Episode 17 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

SHOUTING

-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 -

fraudsters faking their gas meter readings...

There are several small holes,

and essentially what they're now doing is providing a fake reading.

..and the disastrous consequences this can have on innocent people.

Move back now.

There was a loud bang, and the house just shook.

Have you felt the force of the fakes?

We reveal how fake film posters have become a bit of a hit.

Immediately knew as soon as this was unwrapped and came out of the tube

that this was fake. I felt quite conned.

And we uncover the shocking truth about the fake cheese

that could be on your pizza.

They had ingredients which were fake, and it isn't actually cheese at all.

Almost every house and commercial property in Britain

has one or both of these tucked away in a cupboard somewhere -

the gas and electricity meters.

They calculate how much energy we're using

and so how big our bills will be.

But across the country, meters are being tampered with

to produce fake readings and get those bills down.

It's been estimated £400 million worth of energy

is stolen in the UK each year.

As we've discovered, getting those fake bills

could put people's lives at risk.

This is what could happen if you tamper with your gas meter.

I was going to say - my housemate is still in 115.

Move back now.

Firefighters were called to an explosion at a house on Dundas Road

in Sheffield, a terraced street on the outskirts of the city.

Sylvia Dixon was at home just across the road.

There was a loud bang, and the house just shook.

It frightened me. It frightened me, so I thought,

"Is it a bomb? Has somebody set a bomb off?"

The entire street was thrown into chaos

as a suspected gas leak blew this house wide open.

You have to move back. Come on.

It's dangerous. Move back, there could be another explosion.

And then I saw the smoke and the fire,

and then I saw the young man that lived there

more or less blown out of the house into the middle of the road.

This man was in the house where the explosion took place,

and suffered serious burns.

Four other people, including children, were hospitalised,

and 50 residents were evacuated.

I don't think they'll ever forget it.

You know, the people who lived there, they will never forget it.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Chris Blacksell is shocked by what he saw.

Really significant type of incident to arrive at,

because there's clearly the blast damage on the house,

there's clearly a serious fire still ignited.

You don't know at that stage, probably, whether there's someone still in the property.

After the dust had settled,

a complex investigation was carried out,

which traced the explosion back to the gas meter.

It showed signs that it had been tampered with.

So what you're looking at here is the gas meter itself,

and the pipe which would be sat on top of the gas meter,

which is known as an anaconda to many people.

But it's a pipe that actually goes onto the gas meter itself.

So we're looking at someone deliberately tampering with the meter.

And this wasn't the only one.

The investigation also found tampered gas meters

at five other houses in the same street.

I think one of the really worrying things about that case

was that, as part of the ongoing investigation,

there were a significant number of houses down that street

that had had their meters tampered with to try and fake their meter readings.

So we did see other houses down that street

where gas meters had been bypassed,

where there'd been inappropriate pipe work put in place,

and where there was again the risk

of that happening again down the same street.

And it could be happening in a house near you.

Around 25,000 tampered meters are found in the UK each year,

for the sole purpose of faking the meter readings.

It's estimated that thousands more go undetected.

May save a bit of money in the short term,

but can put yourselves, your family at risk of dying.

But the authorities are fighting back.

It's 11am somewhere in the Midlands.

British Gas Protection Officers Richard Cook and Joel Brown

are clamping down on the criminals

putting innocent people's lives at risk

by faking their energy meter readings.

It's an offence that can lead to thousands of pounds in fines

and five years in prison.

Richard and Joel have received intelligence that suggests

a number of fast-food outlets in the Midlands have been tampering

with their gas meters to deliver fake meter readings.

The first stop is a fast-food takeaway.

Their gas consumption, their yearly gas consumption,

is very low for the type of property that they're trading as.

So their gas consumption should be

probably 10, maybe 12 times what they're actually using.

Joel and Rich suspect this business could be using

one of many methods to fake their meter reading.

From British Gas. Just for the gas meter, please, mate.

The gas reading? It's just there.

Just in there, yeah?

-There are several drill holes under there.

-Is there?

Have a look.

Now, underneath here, it should just be completely sealed up.

What we've found is, down here, there are several small holes -

it looks to be three or four small holes.

Joel knows the holes are a means of interfering

with the gas meter's readings.

Essentially what they're now doing is providing a fake reading.

They've damaged the integrity of the meter.

Obviously it's part of a Gas Safe installation,

so there is the potential for a gas leak.

This is exactly the type of unsafe practice

that Joel, Rich and the team are determined to stamp out.

Outside, Rich has calculated how much gas this kebab shop has used

since they've been with British Gas -

a period of over two months.

So basically with interfering with the meter,

he's actually created ultimately a fake reading, so what we've done,

we've billed him for the shortfall of gas

that he's prevented from being recorded on that meter.

Calculations complete, Rich is about to find out

the true cost of this faking operation.

So that's the bill there for the customer.

It's for £2,617.66.

It's hardly loose change.

But news of the bill is not the only thing Rich and Joel need to deliver.

So right now, we're going to switch all the gas appliances off,

make it safe. We've got to disconnect the meter.

Left with no choice. OK?

My colleague's going to come round and start switching everything off,

and I'll get the work started, OK?

The police will also be informed about the theft of gas

and the meter tampering, and may decide to investigate.

So the meter's all been removed now.

They've got no further gas supply until it's all resolved.

For now, they're going to hit this business where it hurts -

with no gas supply, it's going to be forced to close.

They won't be able to carry on trading

until they make their full payment, and obviously,

they're going to have to answer to whichever police investigation

comes forward, but there'll be no more trading from this property.

And they're not the only ones.

In 24 hours, Joel and Rich's sweep through the Midlands

uncovered a number of tampered meters and fake readings.

The meter's now under registered,

which means any readings given are now also fake.

They're on a very busy stretch of a high street,

so if anything were to go wrong with this meter,

it could be quite catastrophic, obviously, towards innocent people.

Not only were they highly dangerous,

they were stealing tens of thousands of pounds worth of gas.

The bill is £1,297.07.

-How much is it?

-£9,088.54.

You don't have to pay this right now, but at the same time,

we don't have to leave you a gas meter right now.

Later, we find the extraordinary lengths some fraudsters

are willing to go to in order to fake their meter readings.

What's happened here is the customer has decided

to use a bicycle inner tube to bridge...

the position where the meter would be.

In terms of danger, these are lethal.

HE INHALES

That smells good. There's nothing like a freshly-cooked pizza.

This one's a cheese and tomato,

which you might think is a bit boring.

But it's far from boring.

It's our next story, because it's a fake -

not the pizza, but the cheese.

And as we're about to show you, so-called cheese

that isn't cheese at all is being sold to us all over Britain.

OK, so we didn't invent it,

but clearly we love a slice of pizza.

It's estimated nearly two-thirds of Brits

eat at least one pizza every month.

A basic pizza consists of a dough base, tomato sauce

and, of course, cheese - usually mozzarella.

And at this South London pizzeria, that's exactly what you'll get.

But sadly, there are pizza sellers all over the UK

who are telling us we're getting cheese,

but in reality giving us a fake -

something known as cheese analogue.

It looks and smells like cheese,

but is missing one vital ingredient, dairy fat, and therefore,

in the eyes of the law, it can't be labelled as cheese.

Here at Fake Britain, we're getting a bit fed up with it,

and so is Trading Standards Lead Officer

for Food and Nutrition, Corinne Lowe.

Trading Standards have been finding cheese that's been mislabelled

in the takeaways and restaurants

and mobile catering vans across the country.

Cheese analogue is a much cheaper ingredient than real cheese,

therefore they've got a bigger profit margin

if they still charge the consumer for the price of real cheese.

So the fraudsters are motivated by money - no surprise there, then.

What's more, this cheese analogue has minimal nutritional value,

and isn't even a suitable alternative

for those with a lactose intolerance.

Here at Fake Britain, we decided to find out

just how widespread the problem is.

We visited three major cities around the country

to purchase some pizzas.

We went to Sheffield, Birmingham and London.

We bought ten cheese and tomato pizzas,

clearly labelled as cheese,

and we took them to Kent Scientific Services,

where head tester Jon Griffin agreed to inspect them

to see if they were actually cheese or if they were fakes.

They're saying it's with a cheese topping -

I would expect that to be a dairy cheese topping.

After testing for the presence of dairy fat in the cheese,

Jon found that one in five was fake.

They contained cheese analogue rather than dairy cheese.

They had ingredients which where fake.

In this case, it was cheese being described as cheese,

and it isn't actually cheese at all.

It's a significant percentage,

and you have only got to extrapolate that

across the number of products being sold out there in the UK,

you can actually mount up and see how big a problem it could well be.

That's exactly what we did.

And, if my basic maths is correct, that means we could be consuming

around 100 million fake cheese pizzas every year.

It is concerning.

I personally think that food fraud is certainly on the increase.

Everybody has to eat,

and the cost of food is getting higher.

So there is a way of companies and individuals

making quick profit out of this,

and the person who suffers, obviously, is the consumer.

We're not the only ones to be a bit suspicious about cheese.

Lancashire Trading Standards recently carried out tests

on 20 pizzas.

They revealed a staggering 19 out of 20 contained fake cheese.

Jon fears that the use of fake cheese is growing,

and it might not just be pizza that's falling foul of the fakers.

If we looked wider and looked at different products,

you could actually find the same fake cheese

on other and in other foods.

To me, it's an authenticity issue,

so the consumer is just not getting what they're paying for.

Earlier we saw the devastating effects tampering with energy meters

can have on innocent people.

I thought, "Is it a bomb?

"Has someone set a bomb off?"

And we followed British Gas as they discovered

businesses faking their meter readings.

They've damaged the integrity of the meter,

so there is the potential for a gas leak.

In Leicester, British Gas Revenue Protection boss, Mark Andrews,

knows all the tricks the criminals use to fake their meter readings.

There are a number of ways that people can choose to tamper

with their meters in order to create a fake meter reading

and generate a fake bill. One of the ways

is to tamper with the index reading itself.

The index is the box with the dials on it,

which registers how much gas you're using.

What the criminals have started doing

is tampering with the mechanism inside the box

to reduce the amount of gas use it clocks.

If Mark simulates gas being passed through the meter,

in this case with air, you can see the tamper in action.

What's happening is the gas is going through the meter,

it's not all being recorded.

The customer's happy, they're creating that fake meter reading

which is giving them a fake bill, at the end of the day.

But in order to clock the meter, you need to remove the blue seal,

which is like holding up a huge sign saying,

"I've tampered with my meter."

So the fakers have a crafty trick to cover up their tracks.

To hide the damage that they've done to the seal,

customers are using these fake seals

which they're able to buy from the internet,

and just putting them in place afterwards to look as new.

These criminals may be saving a few pounds,

but tampering with your gas meter is not only illegal,

it's highly unsafe.

Unfortunately, Mark's seeing more and more fake meter readings

created by a highly dangerous method

that involves tampering with the gas supply pipes.

And what's happened here is the customer has decided

to use a bicycle inner tube to bridge...

the position where the meter would be,

and this would go to the internal appliances at the property.

Whoever's done this is really riding his luck,

replacing the meter pipe for the inner tube

and then rotating the two over the course of the year.

And what happens then, of course,

is that they've created this fake meter reading

by the fact that most of the gas they've used

during that quarterly read period

has gone through the bypass rather than the meter.

In terms of danger, these are lethal,

and an explosion is a likely consequence of this type of tamper.

Sadly, it's not just the people faking their meter readings

that are cashing in on this market.

We recently found this bypass on an online auction site,

advertised as "dreaming of free gas".

We looked on the internet to find out just how big the business is

of selling parts needed to fake your meter reading.

A couple of clicks later, we found an online auction site

littered with an array of different fake seals

going for around £10 each, as well as entire meters up for sale.

These are illegal to fit yourself,

but they come wound back to zero -

a very primitive way of faking your meter reading.

What was more shocking was that when we searched for

"how to fake your gas meter guides",

we were falling over web pages and videos

giving instructions on how to do it,

including this video illustrating the wind back method

to fake your meter using a domestic vacuum cleaner.

But it's not just those that are having their meter readings faked

who are cashing in. Criminals are making money

by offering to come and tamper with gas meters for a fee.

These people do make a business out of doing it, until, of course,

we track them down and involve the police,

and then that business, hopefully, is soon terminated.

Some of the fraudsters claim to fake as many as 15 meters a day,

charging between £10 and £500 a time.

Some have gone as far as to start advertising their services

in newspapers, offering to come and fix your gas meter

and lower the bills, like this one Mark found

in a Mandarin language newspaper distributed in the UK.

Some of the translations from these read as follows:

"Get the super energy saving device to control the meter.

"One-off installation. Lifelong benefit.

"Conquers expensive British bills. 100% safe and reliable."

It doesn't stop with gas.

Later, we find out the fakery's gone dual fuel,

as we go on the road with Western Power

to uncover highly dangerous electricity meters.

They melt, they catch fire - you could be asleep at night

and this could be happening to your meter if you're tampering.

Movie posters. When the film has moved on from your local cinema,

most will be forgotten, but for a memorable or successful film,

the original poster can become valuable, like these -

Star Wars and Pulp Fiction, both worth thousands.

Or they would be if they were real. They're both fakes.

It takes an expert to tell the difference,

and that's why posters like these

are fooling collectors across the country.

From box office blockbusters to budget B-movies,

the market for original vintage movie posters in Britain is huge.

And in West London, poster dealer Liza Tesei

knows exactly why they're in demand.

An original movie poster is a tangible reminder

of our favourite film.

It's like you're owning an actual piece of history.

And they come at a price.

Rare posters like this Audrey Hepburn classic,

Breakfast At Tiffany's, will go for around £25,000.

In fact, it's not unheard of for some early cinema classics

from the 1920s to fetch over £400,000.

But this lucrative market has been hijacked by the fakers,

with swarms of cheap modern reprints

being sold as if they're original posters.

Poster collector turned dealer Mark Hochman

has been buying vintage movie posters for over 20 years,

and has first-hand experience of being duped by a fake.

Mark was in the market for a highly sought-after original

of the 1990s cult classic, Pulp Fiction.

This particular poster in its original form is extremely rare.

Probably only 100 to 150 originals are now known to exist.

Mark thought he'd bagged himself a bargain

when he struck a deal with an online seller for the poster,

which retails at around £1,000.

When I bought this poster, I genuinely believed

I was buying an original poster.

The photographs that I was sent were those of an original poster.

So, having checked out the picture, Mark parted with his money.

When the poster arrived, he was less than impressed.

It just didn't feel right. It didn't look right.

I immediately knew, as soon as this was unwrapped

and came out of the tube, that this was fake.

Mark was out of pocket, and his expert eye

was quick to spot the subtle mistakes that make it a fake.

Firstly, when it comes to fake movie posters, size does matter.

This poster, although it is minor,

actually comes in at just under 27 inches.

The original is just over.

And that's not the only mistake.

The film may have been a huge hit,

but the print quality on this fake isn't going to win any Oscars.

All of these fakes have the white speckle.

It's got a foggy look to it. Generally out of focus.

It's just... It's not right.

Mark's isn't an isolated case.

Poster dealer Liza has seen her fair share of fakes,

and knows just how convincing they can be.

Unfortunately, many of these fakes were done so well that in fact

many auction houses and top poster dealers have been fooled.

One of the most widely faked posters in existence

is the original Star Wars poster,

known in the business as the Star Wars Style C.

Star Wars was extremely popular,

and therefore would have been very profitable to fake.

At the time when they would have printed these fakes,

they would have printed, you know, thousands.

Perhaps tens of thousands.

So it's likely thousands of collectors out there

have unknowingly purchased these fakes.

But, unlike the fake poster Mark bought,

this one is the exact same size as the original,

which could fetch around £5,000 at auction.

However, there's one subtle giveaway.

On the fake, the easiest giveaway

is this hairline here on Princess Leia's back.

That's the immediate giveaway for the fake,

as opposed to on the original.

There are hundreds, if not thousands,

of collectors and movie buffs out there

getting their fingers burnt by these fakes.

Most don't even realise they've bought a fake

until they come to sell it.

When they bring it in to us to resell

and we tell them of that news,

of course they're extremely disappointed.

And one of these fakes is this lobby card.

A lobby card is a smaller poster designed for cinema lobbies,

and it purports to be from the 1983 hit Scarface.

So it's over 30 years old.

I took a look at his lobby card, and I said,

"Sir, you know, just so you know, this is actually not an original."

And of course he was horrified.

To the untrained eye, the fakes and the originals look the same.

But if you know what you're looking for, there's always a telltale sign.

It's quite obvious that you can tell this one is a fake.

This is what we call pretty much minty white on the back.

This is a giveaway that these are not originals.

So the paper looks brand-new -

far too bright for something that's supposed to be 30 years old.

It's not really worth anything, maybe £5 or £10,

and they've spent hundreds of pounds on acquiring it.

So it's going to be very disappointing for someone

who's spent their hard-earned money on a fake.

It's not an experience Mark would like to repeat.

It was an expensive mistake, but one that I've learned from,

and I do not buy that many posters from online sellers now.

It is... It's a minefield.

Earlier, we saw just how dangerous

the practice of faking gas meter readings can be.

An explosion is a likely consequence of this type of tamper.

It's not just gas meter readings that are being faked.

Electricity readings are too.

It's 9am, again somewhere in the Midlands.

Western Power Enforcement Officers Gav and Steve

are responsible for making sure the electricity network is safe.

They've just received an emergency call-out -

a tip-off from a member of the public saying that a property

on their patch may have had its electricity meter interfered with.

Arriving at the property, they gain access to the meter cupboard,

and the first signs aren't good.

The actual meter itself, security seals are missing,

and then if you look underneath,

the outgoing live tail, they've dropped it down.

There's copper showing on it with marks where,

at some stage, they've had a bypass on it.

So they probably would have had a wire between the top of the fuse

to the outgoing tail there to get free electric.

Steve knows that putting a bridging wire between the supply

and the meter is one of the most common tampering methods used.

It means it might only register

a fraction of the electricity that's being supplied.

And as Gav safely removes the meter from the wall,

the risks of the suspected tamper are clear to see.

With the copper exposed, if anybody touched that there,

they'd immediately get an electric shock.

This is very serious indeed.

Anyone could have got access to the live wires

in this unsecured cupboard.

But the man who let them into the property is adamant

that there's been no tampering,

and claims he put money on the meter only that morning.

What's the point in wiring it up if there's credits on it?

We've been paying for the meter.

Although there is credit on it now, that meter has been interfered with.

And we put another £3 on this morning.

£3 and then another £10.

You're not listening. At the end of the day, that meter has been interfered with.

We will come back again within the next six months,

and if it's been done again, you'll be cut off.

It's Gav and Steve's job to make the supply safe.

I'm just replacing the meter.

Removing the, um...

..the parts of the tails that have been bypassed.

So as we can preserve any evidence if needs be.

It's now up to the supplier to determine

whether any electricity's been supplied to the house

but not paid for. The man at the address denies any wrongdoing.

The police will be informed about what they've found here,

and may decide to investigate further.

We can go to sleep tonight, rest assured

that this house is not going to set on fire

and there'll be no danger of any children getting an electric shock.

They've got to this one in the nick of time,

but Mark Andrews has seen what happens

when people faking their meter readings are not so fortunate.

These are all meters that we've found recently.

The bypass still in place,

and because the loading of these cables is not sufficient

to take the current that's going through them,

they melt, they catch fire.

You could be asleep at night

and this could be happening to your meter if you're tampering.

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.