Episode 8 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

SHOUTING

-Get your hands behind your back! Now!

-Get your hands behind your back now!

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.

Coming up, we uncover a black market in fake car servicing software

that could put your life at risk.

There are actual very significant safety implications

for the general public.

How fake henna could scar you forever...

There is no such thing as black henna.

My hands and arms were burning. The pain was too much, you know?

And how top of the range chefs' knives are being faked

and sold to the public and restaurants around the country.

We opened the box, looked at the knives

and were pretty gobsmacked at what we saw.

This is henna decoration.

It's a plant extract that's used in hair and beauty products,

it's natural, it's safe and as you can see,

-Denise, it's very beautiful.

-Thank you.

This however, is quite different. It's black henna.

People are fooled into thinking

that black henna is just a different type, a different colour of henna,

but it's not. It's a fake. There's no such thing as black henna.

It's in fact an illegal and dangerous chemical concoction,

that deceives and harms the people that use it.

Ah!

Simon Loxham lives in Surrey with his wife

and two children, Gabriel and Ruben.

Come on, Gabe! Come here!

They went on an annual family holiday to Spain.

And a couple of days into the holiday,

Gabriel and Ruben wanted to get temporary henna designs

painted on their arms from an artist they'd seen on the beach.

We kept seeing this tattooist on the seafront.

We were being hassled every day by the children

and after a few days, we decided to get it done.

Simon had no idea of the dangers of black henna or what was in it.

There was no mention of black henna or anything like that.

It was seen very much as a temporary thing

and something for a bit of fun on holiday.

Everyone was delighted with the result.

And they looked fantastic for a few days,

they were really black and looked nice

and the boys loved them.

Simon and his family enjoyed the rest of their holiday

and the children loved their painted designs.

But when they returned home, the fun stopped.

About a week after we arrived back in the UK,

the black started to fade,

but in place of that started this blistering

and his arm over a few days progressively

was raised in a perfect scorpion blister.

Horrified, Simon and his wife rushed Gabriel to the doctor's,

but they were just as shocked.

They didn't know what it was.

The doctor thought that he'd actually had a real tattoo.

It looked that bad.

But things even worse,

as the dangerous chemicals started reacting with Gabriel's body

and they were poisoning him.

The scab started to disappear and move into, um,

sort of, a weeping, pus-sy mess.

And he started getting spots all around his arm.

At one point, it was literally dripping,

there so much fluid coming out of his skin.

You were eating breakfast, weren't you and I had to

almost mop up underneath you with a tissue,

it was dripping so much.

Terrified, Simon took Gabriel back to the doctor's.

Tests revealed that the culprit was Paraphenylenediamine, known as PPD.

PPD is a colourless chemical,

but it reacts with oxygen to give it a colour.

It's added to natural henna to turn it black.

It was something that was painted on the skin,

and as a result of being painting on the skin had seeped into his skin

and was attacking his body from the inside.

That was quite frightening that something so innocent and fun

had actually damaged his body on a permanent basis.

The doctor said the chemicals were attacking his body

and if we didn't sort it out soon, he could become quite ill.

Eventually, the blister cleared up,

but it's left a severe and lasting effect on Gabriel.

You can see on his arm, still, a scorpion shape.

It's more noticeable when he's got a bit of colour after a holiday.

And he's now over-sensitised to PPD.

Gabriel needs to be careful,

as PPD is found in many household products

and contact with them could cause him a severe reaction.

It's in textile and hair dyes,

black rubber, petrol, and photocopying and printing inks.

But it's banned in skin products in the UK and across the EU.

It's something he'll have to be careful of for the rest of his life.

Later, we discover that fake henna isn't only being used

on the beaches of Europe.

It's also openly available on British high streets,

as one woman knows only too well.

It's not like any other illness.

It's not for one or two days and then you get better.

It was just terrible. It was just, it was too much.

This disc contains all the technical information you need to service

over 15,000 different types of vehicle.

It's sold to garages up and down the country.

They pop it in a computer and out comes

everything they need to know to look after your car properly.

But it's also a target for fakers.

And that's putting you and me at risk on the roads.

Garages need service information

to make sure a car is looked after properly.

In Slough, mechanic Andy knows how important this information is

and how things have changed.

Back in the 1970s when cars were much less complicated

and nowhere near the amount of electronics,

we just needed a little book like this and this book contained

all the information that you really needed to know.

Today, vehicles are so sophisticated and complex,

they need something much more detailed.

We've got 15,000 plus vehicles which could come in to the garage

and obviously that amount of information

can't be contained in a little book anymore.

All the information is now computerised

and one of the systems mechanics use is Autodata.

Everything they'll need, including all the latest manufacturer updates,

it's all on a computer disc.

It basically gives us

all the information that we need to know.

What operations need to be carried out,

what needs to be checked, what needs to be replaced.

The information costs several hundred pounds every year

on an annual subscription.

Details of more than 80 manufacturers for cars

going back to 1959 - they're are all on the system.

Right, the first thing that we'll check is the tyre pressures.

If there's an underinflated tyre, it's dangerous.

But manufacturers update information all the time,

so the computerised system is constantly updated too

and garages are made aware of the changes.

The fake discs are copies of older versions of the system

and are not registered with the company.

They won't have recent updates or get any new ones.

That means the servicing won't be done properly

and that could have dangerous consequences for you and your car.

Rod Williams, Chief Executive of Autodata,

is worried that the fakers are putting the motoring public at risk.

If you take your vehicle in to a garage,

you're trusting them... They're working on your brakes for example

to make sure that you can stop the car in case of an emergency.

The implications for this kind of counterfeiting

and faking activity aren't just about the actual counterfeiting

and someone else making a fast buck.

There are actual very significant

safety implications for the general public.

Rod feels the situation is now so serious

that Autodata is using private investigators like Julian French

to track the fakers down.

In Kent, he's hoping to catch a couple red-handed

selling the fake software.

He's posing as a customer wanting to buy the disc.

Today we're hoping to meet up with a seller

offering illegal Autodata software.

This is a joint project, involving the police and Trading Standards.

The suspects targeted are posing as Autodata employees.

The actual person herself

told some of the people that she actually worked for Autodata.

On other occasions she's told people that she used to work for Autodata.

What she seems to be doing is trying to make out that what she's selling

is actually genuine software but it's just she's selling it cheap.

But we know for a fact, we know it's counterfeit software.

Julian is working with the police and Trading Standards,

their identities have to remain hidden.

They're hoping to catch some sneaky software sellers in the act.

They've agreed to meet the suspects in a supermarket car park.

Right, this is a good place for us to be able to watch the vehicle

where the deal is going to go down.

We can sit back here,

we can see the movement from the people in there

and we'll be able to see the signal from our colleague in there,

who's going to let us know when the deal's done

so we can go in and arrest the person selling the counterfeit software.

The police and Trading Standards wait in an unmarked car.

Private investigator Julian waits to meet the suspects in his own car,

in another part of the car park.

No-one's sure whether they'll turn up.

RADIO: 'We're going to view the CCTV and give you a call.

Time is ticking, and it doesn't look good.

After three hours of waiting,

just as the team are about to call off the operation, there is news.

We've just taken a call from our colleague

to let us know the target is on his way.

And it looks like one of the suspects

has turned up alone to do the deal.

Julian gets into the suspect's car on the other side of the car park.

He's pretending to be the customer.

That one.

Him in the Focus.

And once the deal's done, the police spring into action.

He's got the disc.

Basically I've just been supplied with a disc,

a blank disc, which I believe to be Autodata.

Obviously we'll take that back and check it to make sure what's on it.

Paid £80.

I was told to ring a lady at 8pm tonight

who would give me instructions to install it on my computer.

So we've got her details.

At the moment this is the guy who delivered it,

we believe this to be the partner of the person who I spoke to earlier.

The Autodata seller has been arrested

and he knows he's in serious trouble.

And the policeman is suspicious

that he been warning someone on his mobile when he was arrested.

Pardon?

-Just someone.

-Just someone.

-Yeah, just someone.

-Who's that?

-It doesn't matter who it was.

The car is searched thoroughly.

Julian and the team think their operation today has been a success.

Very pleased we've identified both subjects now, which is great.

We've recovered quite a bit of evidence which will be processed.

The couple involved will be prosecuted.

And more of these types of operations

are going to be carried out in the future.

It used to be that if you did a bit of cooking you just had knives,

but thanks to celebrity chefs that's not enough for most of us any more.

We have to have professional chef's knives like this one.

Very expensive.

But then all of these,

well, as you might expect from the Fake Britain house,

they're all fakes, and they're not cheap either.

You've guessed it,

when it comes to chef's knives, fakers are carving up the market.

All of these knives are fake.

If they were real they'd be worth thousands.

Surrey Police discovered them by chance

when they stopped a suspicious van.

The police arrested the driver, Michael Orchard,

and passed the knives onto Rob Charlton

at West Berkshire Trading Standards.

We've never dealt with anything,

with counterfeit stuff such as this before.

I was absolutely shocked, firstly the volume of it.

But also surprised at how much this stuff actually costs.

This is top of the range stuff and very expensive.

A set of knives like these if they were the real thing

would sell for over £1,000.

Richard Foster from London, loves cooking

and thought buying top-notch knives would be a sound investment.

He decided a set from Global would be perfect.

The reason for wanting a good quality knife set

was because they would last.

I would expect these to last a lifetime almost,

so in reality I don't think they are actually that expensive.

It does make a difference when you're cooking undoubtedly.

And it's like a precision piece of engineering.

Richard searched online and found the set he wanted

from an independent seller.

He was selling them as liquidated stock,

I think he mentioned he was a chef.

So I bought the set of nine knives and a sharpener for £470.

I had absolutely no reason to think there was anything untoward.

The knives he had his eye on retail on the high street for over £1,000,

so Richard thought he was getting a fantastic deal.

It wasn't long before a set similar to these arrived.

When I got the knives I was very excited.

I opened them up and I showed my wife a tomato

in lots of anticipation.

"Watch this, it's going to be amazing".

And it just bent in half and it didn't even cut through the tomato.

So there was clearly something wrong there.

That excitement was quickly blown away.

Richard had expected the knife to be extremely sharp.

Becoming suspicious, he looked a bit closer

at exactly what he'd bought.

The quality of them didn't look quite right,

the packaging didn't look that good.

I suspected there was something wrong with them.

And one thing in particular didn't add up.

The giveaway for me was the handles,

there were some black spots that were painted.

And it looked somebody had filled it in with a marker pen.

The marks weren't central.

I wouldn't expect that for a £1,000 set of knives.

I suspected they were probably fake.

Convinced they weren't the genuine knives he'd paid for,

Richard contacted the seller.

I was annoyed, I sent him an email,

I disputed the fact they were genuine.

He said they were, he said was a chef and he'd sold lots of them,

I think 20 sets.

Insisting they were real,

the seller wouldn't give Richard his money back.

But, Richard wasn't going to give up that easily.

The follow up email I told him I would send them to Global Knives

to see if they were counterfeit.

The seller then agreed to a refund if the knives were sent back.

That's exactly what Richard did

and it confirmed his suspicions that they were fake.

After this bad experience,

Richard forked out for a real set and was amazed at the difference.

You can literally lay them on top something

and they just go straight through.

So the quality was completely different.

People who sell the fakes also target restaurants.

We took some of the fakes to Cicchetti restaurant in London

to show them to well-known chef Aldo Zilli.

I never experienced fake knives until 10 years ago in this country.

You get the odd people that try to sell you things at the back door.

We've got two knives here, one's fake and one's real.

And the branding is much more prominent on the fake one.

You know, because they want you really to believe it.

The sharpness, this real one is, to the finger,

is quite sharp.

This is quite blunt.

And then the noise.

This is very noisy, this is nice and quiet.

The weight,

this is a lot heavier than the one that's fake.

Of course, the proof is in the pudding. Or the starter.

We haven't got time in the kitchen

to be sharpening knives every 5 minutes.

If this knife doesn't cut properly,

then my finger will be part of this.

This is the fake one.

It doesn't feel as nice, doesn't feel as heavy.

I can feel that I need to look

because I'm not too confident with this one.

Confidence is everything with a knife.

Wusthof, a German company, has been manufacturing knives for 200 years.

Their products are sold all over the world,

including here, in Harrods.

Paul Shelley from Wusthof was sent some of the fake knives

found by the police in that van in Surrey.

We opened the box, looked at the knives

and were pretty gobsmacked with what we saw

and felt a little bit sorry for, obviously,

people that would be buying those sort of items

because the quality and craftsmanship just wasn't there.

While the fake knives might look very similar,

Wusthof say the fakers can't reproduce the real thing,

which has gone through dozens of traditional and expensive processes.

All of them still manufactured in Germany,

and that goes through a process of over 38 to 40 manufacturing steps.

From the start, single blank of steel, to the end result.

Rob Charlton from West Berkshire Trading Standards

had started an investigation

into what the van driver Michael Orchard had been up to.

Orchard originally denied knowing anything about the fake knives.

But Rob discovered some crucial evidence.

These invoices that were seized by the police,

related to individuals that were in the forces.

So clearly what he was doing was going onto military bases

and selling this equipment.

Rob also obtained security photos

proving that Orchard had been to those bases.

That was enough to prosecute him.

Michael Orchard pleaded guilty in court

to three charges under the Trademarks Act.

But although Rob and his team stopped Orchard,

they have no idea how many fake knives are still out there.

Earlier, we saw the horrifying story

of young Gabriel Loxham

who suffered a terrible reaction

to a fake henna decoration

that was put on his skin while he was on holiday.

But black henna designs aren't just available

to holiday makers in Europe.

They're freely available on the high street in the UK,

to customers who don't realise they are dangerous and illegal.

Architecture student Rozghar from London

wanted to get henna decorations for the first time,

and decided to get them applied professionally at a salon.

She's asked for her identity to be disguised.

It was Eid so I wanted to go to a shop

and have the henna done.

I decided to do the black henna

because I thought it was more dramatic,

it's more a nicer colour and darker.

Rozghar was happy with the result.

Her designs had a mixture of real brown henna

and fake black henna outlines.

But within a day, her pretty design had turned ugly.

After 24 hours of getting the black henna done

the reaction had started.

It was getting very red, itchy, burning feel to it.

You can see that her skin has reacted

to the black fake henna outlines,

while the brown henna is just fading away naturally as it should.

After that then it started to get blistery,

the pain was on going throughout nights and days.

The pain, it was too much, you know.

When the pain and itchiness got too severe Rozghar went to the doctor,

but the medication she was prescribed didn't help.

It was all over both my arms, the itchiness all over.

My hands and arms were burning, I felt like it was almost burning.

Whenever I did apply something,

it would stop it for maybe a couple of hours

and then it would start all over again.

And a few days later, things became even worse.

The illegal ingredient PPD that's

found in black henna had poisoned Rozghar.

On the eighth day my left hand started to swell

so then I realised I should go to the hospital.

The doctor saw it and obviously was amazed at how bad it was.

For two weeks she was in agonising pain

and she may now be scarred for life.

I don't know if it will go away,

it may do, it may not.

It was just terrible, it was too much.

As a result of Rozghar's appalling injury,

Kari Aslam and his team from Newham Trading Standards

tackle the salon that applied her henna.

Straightaway Kari finds what he's looking for.

Yeah, because this is black henna we're going to have to seize this.

Our customers buy them,

they don't seem to have a problem with the henna.

Or is it because it's black henna that you're taking it?

It says there on there it is black henna.

They find confirmation in the bookings diary

that Rozghar was treated here.

The team take a look in the salon area where the henna is applied

and are horrified by the posters on display.

It seems even children have black henna put on their skin here.

Children as well.

Yes, but they have to get a consent form.

We usually say don't put it on for kids

so most parents don't put it on for the kids,

they just get the orange one done.

But some of this black henna has gone onto kids?

Have you applied it to any children?

People have signed it, yeah.

And have you got that documentation?

It's on the same thing, it's written next to it,

but if it's for a kid it will say parents signed for.

The shop seems to be fully aware

that the black henna could be dangerous when applied to the skin.

The business has written notices on the wall as you can see here.

We need to make further enquiries by speaking to the owner

who's unfortunately not here today.

It shows to us that they know about the dangers

but they're still carrying on despite.

So this makes it a little bit worse really for the owner.

The salon selling the fake henna

and offering to apply it to customers' skin

is now under investigation and could face prosecution.

Newham Trading Standards are cracking down on the shops

that sell the dangerous henna.

Today they're on their way to a busy shopping area.

I'm from Newham Council Trading Standards.

What we're here to do is look at black henna paste products

and we do know you're selling some down there.

You might also know that it's illegal in this country

to sell black henna paste.

-Not legal?

-No, it's not legal, it's illegal.

The store is searched and Nick and Kari are shocked

to find a huge number of black henna products for sale.

Without knowing what's in there we've no idea of knowing

what the risks are to the user,

what kind of reactions may be taken to it.

The fake henna just keeps coming

and often the packaging isn't even in English.

Consumer can't see what it is, they can't even tell what's inside it.

It could be black henna paste, could be anything in there.

Yes, no ingredients list.

Well, it could be an ingredients list but I don't speak Arabic.

There seems to be another problem

as Kari spots some dubious-looking bottles of perfume.

As Nick predicted, one form of fakery has led to another.

In the back of the shop, Nick finds a fake perfume operation hidden away.

Now, it doesn't seem likely

that brands such as Dior and Chanel

would distribute their perfume in these bottles.

That's Obsession, and Paris and various other imitation perfumes.

All with the names on there

of what they are presumably meant to smell like.

Not quite sure if that does smell like Obsession,

I don't profess to be a connoisseur!

But nonetheless quite clearly

a lot of this all being used

to top up the sort of counterfeit fragrances

and the officers will be seizing those as well.

Not normally the kind of thing you store in a toilet.

Well it's eau de toilette, Nick.

He fetches a shop worker to get an explanation

but he blames the boss.

Could you explain to me about this, please?

What do you do with them?

Nick and Kari seize the bottles, all 93 of them.

This shop is now in serious trouble.

Hope that's replica of the perfume rather than actual poison.

The shop worker is still trying to convince Nick

that it's not fake perfume.

Don't sound very Arabian to me, Dunhill, or Cool Water.

With their huge haul of henna and their fragrant fakes,

It's bag it and tag it

for Nick, Kari and the team from Newham Trading Standards,

as hundreds of dangerous fakes are taken off the shelves.

That's all from Fake Britain today, bye bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd