Episode 1 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

It's just an ordinary house. It could be anywhere in the country.

But this is a house that's filled with fakes

and you may not know it but your home could be full of them, too.

During the series we'll be investigating the criminals trying

to get their hands on your cash by using forgeries, frauds and fakery.

And I'll be showing you how you can avoid being taken for a ride.

On today's programme...

Police! Open it now!

..countdown to a crackdown for the fakers selling high-end

counterfeit watches as Manchester Police call time on their crimes.

I think we've hit the jackpot, here.

We follow animal health inspectors sniffing out fake pet passports.

To be told that he had to be taken away was shocking.

And the hi tech criminal mastermind who made millions

from faking car identities.

This was one of the largest vehicle identity

faking operations that the Met has ever seen.

Now we all remember those cheap,

fake watches you used to be able to buy down the market for a few quid.

Those days have gone

and now watch fakery has upped its game to a completely new level.

Have a look at this.

It looks amazing. It's heavy.

It's got the right box and the right paperwork

and you could spend thousands on it.

So there is no way that this could be a fake, is there?

It's early morning in Greater Manchester

and a major raid is about to get underway.

Sergeant Darren Thomason and his team have clocked criminal activity

at a business known to be selling fake watches with a difference.

At the address there's going to be a lot of fake counterfeit watches

of the more high-end, the more expensive type.

Intelligence suggests they are dealing with large-scale criminality

so they're not taking any chances.

There's seven police officers and two PCSOs as well.

This is the street we're coming to now.

With the address in sight, there's no time for Darren to hang around

and no time for the softly-softly approach.

KNOCKING Police! Open it now!

-Police! Stay there!

-Stay there.

-Stay there.

-Just keep hold of him.

-We're just executing a search warrant.

The shop assistant isn't best pleased that his latest customers

seem to be wearing police uniforms.

Get your hands down.

Refusing to answer the door and kicking up a fuss.

This shop assistant is in need of some customer service training.

We are conducting a search warrant, OK?

And Darren doesn't have to look too far

to find what they've been looking for.

It's a fake timepiece treasure trove.

I think we've hit the jackpot, here.

There must be thousands of watches in here.

So you've got a variety of different Rolexes,

you've got an Omega Seamaster,

you've got a variety of different Breitlings,

plus the different boxes as well.

A very good copy, that. Excellent.

I would say these are the top-end copies.

I'm pretty confident they are fake. Definitely.

I'd put my mortgage on it.

It becomes clear that the suspect they've arrested is small fry.

Before the officers can take stock of the fake stock,

they'll have to hunt down the man in charge.

Which floor are you on now?

The priority at the moment is to get hold of this fellow.

Easier said than done in a large building

housing lots of honest businesses.

Sorry to interrupt you.

Has anyone ran through here? An Asian gentleman?

-He's not run through here?

-No.

-Right, OK.

I'll let you carry on with your business. Thank you very much.

So no luck in the offices, then. How about the roof?

It's like a rabbit warren round here. So he's not going to be far.

He's going to be in this premises somewhere.

My feeling is he's this way, you know.

Finally the search is over.

Downstairs, another officer has found the main suspect

hiding behind some boxes.

-Have you got hold of him?

-Yeah, he's in there. I just locked him up.

-Oh, excellent. Fantastic.

-You've been arrested.

-Do you understand that?

-Yeah, I understand.

-Right, OK.

The suspects are put in the van and driven off to the station.

Finally, it's time for the officers to take a closer look

at what's on offer in the store.

That's a beauty, that, isn't it?

It's like when I go fishing, this, and I catch a big fish. Look at that!

It's a who's who of the biggest and best watch brands in the world

but they're all fake.

Omega.

Cartier.

Rolex.

Breitling.

I feel like Del Boy!

But it's not just watches worth thousands they are faking,

they're also counterfeiting the boxes and paperwork

to make the package look and feel just like the real deal.

Look at the quality of the boxes. It's got all the paperwork, there.

All the official stamps. Get a look at the quality, there.

That, to me, looks real leather.

So you know, something like that, you would imagine,

fetches a fair few hundred quid.

They've even got the paperwork that goes with them.

Criminals selling these high-end fake watches as the real thing

to unsuspecting buyers could make thousands on each deal.

For something like that,

I would have said about £4,500 to £5,000, quite easily.

And it soon becomes clear that these fakers are making a killing.

Counterfeiting is a cash rich business

so the police are hitting the fakers where it hurts.

The idea behind it is we're hitting them in the pocket

and taking the ability away from them to make it such a lucrative business.

All of a sudden, one of the officers finds a set of keys

linked to a safe storage facility nearby.

Darren realises that when it comes to counterfeit goods,

the fakes they've found so far are just the tip of the iceberg.

Wow.

It's a huge stockpile of counterfeit goods,

-from high-end watches...

-Rolex.

..to high-end high-street fragrances.

This is all obviously fake

but I am impressed with the way they've packaged it and bottled it.

Yeah, but what about the smell?

Oh! That's not good, that. That's wrong.

What is it? Is that ladies'? Oh, right. That's why.

HE LAUGHS

I've come out in a rash now, after using that.

The bad smell of brilliantly packaged perfume might be funny,

but what really stinks is the huge profits being made by the fakers.

With the two premises,

definitely there's in excess of about £1 million worth of fake gear,

without a doubt.

We are a nation of dog lovers.

In the UK, there are eight million of these.

They are not all French bulldogs obviously, but a popular breed,

such as this is right now, will cost you over £1,000

and the fakers know it.

And that's why they're illegally importing puppies into the UK

with fake pet passports.

So the question is,

do you know where your puppy came from?

The Port of Dover is the busiest ferry port in the world

with over two million lorries

and nearly three million cars passing through each year.

Many of the vehicles from Europe are carrying dogs.

To get a European dog into Britain without it being quarantined

to check for potentially lethal diseases like rabies,

the animals have to satisfy the rules of the Pet Travel Scheme.

We're doing spot checks, basically,

on vehicles that are coming in from Europe with pets.

All pets travelling in Europe should have pet passports.

European dogs should be microchipped before being brought into Britain.

They're scanned and checked against their pet passport details,

which also carry proof of their rabies vaccination.

These European dogs can now legally enter Britain

but scratch beneath the surface and there is a problem.

The fakers know that pedigree pups come at a premium in Britain

and in the last year, there has been a 300% increase

in illegally imported pets being seized at ports across the country.

Whatever system is in place,

you'll always find someone who tries to get around the regulations.

Dogs have to be at least 12 weeks old for their vaccinations

to be effective and then to be let into the country.

But some of the smugglers are faking pet passports to get them in.

Quite often we will see animals presented to us

where the date of birth is clearly wrong.

If that date of birth is fake, what else in the passport could be fake?

Sharon Edwards is an animal health inspector

at Heathrow Animal Reception Centre.

She deals with animal imports on a daily basis.

She's under no illusions why the smugglers

would fake the age of a puppy.

Fake information is being put into these passports to make these

animals look older when they're not. So they look compliant

with our regulations and it all comes down to financial gain.

It's easier to get money for a cute little puppy than an older one.

The fakers know that young pups are far more profitable than old dogs,

but by simply faking a date of birth,

the smugglers could end up literally making a killing.

DOG HOWLS

Rabies is an awful disease. It attacks your central nervous system.

Somebody, I believe, died this year in the UK,

having received a bite from outside of the UK.

If you vaccinate a puppy at too young an age,

that rabies vaccine might not be effective and might not work.

They could be coming in, they could be incubating the rabies virus

and yes, it could lead to a rabies outbreak.

Left untreated, rabies can be fatal for unvaccinated humans.

Illegally imported dogs have to be quarantined immediately.

Dale Groves and his wife Lorraine

run Bayton Lodge quarantine kennels in Warwickshire.

They've recently taken delivery of an underage stowaway

from Europe who came through Dover Port in a handbag.

This is Kiss and he came in illegally from Lithuania.

The fakers put this puppy through hell to get him into Britain.

To be truthful, he's lucky to be alive because he did a 40-hour trip.

He's had antibiotics and he's been on Rescue Remedy

and he's on puppy milk.

Hopefully he'll survive now. It was touch-and-go.

There's no puppy love here.

The smugglers are pursuing hard profit.

They can buy these puppies in Lithuania

for probably 50 euros, even less.

The price of these dogs in England would probably be anything from

£600 to £800 for a little miniature pinscher.

While the dog's passport says he is six weeks old,

his tiny frame gives the game away.

The information with his date of birth is completely fake.

I can't believe he's six weeks old,

he's only the size of the booklet himself.

And he's so light, he can stand on the booklet.

The booklet is supporting him.

Genuine pet passports should contain an official vet stamp,

verifying the animal's vaccination,

but here, the smugglers have taken a rather less sophisticated approach.

The faking goes on with the people that are bringing these puppies in

are filling them in themselves.

There's no official stamp.

It could be anybody have wrote this in.

Anyone could have wrote that.

Luckily, Kiss doesn't have rabies and he's getting bigger by the day.

He doesn't fit on that passport any more.

Coming up, we'll see how the fakers aren't just

putting puppies through hell,

they're also traumatising the pet lovers

who unwittingly fall in love with them.

Gutted.

Just couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Here on Fake Britain, we've seen how criminals can make a killing

by faking the identities of stolen vehicles.

It's called car cloning.

And this is how it works.

You put the details of a legitimate car onto a very similar

stolen car and then you sell it.

To the unsuspecting buyer, that's you and me, it looks like a bargain,

but the reality is you could end up losing both your cash and the car.

So that's the story so far.

Now, it seems, car cloning has shifted up a gear.

Alan Watkins was a man with a taste for luxury cars.

This is an Audi convertible worth around £20,000.

This is a Range Rover, around £45,000.

A Mercedes, another Audi, here.

Top of the range Mercedes, here.

And this is just a selection of over 100 that we've recovered.

The thing is, Watkins didn't actually buy all these cars,

he stole them.

Watkins was the leader of a highly sophisticated

organised criminal network who stole high-value vehicles

and cloned them and turned them into, effectively, fakes.

They then sold them on to unsuspecting members of the public.

Alan Watkins began by searching out high-value vehicles

suitable for stealing.

One of his methods was to identify legitimate UK registered cars

that had been exported to Cyprus.

He would see, on the internet, cars that were for sale in Cyprus

that were right-hand drives.

He would apply to the DVLA for, in effect, a log book.

All he had to do then was find a vehicle on London's streets to steal.

He hatched an ingenious hi-tech plan to steal luxury cars in Britain

that were the same make, model and colour

as the British cars now in Cyprus.

Once he'd identified a car, the victim would leave the vehicle

and remotely lock it.

He would deploy a device which enabled him

to block the signal between the key fob and the vehicle

so the victim would think the vehicle was locked when it wasn't.

They would go and do their shopping,

he would have full access to the car.

Once inside the car, he would electronically clone

a blank key so now he had everything he needed.

Watkins now had a second fake car key to the target vehicle.

If he wanted to, he could start and steal the car there and then.

But he didn't.

Instead, he hid a GPS tracker on the car,

then locked the car and left it exactly as the owner had.

The owner would return none the wiser and drive off.

You see, Alan Watkins was playing the long game.

He, over a period of days or weeks, would then track the vehicle,

would know exactly where the vehicle was at any one time.

He would then either steal the vehicle himself,

using the fake key that he'd already made,

or get someone else to steal the vehicle for him.

It was now time for Watkins to fake the identity of the vehicle,

changing its details to match

those of its right-hand drive twin overseas.

This is a high-powered high-value Audi,

which is one of the vehicles that Watkins faked.

When we seized it, it had fake numberplates on and here,

as you can see, it had fake vehicle identification number.

This is the correct number

but on top of there was the false number that Watkins put on it.

Watkins was now ready to sell the stolen luxury car,

complete with its logbook and new fake identity,

to an unsuspecting member of the public.

It must have seemed to him like the perfect crime

because he repeated it again and again and again.

It is the most sophisticated operation

that the Metropolitan Police has come across.

It is almost on an industrial scale, over 173 vehicles,

that we've got evidence of, that he successfully faked.

£3.5 million worth in value.

But Watkins was faking on borrowed time.

While he was tracking cars to steal,

he himself was being tracked by the Stolen Vehicle Unit.

And they traced him to this ordinary suburban house in Essex.

We raided the address, which wasn't without drama.

During it, he bit and chewed and destroyed a memory stick.

To this day I still don't know what was on it.

Clearly, Watkins was caught between a rock and a hard place

and he wasn't going to give up without a fight.

Bizarrely, he tried to jump out of the first-floor window,

round the back to escape. Clearly, he didn't escape. He was arrested.

With Watkins detained,

the officers were able to take stock of what was in the house.

They walked into a vehicle faking factory.

This was the hideout where the gang faked vehicle identities

and where they programmed and cloned fake car keys.

In my opinion, this was the most sophisticated and one of the largest

vehicle identity faking operations that the Met has ever seen.

The evidence was enough to put the gang away for a long time.

Watkins received eight years imprisonment.

Two of his members of his network, one was called Matto.

He received 16 months imprisonment.

He was, in effect, one of the thieves

that Watkins used to steal the vehicles.

Investigations still carry on into Watkins' activities.

To date, the Stolen Vehicle Unit has managed to recover

over 100 of the vehicles that Watkins and his gang stole

and then cloned, but in testimony to the scale of the gang's crimes,

many of the stolen cars are still out there on British roads.

Innocent members of the public are paying thousands of pounds

for these high-value cars, not knowing that they're stolen.

Coming up, we're out with the Stolen Vehicle Unit,

hot on the trail of the Watkins gang's remaining stolen cars.

We're going to have to take it, I'm afraid.

Now, earlier we heard the sorry tale of animal smugglers

faking pet passports to illegally import puppies into the country.

Sharon Edwards from Heathrow Animal Reception Centre

is on the frontline, dealing with the problem.

Today, a call has come in that could spell disaster

to the proud new owner of one young pup.

We're going to north-east London because we think there might be

an illegally imported French bulldog puppy.

And these people have purchased this animal,

so we believe them to be an innocent victim.

Time is of the essence.

If the dog does carry rabies, it mustn't be allowed to spread.

We don't want to have rabies here in the UK.

A lot of people buy puppies or say,

"Oh, it's only a puppy. It can't have rabies."

But earlier this year there was a puppy that was 12 weeks old

that did die of rabies on the Continent.

Sharon is greeted by Jay Didham, the concerned owner of Lenny,

a lively French bulldog puppy.

It's a breed the fakers know is highly sought after in the UK.

I've had quite a problem, I'll admit to you, with French bulldogs.

Other than eating my chip reader!

Sharon scans the puppy to check its microchip

against the number written in the passport.

It quickly becomes clear that the age is wrong.

-She's not the age that they say she is.

-She's younger?

-Yeah.

And other crucial information in this female French bulldog's

pet passport has been faked.

It's actually got now male bulldog written in there.

Even if this was her passport, the data sheet for this rabies vaccine

says it's not effective until the animals are three months old.

Then she's been vaccinated when she's only a month old.

-And she shouldn't have been.

-And she shouldn't have been.

-It's got false information.

-Do you think it's a false passport?

-Is that what you're saying?

-Well, this has been gone over in pen.

This looks like it's been changed.

With a murky medical history,

there are no guarantees that Lenny doesn't have rabies.

Sharon has no choice but to take her into quarantine for 21 days.

I'll put the blanket in the box so she's comfortable.

Then I'll take the bed with me.

She'll have that in her kennel, her bed and toys.

Sharon does everything she can for Lenny,

but it doesn't stop her owner being concerned.

I'm more worried about her, to be honest. I'm so attached to her.

I'm gutted.

I suppose this is with everyone that you buy things off of,

they seem genuine at the time, don't they?

Before Jay and Lenny can be reunited,

there'll be an anxious wait to see if she's carrying any diseases.

It's never a nice job.

I don't enjoy going and taking people's puppies from them.

On closer inspection of the pet passport, it's clear that,

tough as it was, Sharon's made the right decision.

There's a baffling array of fakery going on in this document.

The bits that have been altered are the species, the breed of dog,

the sex of dog, the date of birth, the colour and its coat,

and the date of micro-chipping and the place where the microchip is.

These look like they've been altered. It's a fake passport.

And Lenny's case isn't an isolated one.

The fakers are duping dog lovers right across the country.

Nicola Glavin from Surrey paid a pet shop £750

for what she thought was the perfect Irish miniature dachshund.

She learned the hard way that you can't always believe

the tales that you're told about your new puppy.

I said, "Are you sure he's from Northern Ireland?"

She assured me he was.

My husband actually called him Frankie Flanagan.

CHUCKLES

But Nicola was about to realise that Frankie's roots were more

Eastern European than Emerald Isle.

A week later, I had Animal Trading Standards Unit for Surrey

knock at my door only to tell me that he was actually from Slovakia.

And I just couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was mad.

More worrying than Frankie's fake heritage

was his untraceable medical history.

That raised concerns about the health impact on her son.

My son actually has cystic fibrosis.

So I wouldn't have bought a dog from Eastern Europe

in case it had disease, bringing it in my house.

Because it could put Jonathan's life at risk

and it could have made him very ill and put him in hospital.

Nicola eventually recovered the dog's original Slovakian pet passport,

which, surprise surprise, contained fake information.

I mean, this...

Some of it's crossed out - the 5th of the 1st, 2012.

Then it says 14th of the 12th, 2011. I think a lot of it is false.

It's appalling, absolutely appalling.

How anyone can get away with selling a dog under false pretences, really.

The only option left was to quarantine Frankie.

To be told he had to be taken away was shocking, really.

Shocking.

After an agonising wait, both Frankie and Lenny

have been given clean bills of health

and reunited with their owners.

But Kiss, the miniature pinscher, remains homeless.

A cautionary tale to anyone thinking about buying a dog.

Be careful where you buy your puppies from.

Always go to a good breeder which will show you the mum, the puppies,

the dad and have a pedigree.

Earlier, we saw how Alan Watkins

and his gang faked the identities of hundreds of stolen cars

in a crime spree that netted them over £3 million.

Vehicle examiner Steve Wimpenny and Paul Egan have been trying

to track down Watkins' remaining stolen cars.

They've just received intelligence that might lead them to one.

All the ones we've been finding recently

are with innocent members of the public.

They've been sold a fake car, parted with a considerable amount of cash

and basically that cash is gone.

There's the car in question.

It's not long before they spot what they are looking for -

a luxury BMW 5 series.

It could be bad news for the man who's bought it.

But first, Paul and Steve will need to confirm its true identity.

Not long after they pop the bonnet, Steve notices something strange

about the car's unique vehicle identification number, or VIN.

This should be painted body colour

and the numbers should be really shiny.

It looks to me, looking at this,

that someone has ground out the original number lightly

and then re-established the number

to match the identity that the car is now on.

The VIN number has been changed, but that's not all.

The number's also been changed elsewhere, clear to see

when the sticker it's on should be tamper-proof.

If there's any interference, and they pick off in tiny little pieces,

the fact that the sticker is peeling and clearly fake

indicates to us that it's been changed.

The only reason to change that is to conceal the true identity

of the vehicle and create a fake car.

To convince somebody to part with money, good money, hard earned.

A bit more digging, some number checking

and a couple of phone calls later, and the final verdict is in.

We found two covert numbers on the vehicle.

Both match the same car which is a stolen car.

This car was stolen by the Watkins gang.

Could this be bad news for Lazros Aresti

who currently has it parked outside his office?

Everything on it is fake, so we'll have to take it, I'm afraid.

I just made the deal, I didn't buy the car yet.

-So you haven't given him any money yet?

-Not me.

-Right.

-So you are not out of pocket?

-No, not me.

-That's good for you.

You are a lucky man, you are a very lucky man.

Because it's looking very, very strongly like this is a stolen car.

It's actually his friend who's lost a hefty £7,500 on a stolen BMW.

He's going to try to get his money from that person,

but that person is now in prison, so it looks like...

he lost out.

But it's a good day's work for the stolen vehicle unit.

Another one of Watkins' cloned cars is off the streets.

Me, I'm just lucky.

That's all from Fake Britain. Bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd