Episode 9 Fake Britain


Episode 9

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Transcript


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

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Welcome to Fake Britain.

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

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but this is a house that's filled with fakes. And you may not know it,

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but your home could be full of them too.

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During the series we'll be investigating the criminals

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trying to get their hands on your cash by using forgeries,

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frauds and fakery. I'll be showing you

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how you can avoid being taken for a ride.

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Today on Fake Britain.

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We reveal the fake X-ray device intended for British dental clinics.

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Spraying X-rays around the room.

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People are liable to develop cancers, tumours,

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all sorts of health problems.

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We tell the tale of one of the biggest art forgers of modern times.

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He admitted painting four or five paintings a week for five years,

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so we were aware there were probably over 1,000 paintings out in the art market.

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And you'll hear the story of the mystery Chinese fakers

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and their extraordinary fraud on a South London high street.

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A member of the public had seen a suspicious vehicle in Compton Road by Wimbledon library.

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He had seen wires coming out of the bonnet of the car.

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He suspected it may be involved in terrorism.

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Does anyone actually like going to the dentist?

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I mean, having someone poke around inside your mouth

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with pointy little implements and then there is injections

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and X-rays. Wouldn't it be even worse and more worrying

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if it turned out that those tools were in fact fake?

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As you might expect, from the Fake Britain house,

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all of these are, and it's amazing the lengths

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the fakers will go to to wipe the smiles off our faces.

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On Fake Britain, we've featured the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency,

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or MHRA, because of their war on counterfeit drugs.

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We've been with them as they've carried out numerous raids

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to bring the dealers of fake medicines to justice.

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But they are also engaged in a less well-known battle

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against counterfeit medical equipment.

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Terrifyingly, during a recent raid in Portsmouth,

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the enforcement team seized a shipment of fake X-ray devices,

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destined for UK dental clinics.

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Advertised online as being made by Kodak,

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they are actually cheap copies.

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One of the scanners has been brought here to King's College London

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to be tested.

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Dental X-ray units are used to capture images of patient's teeth.

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They emit powerful X-rays and can be either wall-mounted or handheld.

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Whilst the fake was being sold for £300,

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genuine machines cost thousands.

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They contain sophisticated lead shielding to protect patients

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and operators from radiation.

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The scientists at King's College are concerned that as well

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as being a fake this cheap counterfeit unit could be dangerous.

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Testing the unit is radiation expert Donald Emerton.

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There are suggestions that this is not an adequately shielded unit,

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not enough protection to stop radiation getting to the operator,

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and we are concerned about the dose to the patient as well.

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Donald and his team are setting up an experiment to test

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the radiation exposure levels.

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We are going to place these detectors around the skull phantom

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and the unit to detect the radiation dosages and leakage.

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We are going to put it where there are radio-sensitive organs

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on the patient and where the operator's hands and body would be.

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Sensors are placed in key areas sensitive to radiation -

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the eyes of the patient, and the hands and body of the operator.

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Once they are all in place, the experiment begins.

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We have come round to this side as this is lead acrylic glass

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so we are actually protected from the radiation here.

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Donald takes an exposure.

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The radiation readings are off the scale.

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He's genuinely shocked.

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We would have expected all of those sensors

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to stay within the green markings. The fact that any of them

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went beyond that is an issue of concern to us.

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Donald is particularly alarmed by the massive exposure

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to the patient's eye.

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We would expect there to be some dose to the patient's eye,

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but nowhere near as high as we were showing there.

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But it's not just the power of the X-rays -

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it's the huge area they're covering.

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The fake unit sprays X-rays across the patient's entire face,

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irradiating their brain and eye.

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Continued exposure to this could leave someone blind.

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The cornea of the eye is sensitive to radiation,

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so any damage to it can lead to impaired vision.

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But the readings reveal the most devastating effect

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would be to the operator - the person using the machine

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every day and repeatedly exposed to the powerful X-rays.

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The results so far are showing that there is an increased dose

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to the operator, which is unacceptable.

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Over time, an operator using this in a dental practice

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would receive a higher dose of radiation, and this would lead

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to a greater risk of cancer.

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The results of the test have been sent back to Danny Lee Frost,

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head of enforcement at the agency. He's understandably appalled.

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Further testing also revealed another dangerous fault.

