

The overstayer is in custody.

He's wanted for questioning by the police.

Last year, 52,000 people were removed or agreed to leave the UK

following action from the UK Border Agency.

Most of us are very particular about the food we eat

and food manufacturers are required to list all the ingredients on the stuff they sell.

But what happens when a manufacturer tells us lies

about what's actually in their product?

These British bees are busy pollinating flowers

and producing the 6,000 tonnes of honey the UK creates every year.

But consumers here eat five times more honey than our bees can make

so the country imports huge amounts from across the world,

and in one very unusual case,

that led to a sticky end for honey-lovers on the South Coast.

This is the Trading Standards office at Worthing near Brighton in Sussex.

Like any Trading Standards team, they are used to seeing fake alcohol

and cigarettes, but a routine visit revealed something in a local store

that surprised even them.

We basically found a variety of products on for sale,

and one was this honey product here.

It's described as honey, but it looks like a syrup-based product

and that's where our suspicions started from.

Trading Standards did a test purchase of a jar

of the strange looking honey and decided to send it for analysis.

The honey was sent for testing at this specialist lab in Worcester.

They have a variety of procedures designed to find out exactly

what's in any product that's sent to them.

There's a small sample of the supposed honey

mixed in with other materials in that tiny bottle.

But it's enough for the machine to analyse what sugars it contains.

The amount of the various different sugars

lets us know whether it's a genuine honey or not.

And elsewhere, the honey was put under extreme magnification.

Chances are it should contain some of this - pollen.

If it was a heather honey, I would have expected to see heather pollen,

but on this sample there's no pollen grains.

And having spun, dipped and micro-analysed the honey,

they reached their conclusions about what was in their sample.

The analysis has shown that there's no honey present in the sample and it's most likely a sugar syrup.

With confirmation that it wasn't honey,

Trading Standards decided that they needed to seize

all supplies of the fake spread.

They traced it to an East London importer

and took their van to seize whatever they had.

When we entered the premises we discovered

over 1.1 tonnes of the fake honey, which certainly filled our van.

The company had imported the fake spread from the Middle East

and there was a simple economic reason why the manufacturer used syrup.

It's as little as a quarter of the price of quality honey.

When they described this as honey, they knew it was a syrup-based product,

a cheaper version and an inferior product.

And this is where the syrup ended up.

There was so much of it that Trading Standards were unable to put it

in their storeroom - its weight would have broken the floor.

And with all the syrup now doing porridge in the council building,

fakes are off the morning menu.

Let's hope we have made the breakfast tables of Worthing a safer place.

That's all from Fake Britain today. Bye for now.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd