Episode 16 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

-Police!

-THEY SHOUT

-Get down! Get down!

-Get on the floor now!

Put your hands behind your back now!

Here at the Fake Britain house, things might look familiar,

but don't be taken in,

because this is a house that's filled with fakes.

In this series, I'll be revealing the counterfeits, copies and cons

that are flooding the market, fooling the public,

making money for the criminals

and maybe even putting you in danger.

We'll be investigating those fraudsters who are cashing in

by selling us something that isn't real,

and we'll be showing you how to avoid falling for a fake.

Today on Fake Britain,

the satellite TV fakers, making viewers see red.

If they're pensioners, they cannot afford to lose that sort of money.

This little piggy went to the farmers' market -

the porkies being told about these sausages.

I'm shocked, because they've committed food fraud.

And the fake bike parts putting the brakes on Britain's cyclists.

I was especially angry when I saw how they'd failed,

and I thought, "Those handlebars aren't right."

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

I can't stand him.

If you've got one of these, a set-top box for satellite television,

you've also probably got some kind of insurance to go with it.

Could be expensive if it goes wrong.

But as we've discovered,

that means you could be a target for the fakers and the fraudsters

who've switched on to what could be a very lucrative business.

Sky is Britain's biggest satellite TV operation.

It now has ten million households

tuning into its services across the UK.

But as 76-year-old Valerie Morris found out,

fraudsters are also focusing in on Sky's growing success.

One day, she got a call out of the blue.

-ON PHONE:

-Hello, is that Mrs Valerie Morris?

-It is.

Hiya, this is Thomas calling regarding your Sky television.

Well, it all began with a phone call and when I picked it up,

I thought I was talking to somebody from Sky.

I trusted that he was from Sky and he was sort of going on and on.

Valerie had just woken up.

She was recovering from a recent fall.

This basically regards the service plan, Ms Morris, which has expired.

We're calling to renew that again

-so you're covered again with us next year, OK?

-Right.

They were offering insurance for the following year.

The fact that I had had this from Sky the year before,

I just thought it was a continuation.

It all sounded very plausible.

The salesman told Valerie he was offering to renew her cover plan

in case her Sky box broke down.

The good news is because you were with us last year

and you didn't make any claims,

this year, it's all the way down to £79, OK?

So it's over £40 cheaper for you.

Right.

A £40 reduction in her Sky set-top box cover seemed like a good deal.

The problem is, the salesman wasn't from Sky at all.

Despite this, he went on to claim he had Valerie's credit card details.

Firstly, the Visa debit card we had for you on the system last year,

the card number starting 6-5-8,

have you got that card there with you?

The number wasn't on Valerie's credit card at all.

He then asked for her full details.

Now, then, what number did you quote?

Erm, the number first, we just need to confirm the number

across the middle of the card, the long number.

When he asked for my card details, I'm afraid I did give them to him.

For some reason, the credit card transaction didn't go through,

so a letter arrived asking Valerie for a cheque,

which she duly sent off.

Despite the cheque clearing,

they sent another letter demanding payment.

According to them, the cheque that I had sent, they hadn't received

and they were going to send debt collectors to my door

if I didn't pay this money.

I just flipped,

because we don't have debt collectors coming to the door.

I felt cross, angry,

the fact that somebody had written me this terrible letter.

In a state of near panic, Valerie got her son Gareth involved.

I read the letter a couple of times and I started to realise

there's something not quite right, the wording wasn't...

It didn't fit together, the letter, it was very sort of in pieces.

I realised it was a scam.

So Gareth did some digging.

First, he called his mother's satellite TV provider, Sky.

They came back pretty quickly and said,

"Look, this is nothing to do with us,

"this is not a sub-contracted company,

"this is absolutely nothing to do with Sky whatsoever."

The demands for payment had been sent by Aurora Satellite,

the trading name for a Swansea company called Aurora Logistics.

That confirmed it wasn't Sky,

and that pretty much led us into,

"Right, OK, we need to look into this company - who are they?

"How do we get in contact with them? How do we get our money back?"

Soon Swansea Trading Standards were also trying to find out more

about this local outfit, Aurora Logistics.

We started to receive complaints from consumers,

and in total, over the investigation,

we received about 200 complaints, all of the same nature.

Sky confirmed to Rhys's team

that they had their own in-house cover plan called Sky Protect,

and that they were not connected in any way to Aurora Logistics.

The claims that their salesmen had access

to Sky customer records were fake.

The sales staff didn't know anything.

All they had in front of them was a name, address

and a telephone number.

They didn't know what they'd paid, they didn't know if they had Sky,

they didn't know if they had insurance, they knew nothing.

And they seemed to prefer calling during daytime hours,

as the majority of complaints were from pensioners,

people like MS sufferer Carol Oatey.

She was also lied to.

It was just a normal day until the phone rang.

I think that was the opening gambit -

"We notice that your contract with Sky has expired,

"and you're no longer covered by any insurance."

They really made an impression on me

that I would be in all sorts of trouble

if anything went wrong with my Sky equipment.

It was fairly aggressive and persuasive.

Carol gave the salesman her bank details over the phone

and parted with £79.99.

When the documentation came through,

I suddenly realised, with a sickening...

jerk to my stomach that I already had an insurance policy,

and that I didn't need this from Aurora at all.

It did make me feel sick to think that I might have lost £80.

But the net would soon close in on Aurora Logistics,

who were also operating under other names,

such as Cable Guy Technical Services,

not to be confused with similar-sounding companies.

By now, Trading Standards had built up enough evidence

to execute a warrant on their premises,

here on the Kingsway in Swansea.

When we attended the premises,

we couldn't get into the premises initially, through locked doors.

Finally, someone came to answer the door,

which was Paul De La Mare, the director.

When I was speaking to him, unaware to me,

the sales staff were rubbing their names off boards in the sales room

so they couldn't be identified.

When some of them left,

they went to the floor below and someone knocked off the fire alarm.

We tried to get to what was called their server room,

which is where everything was held.

Unfortunately, we couldn't get access to it at that point.

They allegedly didn't have a key on site.

We weren't aware at this point that

while we were waiting to get into that room,

one of the other directors was downloading

something called Evidence Eliminator,

and trying to destroy everything

which was on the hard drives in the server room.

We luckily got in there with a locksmith,

just before it actually worked.

By sifting through the seized data,

Rhys and his team identified a shadowy figure behind the operation,

a man called Jonathan Stockting,

even though his name never appeared as a director

on any official company documents.

Jonathan Stockting has nice vehicles,

living in a very nice part of Swansea,

very expensive properties.

He had previously run call centres in Swansea.

We had received complaints about those companies previously.

Despite Trading Standards' attempts to stall his operation,

the company moved again and the complaints continued to flood in.

So five months later, Rhys and 100 officers swooped in on Aurora,

once again arresting Stockting and nine of his team.

On the second time, we were able to get call recordings,

but these call recordings were complete.

The importance was, they showed that they'd carried on doing

exactly the same thing they'd been doing previously -

misleading consumers into believing they were Sky,

exactly the same scripts.

For Rhys Harries and his team,

the case against Stockting's outfit was building.

To get it to court, though,

they had to sift through around 100,000 recorded calls

seized from the two raids.

Here's one of the calls Rhys and his team were able to use as evidence.

Interestingly, in this call, he's saying,

"We notice your Sky policy has expired now."

All he has, in fact, is their name, address and telephone number.

He has no further information at this stage.

Again, he's saying "renew it", so it's an indication

that it's a current policy with Sky which he has.

The consumer's clearly under the impression they're from Sky.

And once the fakers had the bank details,

the fraud didn't always stop at just one transaction.

Some consumers had paid six or seven times, up to eight times,

for the same policy covering the same year.

A consumer in one instance paid for four policies over the same week.

To us, that was clearly fraud.

Later, time is called on Jonathan Stockting and his fellow fraudsters

as they arrive for sentencing in court,

including cold caller Thomas Howlett,

who duped victims into handing over their credit card details.

Get that camera out of my face.

There's not much better than a barbecue in your back garden

and you can't have a barbecue without bangers.

Sausages today come in a huge variety, from traditional pork

to the slightly more unusual, but a bit more expensive,

wild boar or venison.,

Can you be sure what's in them, though?

As we found out,

some sausages can contain some rather unsettling secrets.

With recent scandals such as Horsegate,

where beef was found to be contaminated with horse meat,

you might think that people would turn to buy their meat

at places like this, the farmers' market.

You'd hope that you could buy locally produced,

wholesome food that you can trust.

I prefer to come here because of the quality.

You've got to support local businesses, haven't you?

-It's just better for us.

-The food's fresh,

and we know where it comes from.

Exotic meats like venison and wild boar are often on sale,

and you can even buy them in many supermarkets now.

But now it seems the fakers are trying to take a cut of this action,

as Trading Standards found out recently

when they seized this half-tonne batch of meat products

that one trader was planning to peddle at local farmers' markets.

These are wild venison sausages and the actual label,

the batch number and also the health mark,

all of that is made up.

Basically, you've got a complete label that is false.

By UK law, all meat products have to be labelled

with a genuine health mark,

so that they can be traced back to their origin.

Somewhere along the line, these health marks have been stolen

from another supplier and fraudulently placed on these items.

But bangers aren't the only meat products being faked here.

Burgers are being falsely branded too.

Trading Standards have uncovered more suspect culinary delights

with fake labels and false health marks.

We've got various pigeon breasts. There are different colours there.

We don't know the reason why they're different colours,

whether it's been in the freezer too long

or they've been adulterated.

Hidden away in another freezer,

Trading Standards have more evidence of fraud somewhere in the food chain.

English Barbary ducks that aren't even English.

This is a French Barbary duck that's been imported from France.

He's been taking them out of the packages,

and them repackaging them

with his own labels on the actual Barbary duck.

What that does is it tells the consumer that's buying the goods

on farmers' markets that this product's origin is the UK,

and not in France.

The problem is that much of this food fraud can stay hidden

until something goes wrong.

We had a complaint from a member of the public

who'd actually purchased some of the products.

She cooked the sausages for her and her family

and immediately after having the sausages, she became ill.

Now it's time to find out what's actually contained

in these meat products.

Today Trading Standards are taking four of the items

seized in their operation for analysis.

They include samples of wild boar and venison sausages.

We're going to test the DNA we've extracted.

That will tell us what species are in there.

The samples are placed into what's called the PCR machine

to establish which animal DNA they contain.

Two hours later, it reveals which species are present.

So what's in the so-called venison sausages?

Looking quickly, we can see there's a small amount of pig there.

Less than 5%.

Obviously, pig wasn't declared on the label, so it shouldn't be there.

We've also got greater than 80% chicken.

Both sausages adulterated with a small amount of pork,

larger amount of chicken, so I can see that's not what it should be.

The lab is unable to identify how much deer,

if any, is in this sample,

but with over 80% of the sample unlabelled poultry,

it's more like a chicken than a venison sausage.

At that level, it's not by accident, it's been put there fraudulently,

on purpose.

But what about the wild boar sausages?

We can't differentiate on the DNA between a domestic pig,

and a wild boar, but you would expect pig to still come up.

Pig does come up in the wild boar sausage,

but it's around the 5% level.

There's hardly any pork in this wild boar sausage.

If it's not pork, what is it?

What we see is greater than 90% chicken,

so again, gross adulteration - the chicken's been put there

instead of the more expensive boar meat, I would imagine.

They're results that Linda finds astonishing.

I'm shocked, because members of the public go to these farmers' markets

expecting to get home-made, grown products and good products.

They're paying more elevated prices for these items,

and they're expecting good-quality food and they're not getting it.

With around two million of us now getting on our bikes

at least once a week, the UK cycle industry is thriving.

People are willing to splash out not only on the bikes,

but also on bike parts to make their two-wheelers faster,

flashier, or just more comfortable.

But these bike parts, which are all on sale to the public,

are fake. They're made by people wanting to cash in

on the boom in biking.

As we're about to see, they're not only a con - they're also dangerous.

With more and more of us getting on two wheels for commuting and leisure,

the cycling industry is now worth a stonking £3 billion in the UK.

But now it seems the fakers want a slice of the action...

..with a growing trade in counterfeit bike parts.

The fraudsters want to take Britain's budding bikers for a ride,

as Matt Phillips from Hereford found out

when he was looking for a new set of handlebars.

I bought a frame second-hand from a friend.

I essentially needed to build a bike myself.

I ended up finding a site with lots and lots of carbon bars,

and all sorts on there.

I did the usual tricks of checking their feedback,

and making sure they'd sold lots of items...

..and the price seemed somewhere near sensible.

Matt found some carbon fibre handlebars

that would make his mountain bike a lot lighter,

and increase the performance.

And at about £50, these top-end bars, branded as FSA,

seemed like a good deal,

so he took the plunge.

FSA's a known brand within cycling.

I think their products are pretty much known

for being of really high quality.

I thought I had the added security of getting a brand like FSA,

rather than a cheap, no-name import.

Matt's handlebars arrived in the post about two weeks later.

I built them into the bike pretty quickly after that.

Nothing really made me think there was anything unusual about them.

I just forgot about them, I guess, once they were on there.

Some time later, though, Matt was out mountain biking

with one of his mates in the Malvern Hills.

It was a normal Wednesday evening ride.

Nothing too extreme.

I'd only been going about ten minutes,

just coming down off one of the local hills called Blackhill.

It comes down quite steeply,

and then there's a short rise before the next up.

Just as I went over that little rise,

as my wheel came down, basically, both handlebars snapped.

Matt's supposed top-end bars had shattered into three pieces

whilst he was travelling downhill at speed.

It wasn't just his handlebars that he broke.

Once I felt my wrist, then I knew for the first time, really,

that something quite serious had happened.

I could hear it clicking and crunching.

You could hear the bones rubbing together enough

to know that something was really wrong.

Matt's friend rushed him to A&E.

X-rays confirmed he'd broken his wrist in two places.

The wrist would need seven weeks in plaster

and months of physiotherapy.

Matt is still suffering the consequences.

My right hand is stronger now than it was,

but it's still not quite as flexible as my left.

Matt found out his handlebars were supposedly made here, near Milan,

at one of the world's top bike parts manufacturers, FSA.

He took on a solicitor to demand compensation.

You expect handlebars to be strong enough to withstand normal riding.

I was especially angry when I saw how they'd failed and I thought,

"Those handlebars aren't right and there's something wrong there."

But two months later,

technical director Davide Riva would have some shocking news.

Despite the branding,

the faulty handlebars weren't made by FSA at all.

They were fakes.

It's a fake bar broken in three pieces. This is catastrophic.

By law, any mountain bike parts that are sold in Europe

have to conform to the minimum European standard EN 14766.

This means they have to pass rigorous fatigue and stress tests.

When fake parts similar to Matt's handlebars

were tested by Davide's team, they all failed.

This material is extremely cheap.

The quality of the fibre and the resin and also the way it's built.

Probably, they don't control the pressure,

they don't control the temperature

and this is the result.

In one month, FSA have had over 2,000 counterfeit bike parts

removed from sale online,

worth around 50,000 euros to the fakers.

To help fight this battle,

the manufacturer has also introduced various security measures

to help riders spot the genuine from the fake.

If you light this area with a UV light,

you are able to see the FSA logo clearly,

but it's completely invisible to the human eye.

Sadly, Matt didn't know anything about this

when he was duped into buying his dangerous fakes.

It could have been very, very serious -

I could have had a serious head injury or even a spinal injury.

It could have been far worse.

My job and my family depend on that,

so, yeah, it was a very serious near miss in my book.

This is a warning for people.

We just take an assumption that everything is genuine

and my case shows

that obviously there is lots of fake stuff out there,

and it's very, very dangerous.

Earlier, we saw how fakers are switching on

to the world of multi-channel TV -

how a gang of fraudsters in Swansea misled the elderly

into thinking they were calling from Sky...

..selling them so-called set-top box insurance,

and defrauding them out of an estimated £500,000.

People like pensioner Valerie Morris.

I felt angry, I felt,

"My goodness, where are these people coming from?"

Today, for Rhys Harries of Swansea Trading Standards,

the end of the road is nearly in sight

for his three-year-long investigation.

The fraudsters are due at the city's Crown Court,

where they'll finally receive their sentences.

We had individuals either found guilty or pleaded guilty

to conspiracy to defraud.

Today, hopefully, the judge is going to be sentencing them

in relation to those matters.

I hope all the vulnerable and elderly victims

will be satisfied after today, after the judge has passed sentence,

um, that they've had justice.

At Swansea's Crown Court,

14 defendants arrive to face justice together in the dock.

They include the scam's salesmen, people like Thomas Howlett,

the cold caller who sweet-talked

Valerie Morris into handing over £80.

-ON PHONE:

-Firstly, the Visa debit card we had on the system for you

last year, have you got that card there with you?

Jamie Williams, who browbeat an elderly woman into paying up

while she was waiting for an ambulance

to take her sick husband to hospital.

And the ringleaders are also here.

The head of the operation, Jonathan Stockting.

He was the brains behind the Sky TV scam.

But now he's in front of the cameras himself,

he seems a little bit shy.

After hours of submissions,

the judge delivers the sentences.

A total of nearly 30 years are handed down to the 14 defendants.

The brains behind the business,

Paul De La Mare,

Jordan Diment,

and our camera-shy Jonathan Stockting are all sent to prison,

Stockting receiving four years.

Get that camera out of my face.

-BLEEP

-off, you

-BLEEP.

Salesmen Jamie Williams and Thomas Howlett are handed down terms

of 20 months and 15 months respectively,

but they're able to celebrate narrowly avoiding prison.

Their sentences are each suspended for a year.

So-called Sky TV salesman Howlett

doesn't like the Fake Britain camera turned on him.

Stop recording, then, innit?

But there's a degree of justice for his target, pensioner Valerie Morris.

I'm glad they'll get what's coming to them, because they'll deserve it.

Actually, I'm so glad I can put a line under it now.

And the judge congratulated Rhys Harries

and his Trading Standards team for bringing the fraudsters to justice.

We're obviously very pleased with the verdict today.

The judge wanted to send a clear message out to the company,

and any other companies conducting their business in the same fashion.

Anybody involved in this type of business

will be given a custodial sentence.

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.