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This is the on/off switch that starts the exposure,

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so the dentist would hold this part,

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the assistant may be holding the scanner itself.

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The dentist then opens the switch and presses the button

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to start exposure. After a few seconds, stops.

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However, when this was tested, the whole thing was live,

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and the exposure was running as soon as the cover was released.

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So even though he hasn't pressed the button, the thing is still

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exposing everyone to X-rays.

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In practice, this could be horrific.

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Unshielded devices spraying X-rays around a room - people are liable

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to develop cancers, tumours, all sorts of health problems.

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But the scanners weren't the only thing seized on the raid.

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Tens of thousands of counterfeit low-grade dental tools were also

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found at the address - all intended for British dental clinics.

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The CE mark on the products, a European validation of safety,

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is completely fake.

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This is a dental drill.

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Anyone who has been to the dentist will have

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seen one of these. Big long cable on the end. A variety of attachments

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can go on this point - drills, cleaning, polishing - all sorts.

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It's actually got a CE mark on it. That is fake.

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This has been nowhere near a CE mark body.

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It's so poor quality, that as soon as this would be plugged in to the

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power unit, so pressure coming through here to turn the little wheels in here,

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the whole thing is liable to explode. It's such poor quality.

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If the whole thing comes apart when it is in someone's mouth, there

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could be some serious consequences not only for the patient,

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but the person holding it. It's going to explode in their hand!

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If the drill had any sharp implements

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attached at the time, the results could be tragic.

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Essentially that's going into somebody's mouth.

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If this component part explodes,

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the dentist will be holding that, it's going to explode,

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it's going to go everywhere

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and that's going to go through the side of somebody's face.

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The full range of different tools they found are very poor quality

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and not fit for use in ANY dental surgery.

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That would probably snap after a couple of uses like that.

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It's very soft. A couple of pokes about in someone's mouth,

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that's liable to snap. These things are shoddy,

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poor quality, liable to disintegrate, fall apart,

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explode, break, snap in somebody's mouth,

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which if you think about it, if you're lucky,

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you'll spit them out, if you're not they will end up inside you.

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Despite this discovery, no-one really knows

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how much fake equipment is already out there

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being used in dental surgeries across Britain.

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If any dentist has bought any of this, then let us know.

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If any dentist is thinking of buying it, then don't. Products such

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as these should only be bought from a recognised, reputable source.

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What do you think? I think he's captured my likeness perfectly.

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It's a fake, and you know what?

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Art fraud is a lot more common than you might think.

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Experts tell us that fakes are being sold online and at auctions

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all the time, and many of them go undetected for years.

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But when you are the most prolific faker of modern times,

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eventually you'll end up with a red face.

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John Meers is a keen art collector.

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He often buys pieces online,

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so when he spotted a painting by a famous Moroccan artist,

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Jilali Gharbaoui, at a very good price,

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he jumped at the chance to buy it.

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We bid on it, bought it, did a bit of research on the artist.

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Thought, "Hmm, I think this is actually worth quite a lot of money."

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John paid £600 for the piece.

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Not long afterwards, he spotted another well-priced painting for sale online.

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This time by Indian painter SH Raza,

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one of the Bombay Progressive Movement of painters from the 1950s,

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as I'm sure you know.

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Similar - abstract, very bright, colourful.

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It didn't strike me at the time that it was coming from the same area of the country.

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John bid on it and bought the picture.

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I think it was...around £1,200, 1,300, I think.

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More than I would normally have paid, in all honesty,

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but it was a lovely picture.

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The paintings were potentially worth quite a bit of money.

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John loved the pictures,

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but wondered if it might be time to capitalise on them.

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We had works to do on the house, so we felt that it might be worth

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taking them to Bonhams and saying, "What do we think?

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"Are they worth selling?"

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The auction house was impressed, and the pictures were entered

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into an auction in Dubai, where they sold for £20,000.

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John Meers couldn't believe his luck.

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You can actually follow the auction live and you look at the screen

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and you think, "That much money!"

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We felt ecstatic, basically. It was great, you know.

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We had suddenly had 20,000 in the bank.

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We could put in the new kitchen and do the decoration we wanted to do.

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Everything begins to roll and you get carried away.

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You think, "I've done it once, we can do it again."

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Another picture claiming to be by the same Indian group of artists

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soon turned up online.

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Believing he was on a winning streak, John snapped it up.

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It was a picture entitled Barney The Doorman.

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Which was a portrait pertaining to be of the doorman of a club

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in London, to which most of the artists at that time went to.

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The picture was supposedly by Francis Newton Souza.

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John splashed out another £1,600.

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It was more than he had paid before,

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but he believed he had stumbled on another neglected masterpiece.

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It had been owned by an old lady, who was in a home,

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who was the wife of an art dealer,

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who had basically willed all of this collection to the old people's home,

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who then when it had closed down had sold them off at a local sale.

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The seller told John he had more paintings from the same collection,

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so he bought two more, and was soon tempted to sell them as well.

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We had been on holiday to Turkey

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and thought a holiday home in Turkey would be lovely.

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John's local auctioneers thought Barney alone

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could be worth £40-60,000, so he sent them off to London.

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But this time there was a problem.

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Charlie Moore, an expert in the paintings of the Bombay Progressive Group,

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who was working at Bonhams at the time, was concerned.

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An abnormally large number of paintings by the group

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had been coming onto the market. All had slightly strange features.

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So when John Meers's painting "Barney" turned up, Charlie

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immediately spotted there was something not quite right about it.

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There are numerous elements to this painting that are very strange

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and are not in keeping with works you'd see by him

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from the early '60s. The date is 1961.

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The signature, whilst it bears resemblance to signatures by Souza

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from that period, is not fine. It's not a very good example.

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Souza was known for putting paint on the canvas with a palette knife.

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But Charlie noticed something strange about the surface of the piece.

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From afar, it appears that the paint has been applied

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with a palette knife.

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Whereas upon close inspection, you can see that it's actually

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been applied with a paintbrush, which is another tell-tale sign

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that there's something not quite right.

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Bonhams were also concerned by the fact that none of the paintings

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had any supporting documentation saying where they had come from.

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Sensing a fraud, Charlie and his team returned John's paintings

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and contacted the famous Metropolitan Police Art and Antiques Unit.

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Coming up, we hear how the unit unravelled one of the greatest

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art frauds of recent times.

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This was a huge operation, almost a conveyor belt.

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Every so often a member of the British public spots something

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that doesn't quite look right, and if they have the nous to report,

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it can unravel a crime that otherwise would have gone unnoticed.

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That's exactly what happened on the streets of south London

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where a system was in place to help people cheat

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on the exam for British citizenship.

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They were helping to create Fake Britons.

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Everyone's heard of Wimbledon

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thanks to the tennis, the Common and the Wombles,

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but it's not so well-known for high-tech fakery.

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All that was about to change

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when Inspector Dominic Washington received a strange phone call.

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A member of the public had seen a suspicious vehicle

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in Compton Road by Wimbledon Library.

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He had seen wires coming out of the bonnet of the car

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and he was unhappy with it.

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He suspected it may be involved in terrorism, so he called police,

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so I decided to go to the call to find out exactly what was happening.

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I pulled up in Compton Road just along here

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and I found the car exactly where the gentleman had said.

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The vehicle, the BMW, was parked here,

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just outside the library in a side street, next to Wimbledon Library,

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and it had as described, the wires coming from under the bonnet,

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three people in it. They had computers,

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they had electronic equipment all around them in the car.

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In the front were two people, a man and a woman,

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and in the back was one gentleman on his own.

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The scene looked very suspicious.

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Dominic asked the people to step out of the car

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so he could question them.

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When I got the couple out of the car,

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they were very pleasant and polite.

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They said it was a simple misunderstanding.

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The father of the lady who was with them

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was simply looking for premises nearby to buy a restaurant, a Chinese restaurant.

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They were watching on their computers some Chinese television

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and that is why they had all the wires and the aerials and the receivers,

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just to pick up the signal for Chinese television.

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Dominic was unconvinced by the story and called for back-up.

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One of my colleagues discovered the older gentleman, who couldn't speak English,

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was carrying £1,000 in cash. Again, this was quite odd

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cos that's quite a large amount of cash.

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When I asked the couple what this was all about,

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they said it was a deposit for a premises they were trying to secure

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as a restaurant. That didn't ring true either because £1,000,

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whilst being a lot of money,

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isn't enough to pay a deposit if you were buying a premises.

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The three people were arrested on suspicion of fraud,

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but as they were leaving the road, something strange happened.

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As we neared the junction with Wimbledon Hill Road,

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we saw another man, also of Chinese appearance.

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He'd came round the corner from the main area of Wimbledon.

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He stopped and looked at the van,

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the people we had arrested in the van appeared to recognise him.

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We decided to stop and talk to this gentleman as well.

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One of my colleagues jumped out, spoke to the man,

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he didn't speak a word of English.

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Dominic believed the man

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could also be involved in whatever kind of fraud was taking place.

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He was also arrested, and Dominic set off for the police station

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with a very puzzling case on his hands.

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We now had four suspects in custody on their way back to the station.

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Two could speak English, two couldn't.

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We had a vehicle full of equipment that we didn't know its capabilities or what it was.

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We had to get it all back to the station to examine it thoroughly

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to get some technical advice so we could deduce the capabilities

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of the equipment, and from that, further the investigation.

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But we still didn't really know what it was capable of

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and what they were actually doing.

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The case was passed to Detective Sergeant Grant Donnachie

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at Wimbledon CID, an expert in fraud.

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The clock was ticking. He had only 24 hours to question the suspects,

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but was confronted with the same strange evidence.

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A car filled with sophisticated-looking surveillance equipment

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and four Chinese suspects.

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To make matters worse, as soon as they arrived at the police station,

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the two English speakers didn't say a word.

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They were calm and collected

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until they came to the police station and at that point

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they put the barriers up and did not interact or communicate with us.

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Grant sent officers to the addresses of all the suspects.

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At the address of the English speaking couple,

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they found more quantities of cash

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and more high-tech equipment including minute cameras.

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There was logbooks, transaction books -

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a lot of the material was in Chinese so we needed to get that later,

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but at first glance you could tell

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they were running a very successful business.

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But just what that business was

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and the purpose of the equipment remained a mystery.

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We knew it was covert surveillance-type equipment

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but we weren't 100% sure as to what and how it was being used.

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Then Grant had a breakthrough.

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One of the Chinese-speaking men, the one Dominic had spotted

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coming round the corner, asked to be taken back

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to Wimbledon High Street. He had a confession.

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He had deposited clothing with surveillance-type equipment

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in the changing rooms of a local shop.

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The man explained he had been in radio contact with the couple in the car.

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When they'd been caught and the signal went dead,

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he'd panicked and bolted into a nearby clothes shop.

0:19:150:19:18

During a subsequent interview the full story finally emerged.

0:19:180:19:22

Wimbledon Library is a location for Life In The UK tests,

0:19:220:19:27

exams immigrants wishing to become UK citizens must pass.

0:19:270:19:31

For a price, Chinese fraudsters Steven Lee and Rong Yang

0:19:310:19:35

were helping people fake their exam papers and cheat the system.

0:19:350:19:39

They would provide that individual

0:19:390:19:41

with a small earpiece worn in their ear, not overt,

0:19:410:19:46

not obvious to the average member of the public.

0:19:460:19:48

At the same time, the customer was given a shirt.

0:19:480:19:53

An everyday shirt, but sewn into the lining and the button

0:19:530:19:57

was a camera which transmitted back to the computers and equipment

0:19:570:20:04

that they had in the car.

0:20:040:20:06

So the customer having been given the earpiece, the camera,

0:20:060:20:10

would go off and was able to sit in front of a computer screen,

0:20:100:20:16

was able to take a test by virtue of the camera capturing questions asked,

0:20:160:20:23

relaying back to them in the car,

0:20:230:20:26

from which they would then tell the answer into the earpiece.

0:20:260:20:30

Customer passes exam, monies are paid.

0:20:310:20:34

The result was fake British citizens.

0:20:370:20:39

Lee and Yang would advertise their services in local Chinese newspapers

0:20:390:20:43

and via word of mouth.

0:20:430:20:45

They charged £1,000 to help people pass the Life In The UK test,

0:20:450:20:50

which set them on the path to full UK citizenship.

0:20:500:20:53

With that comes access to all sorts of things

0:20:530:20:56

including the benefit system and the NHS.

0:20:560:20:58

Steven Lee and Rong Yang were jailed and forced to repay £100,000.

0:21:000:21:05

Had Dominic's team not had the call from the concerned passer-by, they

0:21:050:21:09

may never have discovered the fakers and their sophisticated crime.

0:21:090:21:13

Earlier, we saw how collector John Meers couldn't believe his luck

0:21:200:21:24

when he bought some cheap paintings by famous Indian artists online.

0:21:240:21:28

But an expert at an auction house spotted a number of strange things

0:21:280:21:31

about the pictures and alerted the police.

0:21:310:21:35

DC Michelle Roycroft of the Met Police's

0:21:350:21:38

Art and Antiques Unit began to investigate.

0:21:380:21:42

So these are the first three paintings

0:21:420:21:44

that Charlie Moore wasn't happy with.

0:21:440:21:46

All the paintings had labels on the back from galleries

0:21:460:21:49

and past exhibitions that seemed to authenticate them.

0:21:490:21:52

However, upon closer inspection, they also held a vital clue.

0:21:520:21:56

It was this particular Husain that when we examined,

0:21:560:22:00

the rear of the painting

0:22:000:22:03

was able to assist us in our investigation.

0:22:030:22:07

What we found was the Nicholas Treadwell Gallery stamp.

0:22:070:22:10

When we contacted Nicholas Treadwell,

0:22:100:22:13

he was able to tell us this wasn't in fact his gallery stamp.

0:22:130:22:16

Treadwell confirmed with Michelle

0:22:160:22:18

that his stamps always consisted of his complete address,

0:22:180:22:22

including the number of the building and the full postcode.

0:22:220:22:25

This was yet more evidence that the paintings were bogus.

0:22:250:22:29

Next, Michelle contacted those who had bought the pieces,

0:22:290:22:32

including John Meers up in Whitley Bay.

0:22:320:22:36

I didn't really begin to think there was a problem

0:22:360:22:40

until I received the email, and then the penny dropped.

0:22:400:22:44

John was soon faced with the awful reality

0:22:450:22:48

that all the paintings he'd bought were fake.

0:22:480:22:51

Having found out that potentially

0:22:510:22:54

all of them were fake, the response

0:22:540:22:58

was a feeling of dread, basically, because I knew that clearly

0:22:580:23:05

we had money we weren't entitled to

0:23:050:23:08

and it was very likely that someone would want it back, but of course

0:23:080:23:12

we'd actually spent a fair chunk of it.

0:23:120:23:15

To make matters worse, the remaining paintings which John

0:23:150:23:18

and his wife had fallen in love with had to be confiscated.

0:23:180:23:21

It was heartbreaking seeing them bagged up, the Barney,

0:23:210:23:25

the Husain, which was of a small white dove

0:23:250:23:29

in whites, which was beautiful.

0:23:290:23:31

From John and other customers like him,

0:23:310:23:34

Michelle took details of the online art vendors.

0:23:340:23:37

At first glance, they all appeared to be completely different people,

0:23:370:23:40

different names, and so we started our investigation with eBay.

0:23:400:23:46

It was then that we discovered that the eBay sellers were

0:23:460:23:49

all from one particular town in West Sussex, in Littlehampton.

0:23:490:23:54

Michelle contacted the local police

0:23:540:23:56

and was told that a year earlier, the sellers had a brush with

0:23:560:23:59

the law for selling a fake painting to a lady in Wales.

0:23:590:24:02

One of the group, William Mumford, had claimed that he had just

0:24:020:24:05

restored the painting and they were let off.

0:24:050:24:08

From years of investigating art fakers, Michelle knew

0:24:080:24:11

the so-called restorer could be key to unravelling the crime.

0:24:110:24:16

As soon as I read his interview

0:24:160:24:18

and he said he was a restorer of paintings, my experience immediately,

0:24:180:24:22

there were alarm bells ringing

0:24:220:24:24

and I knew this was probably going to be the artist.

0:24:240:24:28

Michelle was closing in on the artful dodgers.

0:24:280:24:31

They had painted themselves into a corner.

0:24:310:24:34

Our investigations led us

0:24:340:24:35

to a particular pub in Littlehampton where we discovered that

0:24:350:24:40

the majority of our suspects were all working. Billy Mumford,

0:24:400:24:43

he was the chef, there was a fellow chef Anthony Resse, there was one

0:24:430:24:48

of the cleaners, Martin Petrskovsky, and his wife Karen Potter.

0:24:480:24:52

Michelle organised a co-ordinated dawn swoop on four addresses.

0:24:550:24:59

But she focused on Mumford's flat.

0:24:590:25:02

It was a very small maisonette, immaculately kept,

0:25:020:25:05

but the rear bedroom had been turned into an artist's studio,

0:25:050:25:08

complete with easel, hundreds of books, all different artists,

0:25:080:25:13

paints, Victorian paints.

0:25:130:25:16

The books revealed how Mumford had been able to match

0:25:160:25:20

the signatures of each artist.

0:25:200:25:22

There was a particular book that specialised in signatures for

0:25:220:25:25

the Indian Progressive Art Group.

0:25:250:25:28

Particularly with Husain, as he got more elderly,

0:25:280:25:30

naturally his signature had changed

0:25:300:25:33

and Mumford was able to re-create the signatures,

0:25:330:25:37

almost through the ages.

0:25:370:25:38

Michelle also found all the tools Mumford used to create

0:25:400:25:43

the backs of the paintings, including a book of Victorian paper,

0:25:430:25:46

an old typewriter and numerous art gallery stamps.

0:25:460:25:50

This was one that he used quite a lot, the gallery one.

0:25:500:25:53

We were able to establish that the artist had exhibited at all

0:25:530:25:57

the galleries that he had made the stamps for.

0:25:570:25:59

So his research had been meticulous.

0:25:590:26:01

During his interview, the forger admitted just how prolific

0:26:010:26:05

he had been at churning out fakes.

0:26:050:26:08

Mr Mumford admitted to painting four or five paintings a week

0:26:080:26:11

for five years. So we were aware there were probably

0:26:110:26:14

over 1,000 paintings out in the art market.

0:26:140:26:17

This was a huge operation, almost a conveyor belt.

0:26:170:26:20

He also had in his garage stacks of paintings just waiting

0:26:200:26:25

for him to re-paint or add a signature to.

0:26:250:26:29

Mumford had carefully chosen his helpers for their different skills.

0:26:290:26:33

The cleaner at the pub was his IT man.

0:26:330:26:36

A fellow chef had proved a smart salesman, offloading

0:26:360:26:39

the pieces to auction houses.

0:26:390:26:41

He identified Anthony Resse as a very charming,

0:26:410:26:44

very personable young man, who was very good at taking the paintings

0:26:440:26:48

into the provincial auction houses, where he would come up with a story,

0:26:480:26:52

usually a sob story on every occasion.

0:26:520:26:55

When Michelle's team raided Resse's house, they discovered

0:26:550:26:58

a whiteboard charting his part in the fraud.

0:26:580:27:01

Here, he had listed all the auction houses that he had visited,

0:27:010:27:06

names of paintings he had taken into the auction houses,

0:27:060:27:10

the date of the intended sale, and how much the estimate

0:27:100:27:13

was going to be for that particular painting.

0:27:130:27:16

Forger William Mumford was jailed for two years.

0:27:160:27:20

Fellow chef Anthony Resse, and cleaner Petrskovsky,

0:27:200:27:24

also received jail sentences.

0:27:240:27:26

This was a very big case and it was a very satisfying conclusion

0:27:260:27:30

to see that it had been taken seriously.

0:27:300:27:32

During the court case, Mumford explained that he had tried

0:27:320:27:35

to make it as an artist in his own right and failed.

0:27:350:27:38

In his words, people weren't interested in the paintings,

0:27:380:27:42

they were just interested in who had signed it. So he thought

0:27:420:27:46

he'd give them what they wanted.

0:27:460:27:47

Mumford's victims stretched around the globe.

0:27:500:27:53

Hundreds of paintings are still thought to be out there.

0:27:530:27:56

Fortunately John Meers was able to reach an agreement with Bonhams

0:27:560:27:59

and he didn't have to pay back all the money.

0:27:590:28:02

However, the whole episode has been traumatic

0:28:020:28:05

and John has learned a lot from the experience.

0:28:050:28:08

Always spend only what you can afford to lose, basically.

0:28:080:28:14

If you lose the money, it doesn't actually make

0:28:140:28:17

a lot of difference to you financially. I think

0:28:170:28:20

that's the thing, set yourself limits and stick to them.

0:28:200:28:23

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

0:28:290:28:31

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