Episode 10 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.

Today on Fake Britain, we expose the premium Suffolk jam company

that charged a fortune for its genuinely English strawberry jam,

when it was actually using frozen fruit from China.

People thought they were buying a local product, what I think

they don't expect is fruit described as Suffolk is actually from china.

We join medical watchdog the MHRA

as they hunt for counterfeit health products.

And, as vinyl sales soar,

we reveal the explosion of fake records hitting our high streets.

They cost around about 80p to a pound to make the recording,

but they can sell it for, say, up to £1,000.

Strawberry jam on a scone in the garden -

it's the taste of the English summer.

But that taste was a bit difficult to detect in some jam

found on Suffolk Trading Standards' patch.

Time to lift the lid on an outrageously

sticky piece of food fakery.

Previously on Fake Britain, we showed how some fish and chip shops

in the Midlands had sold pangasius rather than cod,

and how when this man was served the fish in a restaurant

he had a serious allergic reaction.

I just couldn't breathe and my face began to itch.

Without instant medical assistance, I probably would have died.

In Leicester, a survey of 20 lamb kebabs from different shops

revealed none of them had just lamb in them -

four had no lamb whatsoever -

and horse meat was found at many outlets.

Millions of beef burgers on sale at several supermarkets in the UK

and Ireland are being pulled off the shelves.

Food fraud, it seems, is all around us.

Premium food, whether it's organic, locally sourced,

or products with top grade ingredients, is big business.

But it's another opportunity for fraudsters to miss-sell

products by giving them fake quality claims.

Suffolk Trading Standards officer Clare Davies

makes routine inspections of food premises

to ensure a level playing field among companies.

We visit manufacturers to find out whether claims they

put on their packaging are accurate, that the food is fresh,

that it's organic, or it might be origin claims

that the food is local.

On one visit to a farm shop, Clare came across some very

expensive jams made by a company called Stonham Hedgerow.

She decided to investigate

whether claims made by the manufacturers were actually true.

This is the leaflet we found displayed next to the jams on sale.

It makes various claims,

so, for example, we have "Made by hand in Suffolk

"from whole and fresh fruit."

Inside, a specific claim about the origin of the product.

Here it says, "We use a range of East Anglian soft fruits

"in all the jams so, unusually,

"our strawberry jam is genuinely English."

But, as Clare was about to find out,

that couldn't have been further from the truth.

When she visited the company they admitted they were using SOME

frozen fruit, but a whole lot more fakery was about to emerge.

The company indicated they used another supplier in Suffolk.

Our food officers visit all companies in Suffolk

so we are aware of this particular supplier

and knew they were a supplier of frozen and imported fruit.

So that was a trigger for looking into this a little bit more.

Clare made test purchases.

Liaising with the supplier and using the batch number on the bottom of

the jars, she was able to trace the precise origin of each pot of jam.

She also went right back through Stonham's fruit supply history to 2008.

She couldn't believe what she discovered.

In that period, the company hadn't actually sourced

ANY fruit from Suffolk.

So, we have a certificate of origin which shows that

the strawberries in the specific batch of jam that we were

looking at originates from the People's Republic Of China,

and we have a shipment 2,400 cartons of frozen strawberries

to the supplier and then part of that batch

was then supplied to Stonham Hedgerow.

And we have the stamp there from the Chinese authorities.

Stonham Hedgerow outrageously claimed it was selling

"genuinely English" strawberry jam.

In reality, it was buying in frozen fruit from

half way around the world - China.

The company was selling fake jam. Clare's investigations showed that

since 2008 the company had progressively sourced its fruit

from further and further away from Suffolk.

Fruit was sourced from Essex, then further afield to Norfolk,

then further afield to Yorkshire, and then to Europe.

So, fruit was sourced form Poland,

and more recently, fruit was sourced from china.

And, mathematically, it made good sense.

Had the company used genuine, fresh local fruit,

it would have cost over £50 for a 20 kilo batch.

In reality, they were getting their fruit for a lot less.

What we are looking at here is a table which shows us

fruit prices and the corresponding origin of that fruit.

Now, what we can see through the timeline is the fruit

got cheaper as it was sourced from further afield.

Using frozen strawberries from Essex brought the cost down to £40.

From Norfolk, to £35.

The company went into Yorkshire.

and the frozen strawberries there came in at £30.

Finally, September 2010 to March 2011, we have frozen strawberries

coming in from China and the price was £1.27 a kilo,

so the cost of fruit has gone down to £25.

The company had halved their fruit costs by buying cheap,

frozen fruit from china.

But they were still charging consumers a small fortune

for their fake premium jams.

£3.85 is one of the most expensive jams we found on the market.

We went into a supermarket

and picked up a jar of strawberry jam for, I think, about 69p.

So, if you compare that jar of jam with this jar of jam,

in reality, you're probably not getting an awful lot more.

Fake origin claims were found with six varieties of the company's jam.

Their blackcurrant and raspberry jam used fruit from Poland.

Jam makers Stonham Hedgerow were in a sticky situation.

The company pleaded guilty to 13 charges of falsely claiming

its jams contained locally sourced produce.

They were fined almost £13,000 including costs,

and have since removed the description 'Suffolk'

from their ingredients list.

Clare was delighted another food fraud had been brought to light.

Suffolk is known as a foodie destination,

there's lots of local food produced here,

and people think they're buying a local product,

they think they're supporting local farmers and reducing food miles.

What I think they don't expect is that fruit described as Suffolk

is actually from China.

We've all heard the stories of identity theft,

people whose email accounts have been hacked

or whose bank accounts have been fraudulently accessed.

It may even have happened to you or someone you know.

But imagine if that was taking place on an industrial scale.

These are just a few of the thousands

of personal details bought and sold over the internet

by a criminal gang - the biggest fake identity ring in the world.

For one unwitting target

that meant a knock on his door from the police, who thought

he was involved in a multi-million pound international fraud.

In 2006, this man, an NHS doctor called Abid Haider,

was arrested on suspicion of terrorism.

He was later acquitted, but during the investigation

police discovered that, incredibly, Haider had four other fake identities.

And he was using these to commit mortgage fraud.

The case was passed to Detective Inspector Tim Dowdeswell,

from the Met Police's Anti-Fraud Squad.

The resulting investigation would lead his team to uncover

the largest known fake identity ring in the world.

What we have here laid out on the table is

a selection of documents, four different identities.

The first set is in the name of Dipesh Patel.

We've got a bank statement, Revenue and Customs documents,

utility bills, six months worth of payslips.

So, moving round the table, another identity

in the name of Christopher Johnson.

Three documents here - a photograph, a specimen signature,

and a driving licence in the name of Adam Khan.

Haider had bought all the fake documents from one website,

Confidential Access.

It was selling every kind of fake document imaginable.

Photocard driving licences, the counterfoil for that,

utility bills, bank statements, payslips.

You could even get exam certificates if you provided the details.

The website was the gateway to a fake document factory.

But Confidential Access was also selling sophisticated

fake identity packages, so criminals could become someone else

and commit fraud in their name.

An innocent victim with a good credit profile was unknowingly

re-registered via the electoral roll at a vacant address.

Customers like Haider were then sent bundles of fake documents

with the victim's name and new address.

Using this new fake identity, the fraudster could apply

for credit cards, mortgages or loans they never intended to re-pay.

Crimes were being committed in the name of the innocent victim,

whose credit profile was then wrecked.

The top package was the Platinum Profile,

retailing at £5,500.

But the full extent of the criminal operation

was only just about to be revealed.

When we first started looking at the case, we could see

on the website that there were areas that general public

couldn't get access to. These were called inner forums.

When police computer experts hacked into these online chatrooms,

the full scale of Confidential Access's online empire was laid bare.

These forums had up to 10,000 members all paying a membership fee

to be on there, but it was almost like a community.

The only difference from a genuine one

is the fact that these were talking about fraud.

The website was a safe haven for thousands of fakers

to discuss fraud and trade tips on fakery.

The people running the website did seem to think

they were actually providing a service.

They did see themselves as some sort of freedom fighters

to fight against the establishment, in effect.

In reality, the people behind Confidential Access

were running a fraud school, coaching members

and grooming them into fully fledged fakers.

Tim realised this growing online army of fraudsters

had to be stopped.

It was vital we took this down at an early stage,

that we stopped the sale of these documents.

Financial investigations and DNA analysis of test purchases

revealed two masterminds behind the site.

Foremost was this man - Jason Place.

He was operating out of Alicante in Spain.

And the counterfeit documents were generated there

but manufactured by associates in the UK.

Tim organised co-ordinated raids on all their addresses.

We started the arrest phase of the UK operatives

by doing early morning raids to arrest them

and seize their computers, the materials they were using

to print the documents and any other evidence

that would link them to Confidential Access.

Masses of equipment involved

in the manufacture of the fake documents was seized.

We've got different weights of paper that are partly printed.

It was a multi-layering printing process.

Things like driving licences would need specialist cutting equipment.

Ultraviolet inks were found together with UV lamps and DVLA logos.

But, despite the police raid on the UK arm of the operation,

master-faker Jason Place remained in Spain untouched.

Confidential Access continued to churn out counterfeit documents

and clone real people's identities on an industrial scale.

Coming up, we reveal how the Met brought Place to justice,

and we meet the innocent accountant implicated in this multi-million

pound fraud, with his name plastered over hundreds of fake documents.

It was a major shock. I've never had anything like this

happen to me in my life before,

and I was absolutely dumbfounded by the whole thing.

Earlier, we saw Suffolk Trading Standards officer Clare Davies

investigating a company selling premium fresh local jam

that was really made from frozen Chinese strawberries.

They were fined nearly £13,000.

Clare's taken it upon herself to stamp out food fakery.

Consumers have the right to rely on honest food labelling.

They want to know that what they read on the ingredients list

is what they get in their products.

Today, Clare's in court to take on a local pesto company

whose labelling is suspect.

We're prosecuting Stark Naked Foods.

We brought this case to prosecution because during a routine inspection

we found some discrepancies with the labelling

in comparison to what the company were actually manufacturing.

Clare heads into the court.

Now, pesto, if you don't know, is a green, basil-based sauce

that originated in Northern Italy.

Fake Britain caught up with Italian chef and pesto expert

Giorgio Locatelli to understand what should go into the perfect pesto.

Sit down and prepare to learn!

First, we use the salt, garlic.

Then I get the pine nuts.

OK.

Next, it's the key ingredient - that herb basil.

As you are doing this, you should hear the leaf screaming at you.

Aaargh!

Next, a bit of cheese.

Traditionally, this should be one of two Italian cheeses,

Parmigiano Reggiano or Grana Padano. Which will it be today?

We're using Parmigiano Reggiano. It makes no sense to use another cheese

when Parmesan is made in a wheel

and has been made to roll all over the world.

-HE LAUGHS

-Finally, the very finest olive oil.

Olive oil is so important.

To me, to make the perfect pesto, you must use the olive oil that

comes from the Ligurian side. It's much lighter and sweeter.

This is my pesto.

Wow, that's perfect. It has to be a punch in the mouth!

Quality, fresh ingredients are fundamental to a fine pesto.

Italian cuisine doesn't stand on the great capability

and creativity of the chef, it stands on the quality

of the ingredients that we use to produce the recipe.

The freshness of the ingredients is VERY, very important.

So, there you have it - that's what SHOULD be in pesto.

But just what have the fakers been putting in theirs?

Before the court case, we caught up with Clare Davies to find out

precisely what the pesky pesto company had been doing.

Stark Naked Foods sold their own-brand pesto

and also made the sauce for ASDA.

Both were sold as premium pesto,

proudly boasting the finest ingredients

and selling for high prices.

It was a shame, then, that what was on the label

WASN'T what was in the products.

The company claimed on their packaging

to use Grana Padano cheese. Clare discovered this wasn't true.

This is the cheese used in the product.

What have here is a Gran Veneziano cheese, which is just a hard

grating cheese and that's produced in Latvia.

So this product will be much cheaper.

The company had also been telling fibs

about the kind of oil they used.

According to Giorgio, a good pesto should have

a good quality olive oil.

You read extra virgin olive oil, 32%.

But what's actually in the product is sunflower oil,

as well as extra virgin olive oil.

And sunflower oil is half the price of extra virgin olive oil.

Now, if the company is able to put in cheaper ingredients,

that reduces their production costs.

By declaring premium ingredients in your product

and making it sound very attractive,

that can give the company an unfair competitive advantage.

But the fakery doesn't stop there.

The company described their pesto as fresh -

something Giorgio told us was essential.

In fact, Clare's food inspection revealed the product

was frozen for up to six months.

In addition, their locally sourced basil

came from a little bit further away.

There's a phrase on the packaging

that says, "We really like local farmers, they're friendly".

Now, although that doesn't implicitly state the origin

of the products, the presumption is that the grown element

of the product, the basil, is from local farmers.

But, in fact, the basil in this product was from Israel.

And, with the tarragon pesto, again you have the same phrase,

"We like local farmers, they're friendly,"

but the tarragon was from Columbia.

Back at the court, the food fakers haven't turned up!

Clare's furious.

The court said in 21 years they'd never known the officer

of the company or the defendants not turn up without good reason.

The court case is re-scheduled.

Six weeks later, Clare's back

and ready to do battle with the flaky fakers.

She's hoping for a conviction and a serious sentence.

These are offences under the Food Safety Act,

and the maximum penalty that carries is a fine of £20,000,

or up to two years in prison.

This time, company directors Marcus and Victoria Starke do turn up.

Inside the court room they admit to 14 false claims charges,

although they blame the blunders on a more junior manager.

So, we've just come out of court

and Stark Naked Foods Ltd pleaded guilty to a total

of 14 different offences and the total fine

was just over £28,000. That included £5,000 costs.

Hey, pesto! That's a massive fine for the food fakers.

It's also a clear message to others thinking of committing food fraud.

This was a good result for us today

and I think it sends out the message that Trading Standards

will look for food fraud, will look for instances

of misdescription and, if companies ignore advice

and continue to mislabel products,

there could be hefty fines imposed on them by the courts.

Stark Naked Foods have since gone into liquidation.

For Giorgio Locatelli, though, there's one simple way

pesto lovers can avoid being victims of food fraud - make your own!

That's easy for him, he's a chef!

I don't understand why people are driven to buy pesto in the shops!

It's incredible. The recipe is a bit of herbs, a bit of nuts,

a bit of salt, and a bit of cheese - this is what it's all about.

So why not do it at home? It's SO beautiful!

Earlier we saw a website helping people

produce fake documents on an industrial scale

and cloning the identities of innocent Britons.

The UK arm of the operation was raided, but the mastermind

behind the website continued to run it from Spain.

DI Tim Dowdeswell realised he had to take it down fast.

We took steps to have the server seized,

and that was done in Hong Kong with the cooperation of the Hong Kong Police

and that caused them serious problems.

But not for long!

The website soon reappeared, this time run from Holland.

Tim liaised with police there and the new servers were also seized.

Richard Braysher is an accountant based in North London.

As police sifted through documents recovered from the servers,

his name appeared again and again.

I did have a phone call from the police saying they had documents

that I had purported to have signed and my involvement in a rather

serious identity fraud, and they wanted to come and see me.

So, naturally, my heart started pumping

and I thought "Oh, my God, what's this all about?!"

The police turned up to question Richard.

He was implicated in a multi-million pound fraud.

I was really scared, you know, and worried,

and then they did turn up a couple of days later

with all this documentation.

To my surprise and horror, there were items in this, obviously,

none of it I recognised at all. I hadn't signed any of the forms

that were purported to have been signed by me.

Unbeknown to Richard, the fakers had picked his name

and used it to verify huge numbers of fake documents.

Having a real accountant's name added to them

made them appear bona fide.

Having seen only a small sample when he was questioned by police,

we took along multiple fake documents featuring

Richard's forged signature for him to examine.

This is absolutely incredible. It really is.

I'm just totally shocked that someone can

use my name in this context.

This purports to be a letter written by me

or a certificate signed by me. Obviously I didn't do this.

I just don't believe it, I've been given another qualification

that I don't have - LLB.

I'm supposed to be a member of a firm called Norton Rose Solicitors.

Norton Rose are real, but just like Richard

they knew nothing about it and are completely innocent.

Again, my signature is totally forged.

That's nothing like my signature.

Now I've suddenly become a member of UK Legal Services.

Richard is stunned by the many fake documents bearing his name.

I'm just totally shocked. They're all purported to have been

signed by me, the signatures have been forged, I'm supposed to be

a member of firms I've never heard of, the whole thing is a fake.

But, back at Scotland Yard,

Tim Dowdeswell and his team had made a breakthrough.

Information on the servers also provided them

with an address in Spain where Jason Place was hiding out.

Raids took place on the luxury villa

and masses more equipment was discovered.

Analysis of Place's personal computer revealed

extraordinary plans for a new interactive online community

for fakers - an island called Caxopia.

But Jason Place himself had already fled.

We located Jason Place in Gibraltar in co-operation with

the Gibraltan authorities and the Spanish authorities,

and, after a fairly lengthy process, he was extradited back to the UK.

When Police seized Place's passport, bizarrely,

even that was countersigned with the fake signature

of innocent accountant Richard Braysher.

Tim Dowdeswell was delighted to finally catch the man

who'd created the world's biggest known fraud factory.

To finally get Jason Place back into United Kingdom

charged and facing a court was very satisfying.

At Southwark Crown Court, Place was sentenced

to almost seven years in prison for conspiracy to defraud.

His website had made profits of £11 million.

Various other fraudsters who helped run Confidential Access

were also jailed.

However, the operation to hunt down the criminals who used

the website continues.

Solicitor Derek Speed was handed five years for using fake wage slips

to cover up a massive theft from his company.

This is certainly largest and most professional operation

selling you documents online, and I've never seen anything like this.

There are over 12,500 documents that have been produced

by Confidential Access and somewhere in the region

of 3,000 customers who've actually purchased documents,

so that is a huge number of people

that we suspect will have committed fraud.

So, if you were a Confidential Access customer,

you might expect a knock on your door.

We buy millions of healthcare products every day,

from painkillers to contraceptives,

from pharmacies, corner shops and supermarkets

right across the country.

And we take it for granted they are what they say they are

and they're safe, but some of those items are targets for the fakers

and they don't care so much about your health

as they do about making a bit of cash.

We're following the people whose job it is to make sure

that when you buy a health product you're getting the real deal.

Nearly five million containers pass through

the Port of Felixstowe every year, and you can't check them all.

So, no wonder some criminals see it as the perfect way into the UK

for products that could harm your health

when they're supposed to protect it.

A container's been seized loaded with fake contraceptives.

If they got onto the market, unwanted pregnancies

and the spread of disease could be the result.

So, Danny Lee Frost, the head of enforcement for

medical watchdog the MHRA, is going to tackle the man

he believes the container was destined for.

Danny arrives at the property and waits for the police

and the rest of his team to get there.

The plan is for officers to arrive with police back-up

and that is entirely to prevent a breach of the peace.

It's a tense few moments waiting yards from the suspect's door,

but as the clock hits 6:00, the police and Danny's team arrive

and it's time to take action.

-Right, here we go.

-Go, go, go.

Officers approach the property and knock on the man's door.

From the MHRA, Department of Health. We've got a warrant here

under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 to look for

evidence regarding sale, supply or control

of counterfeit goods under the Trademark Act.

The team enters the house.

The man's detained in the living room

as they work their way through the property.

They're joined today by a financial investigator

looking for receipts and other evidence that the suspect

may have been purchasing counterfeit goods.

No corner of the address is left unturned,

including the garden shed and the car on the driveway.

Officers from the agency have entered the premises

along with couple of police officers.

We're now beginning the inspection.

We'll be looking for evidence of importation, any paperwork.

And the team finds what it's looking for -

documents linking the man to the Felixstowe container

filled with counterfeit contraceptives and other fake goods.

The man also has a number of storage units locally.

The team suspect these could be

where he's storing the fake products.

To get into the units, the team needs the man's keys.

If you don't supply us with the keys now,

-we will smash the door in, OK?

-Yeah.

You understand that then. All right.

Now there's an offer you can't refuse!

He gives up his keys and is led away to a waiting police car.

He'll be questioned later in the day.

Meanwhile, Danny races over to the storage units.

Now we're off to the main lock-up.

We've secured keys for that.

We've got officers guarding that premises.

Once we get there we're going to unlock,

send the dogs in and see what turns up.

Today is the first time the MHRA will be using sniffer dogs

to hunt down counterfeit goods.

They've been specially trained to detect fake contraceptives

and the precise kind of cardboard they're packaged in.

When police and Trading Standards first turned up to secure the units,

there was a nasty surprise waiting for them.

SQUEAKING

When the team enter, they're stunned by the size of the building.

It would be physically impossible

to search every single box in this building,

so our best bet is to deploy the dogs and see what they come up with.

The dogs are prepared. First up, meet Bossy.

His handlers set him off upstairs into a tightly-packed attic.

Then he's brought downstairs to the next level.

There are tens of thousands of items here,

cheap toys and gifts from China.

Fake health products could be just about anywhere!

We've deployed the search dog,

we're now going through each area, bit by bit. No luck so far.

While the search continues upstairs,

officers find what at first glance appears to be a dangerous weapon.

But it's not - it's simply a pellet gun.

Cheap and nasty, like everything else in here.

There are counterfeit items here,

but no fake health products like those found in the container.

Danny and the team wait to enter the next suspect unit.

You wouldn't get through one of these security shutters

with anything less than a tank.

We haven't got one of them, so we'll wait for the locksmith.

Fortunately, a man with keys appears and the search begins anew.

This time it's spaniel Frankie

charged with nosing out nefarious merchandise.

No item is left unsniffed.

This time the team find a number of cheap Chinese fake toys,

but again, no fake contraceptives.

Then the team is tipped off about a small lock-up

around the corner which is believed to be linked to the suspect.

Alfie is itching to get in there and, as the team enters,

they appear to have finally found what they've been looking for.

He's got some on the shelf here.

Danny's team opens up the boxes and examines the health products.

Although these aren't fake, they are NOT intended for the UK market

and shouldn't be sold here.

Evidence from the arrested man's house is brought back

to MHRA headquarters in Central London.

The team believes they have enough evidence to charge the suspect.

Danny examines samples from the giant haul

of counterfeit contraceptives found in the original container.

What we're looking at here is some of the condoms

that were seized by the UK Border Agency at Felixstowe.

This was part of a 25,000 pack consignment.

The container was marked as glassware to smuggle

the fakes past Customs.

Once they make it into the shops, though, the counterfeit packaging

is of such high quality it could fool anyone.

Even trained investigators within the MHRA would not know

from a visual inspection that that pack there was counterfeit.

As well as a fake safety marking and batch number, the cardboard,

colours, layout and cellophane is an exact copy of the genuine article.

We estimate between 80-90% of the value of the work

gone into this is on the packaging itself.

But very little money's gone into the product inside.

Despite a fake safety leaflet,

the contraceptives themselves are incredibly poor quality.

Nearly 100% of those tested split. They're also dangerous.

In some cases that we've seen,

the lubricant that's been used is not a lubricant at all,

it's actually an industrial hand cleanser

of the type you're more likely to see a garage mechanic

cleaning his hands with after he's taken a gearbox out.

It's no laughing matter.

Contraceptives are essential for family planning for millions of people.

Stamping out fakes is a top priority for the agency.

Condoms are intended to prevent unwanted pregnancies

and halt the spread of sexually transmitted diseases,

so anything that is counterfeit and doesn't actually do that

is a risk to the public health.

Fortunately, there are still two ways

you can spot that these condoms are fake.

The expiry date on the box should match up with the one on the packet,

but it doesn't.

Another small clue

is that, when reading the foil on the colour side,

obviously all the Durex logos are all lined up.

If you then turn it round to read the lot number, it's upside down.

There's big money in rare records. Have a look at this -

it's a box-set of the singles from U2's album The Joshua Tree

and it's worth £2,500, if it was for sale, which it's not.

You'd have collectors queuing round the block.

This, however, is a picture disc of the same album

and it would be worth hundreds, if it wasn't a fake,

like all of these.

As the market for vinyl grows, so does a trade in counterfeit discs.

Record sales grew for the fifth consecutive year in 2012.

Vinyl is experiencing a hell of a comeback,

and record fairs like this have sprung up to accommodate

enthusiastic collectors young and old.

But unscrupulous fakers are taking advantage of our thirst

for rare and limited edition records.

# Hey, teacher! Leave them kids alone! #

It's largely classic rock bands that are having their records faked,

like Pink Floyd.

# All in all, it's just another brick in the wall. #

Promotional copies of their earliest singles

can go for over £6,000.

# With or without you... #

A genuine promo copy of U2's Achtung Baby

or The Joshua Tree can also go for thousands.

# You make a grown man cry-y-y... #

And a test pressing of the Rolling Stones' first album

can sell for a fortune.

# I take you places that you never, ever seen.... #

Fake Britain has come to Camden in North London.

It's famous for curios, artefacts, and the downright bizarre.

But it's also a hotbed of vinyl fakery.

We're following this industry expert as he goes undercover

to track down some bogus records.

He believes music fans are being miss-sold fakes

thinking that they're rare items worth lots of money.

With fake CDs and DVDs the packaging is minimal,

so people understand they're buying something

that's generally an inferior product.

With fake vinyl records, they're made to look exotic and coloured

vinyl and picture discs to attract enthusiasts and sell for more money.

Our expert sets off in pursuit of the fakes.

He's received a tip-off that a number of specific stalls

on the market are selling counterfeit records.

He doesn't miss a beat,

and is soon back with a bag full of counterfeits.

Today I've had rich pickings. I'll start with the first item,

which is a fake of the very first ever Pink Floyd single.

Now, an original copy of this would be worth somewhere

in the region on the collectors' market of £3,000 to £6,000,

depending on condition.

Our expert has spotted one clear sign the disc is not genuine.

These were only every pressed on black vinyl.

They were never pressed on any other colour.

This one is pressed on yellow.

But the fakers have gone to remarkable lengths to make

the record SEEM real - marking the label with a demo sign

found on the original 1967 pressing.

Next up, a classic David Bowie record.

Or is it?

This is a very convincing and attractive-looking picture disc

of David Bowie's 1980 album Scary Monsters And Super Creeps.

This album has never been issued

anywhere in the world on picture disc format.

To the untrained eye, the picture disc looks like a legitimate,

limited edition rarity.

Fake records like these are pressed

with poor copies of original recordings.

The sound can be terrible

and the records themselves poorly manufactured.

There are a number of blemishes on the vinyl pressing itself

which denotes a poor quality.

If you look very closely, on inspection there are several

what would be known as pit marks on the actual vinyl itself,

so if you actually tried to play something like this

on your record deck, you would damage your stylus.

But we haven't finished yet. Our expert heads back

into the market to scout out more dodgy discs.

# We don't need no education... #

As well as older rock anthems, some contemporary classics are also

being faked, and he has no trouble picking up some examples.

First up, kings of Manc cool, Oasis.

At first glance at it, the cover has got the original fold-out,

tri-fold sleeve, which is very attractive with the lyrics.

yes, it looks like a genuine first edition,

complete with catalogue number

and potentially worth quite a bit of money.

But it isn't.

I can confirm this record was never issued

in any coloured vinyl whatsoever. This is 100% fake.

And the cheap, fake label is already peeling off.

Altogether, our expert has picked up six albums and one single.

All are completely fake.

Unfortunately, many people are spending their hard-earned money

on these records. They think they're a special treat

because they're presented in an appealing fashion

in coloured vinyls and picture discs,

but truth and reality is that they are being taken for ride.

These are not genuine and have no long-time value.

Dave Wood is Head of Anti-Piracy at the BPI,

the body responsible for protecting the revenue

of music artists and labels.

He's seen at first-hand the explosion

in counterfeit vinyl in recent years.

With the growth of vinyl sales, we've also seen a growth

in counterfeit product being put out onto the market.

And the mark-up between the cost of making a fake record

and the potential sale price can be huge.

It costs them around about 80p to a pound to make the recording,

but they can sell it for any price they want, up to, say, £1,000.

This is a very rare recording,

a white vinyl recording of a U2 single.

If this was going to go onto the marketplace at the moment

it would be worth around £800.

It's a legitimate recording, it's rare.

So the counterfeiters have tried to get into the market,

so they've produced a counterfeit copy of the single in green

saying it's a version of the original disc.

A fan that doesn't know it's a counterfeit

will certainly pay up to £100 on an auction site for it.

The bogus disc is also produced in an array of dazzling colours,

including white.

Many of the fakes originate in Eastern Europe.

We've noticed that a lot of it's coming

from Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Germany.

# Don't make a grown man cry... #

Now, while you might expect records by big bands like the Rolling Stones

to be counterfeited, fraudsters are even targeting

classic electronic music.

Richard Brophy's a huge house music enthusiast,

and like many DJs still buys his music on vinyl.

It's not an anonymous file on a computer.

You can touch it, you can feel it, it's art.

But when Richard paid a visit to a famous London record store,

he had a nightmare on wax.

I was flicking through the racks, and surprisingly

found a number of records that are either

very, very hard to find or out of print.

Richard bought the discs, but when he posted pictures

of his rare finds on the internet, he was in for a shock.

Someone replied very quickly to say all of these records have been

out of print for years and what you've been sold is a fake.

It was a big let-down.

Bit angry, frustrated. Felt sorry for the artists in question.

A lot of the Chicago House producers from the '80s

and early '90s have fallen on hard times, financial difficulties,

and I just felt it was a bit of a slap in the face for them.

The level of detail on the fake records was incredible.

They seemed like they'd been pressed in the 1990s,

and had exactly the same artwork.

The first is Beginning of Life, by Mike Perras.

All these details are put on without label and artist's consent,

so, yeah, it's completely bogus.

Sickened by the fakery, Richard decided to investigate.

He contacted Mike Perras, the musician behind the original

release, to see if he knew his records were being faked.

He had no idea.

He felt like someone had stolen something from him.

He was shocked and dismayed.

Clearly, Richard's a huge music fan

and the experience of being duped by the fakers has left him outraged.

It's comparable to copying a well known painting

and selling it as one of your own. It's completely illegal

and they're making money off the back of someone else's creativity.

As vinyl sales continue to soar on the high street, online

and at fairs, fakes of new and classic records

will continue to rise, too.

# You make a grown man cry-y-y... #

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

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd