Episode 18 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

SHOUTING Police!

-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 -

fake alcohol blighting Britain's pubs...

This was actually found for sale behind the bar on an optic,

and could actually kill you.

..fake art that's fleecing art lovers

for millions of pounds every year...

They say it was found in an attic in the 1960s,

when in reality it was probably made last year in China.

..and what's in your takeaway?

Fake Britain lifts the lid on lamb kebabs.

Looking at its label, I suspect the product is probably fake.

Keys, wallet, jacket -

got everything.

See, I'm off down the pub.

Going to meet my friends, might even have a drink or two.

It's part of the British way of life.

So in a British pub, you can rely on being served the real thing.

Can't you?

The black market industry for fake alcohol in Britain

is now worth an estimated £1 billion,

as sales for counterfeit wine and spirits are on the rise.

We've seen before on Fake Britain knock-off booze

being sold in local shops and off-licences

up and down the country.

We're going to be seizing this, because it isn't a whisky. It's fake.

And we've seen just how dangerous these fake drinks can be.

Contains high levels of methanol.

This product needs to come off sale today.

But in St Helens, Merseyside, Trading Standards Officer

Colette Ray has just uncovered a seriously shocking case

of fake spirits, and one that showcases a terrifying trend -

fakes being sold over the counter to pub customers.

This is probably the largest operation

that St Helens Trading Standards have been involved in.

It all started when environmental health received complaints

about a pub called the White House.

It was thought to be hoarding a stash

of 1,500 empty beer kegs in the back yard.

But Colette at Trading Standards suspected

there could be more to this than met the eye.

The pub was associated with low-level criminality,

but I don't think any of us had any idea

of the scale of what we were about to find.

In the past, Trading Standards have dealt with pubs

passing off cheaper spirits as premium brands

as a way to bolster their profits, known in the trade as substitution.

But as Colette and the team searched the White House pub,

they quickly suspected a number of bottles of spirits for sale

behind the bar might be fake.

And they found a further stash of almost 1,000

potentially fake bottles boxed up in the flat above the pub.

Trading Standards chief Darrell Wilson

didn't waste any time getting the suspect spirits

out of harm's way until they knew what they were dealing with.

As you can see, this is everything

that Colette and the team seized from the pub.

This is Prince Consort vodka.

There is such a brand as Prince Consort, so this is a fake, a copy,

made to look very convincing, with all the labelling

and the wording just as you'd expect on the original item.

Even on the back of the bottle,

they go to the trouble of copying a duty stamp and a barcode.

But this isn't genuine. It's fake.

There was worse to come, as Darrell sent the fake Prince Consort vodka

to be analysed at the lab.

It contains industrial alcohol,

which, if you were to consume this in any quantities,

could make you very ill,

and could actually kill you if you carried on drinking this.

Sadly, over the last ten years,

there have been hundreds of deaths worldwide linked to fake alcohol,

and as a result, we're all urged to examine the bottles we buy

to check they're legit.

But these fake spirits were being served to unsuspecting locals

on a licensed premises by a landlord and landlady,

Cedrick Fitzpatrick and Barbara Gallimore.

So the customers had no control over what they were drinking.

This was actually found for sale behind the bar on an optic.

This was actually being sold to customers, which is quite worrying

when you consider that people just going to the local pub

for a drink with their friends are actually being served

something which certainly in any quantity can be quite dangerous.

These fakers didn't stop there.

The team also uncovered a bootleg brand called Revolution vodka.

They're purported to be produced

for the discount supermarket chain Aldi.

When we checked, they've never heard of Revolution vodka.

It's all part of the method to try and sell this to people.

And there was a further bootleg brand of fake Scotch whisky

that was also being sold in the White House.

There is actually no real brand of Dexter's.

This is a fake brand, and they don't actually contain whisky.

It's just a brown spirit, but it's not whisky.

So being fake, they're illegal.

And obviously there are 500 bottles of this we seized.

The pub was immediately shut down,

and has quickly fallen into disrepair.

The White House, as you can see, is now completely empty.

It's boarded up. It's been closed for some time,

because the licensee lost the premises licence

and so can no longer operate.

It's a frightening revelation -

900 bottles of potentially lethal fake spirits

with a retail value of almost £50,000,

all being sold from a pub.

St Helens Trading Standards have seen substituted spirits in pubs,

and we've seen fake alcohol in off-licences,

but we've never seen it on sale in a pub before,

and we've certainly never seen it in such quantities.

This is the biggest stash of fake spirits we've seen in St Helens,

and I suspect it's one of the larger ones in the country.

In the UK, pubs are governed by strict licensing laws,

and as St Helens councillor Seve Gomez-Aspron points out,

if you can't trust a pub not to sell you fakes,

who can you trust?

It's important that the community should go out and be able to be trusting the people

that they're buying drink off, because you could be ending up in a vulnerable position.

Selling fake alcohol has always been an issue, but more of a backstreet trade.

I think when people do it under the banner of a reputable pub,

it dupes the public into thinking it's someone they can trust,

and if they're buying that under that misapprehension then it's totally unfair,

and the council and the authorities should deal with it very severely.

Thanks to the St Helens Trading Standards team,

there's no more fake booze being traded from this public house.

And for flogging the fakes,

Cedrick Fitzpatrick received a nine-month prison sentence,

Barbara Gallimore a six-month custodial sentence,

suspended for 12 months.

I think the strong message that we need to send out is, if you dabble in fake booze,

then Trading Standards will come after you, they will prosecute you,

and you will be punished for abusing their trust.

Later we discover that Dexter's

isn't the only phoney Scotch doing the rounds,

and reveal the tricks they use to flog you fakes.

People will be buying this in the mistaken belief that it's Scotch.

It's quite clearly a fake whisky.

Now, that is the smell of Saturday night.

We've looked at takeaway food that isn't everything it should be

on Fake Britain before - the curries that are a con,

the fish and chips that are a bit fishy,

and the pizzas that are faking it.

So all I've got left is the lamb kebab.

And if I ordered lamb, the law says it must be lamb.

I mean, what else could it be?

Kebabs are one of Britain's top takeaways.

In fact, we Brits are eating so many

that the industry is said to be worth about £2.2 billion.

That's a lot of doners.

Kebabs originated in Turkey, and in legitimate restaurants,

like this award-winning establishment in north London,

you get the real thing - kebabs that are made

using either chicken or lamb.

But here's the thing -

lamb kebabs are the most expensive to produce,

as wholesale prices for lamb meat are almost twice

that of beef or pork at around £35 a kilo.

And there are kebab shops up and down the country

selling fake kebabs, swapping out the expensive lamb

and instead giving you cheaper meat such as beef or pork.

It's 11am near West Malling in Kent,

and County Council Trading Standards Officer Susan Harvey

is heading off to carry out a test purchase on a local kebab shop

that they suspect is selling fake lamb doners.

So we'll be taking a formal sample,

and this is basically just to see whether the product is fake.

You know, is it actually lamb, or has it got other meats in it?

Pretty straightforward, really.

Susan will buy a kebab and then have it analysed

to find out what meat it contains.

If it turns out to be fake, the seller could face a hefty fine.

Now Susan wants to get a sample of the lamb kebab

as if she was a regular customer, so for now,

she's going to keep the fact she's with Trading Standards on the QT,

which means the Fake Britain camera is going to loiter outside.

Can I have a large lamb doner, please?

That's all, thank you.

And with the sample in the bag, it's time for phase two.

Purchased it, just came out the shop,

and now we're going to go in and I'll tell them who I am

and then continue my inspection of the premises.

It was described on the menu board as a lamb doner kebab,

so therefore I would expect that to contain only lamb.

From the tip-off she's received,

Susan suspects she's got a fake lamb kebab,

so she's going to have a chat with the staff

and have a butcher's around the shop.

Hi, there.

I'm from Kent County Council Trading Standards.

-Just came in and purchased the lamb doner kebabs from you.

-Yeah.

OK, what I'm here to do is to do a formal sample of the food.

What we're going to be doing

-is checking for any other species in there, OK?

-Oh, right.

-So has it got anything other than lamb in the kebab?

-OK.

So what I need to do, I will need to come out round the back as well.

Susan knows the kebab shop could be buying the lamb meat in good faith,

and the meat could be mixed further up the supply chain.

So she wants to have a root around the kitchen

for any evidence that could be useful.

-Where's the best way through? Through here?

-Yeah.

-Yeah? Thank you.

At the back, Susan wants to have a closer look

at the packaging that the doner kebab came in.

-Put in here.

-You put it in the bin, have you?

OK. Look at that.

Susan's interested to see if the packing label

contains any information that might show

if the kebabs on sale are fake.

At the top, it does say "mixed meat doner kebabs",

so it leads me to conclude it does contain beef in there, OK?

Cos otherwise I would expect it to say "lamb doner kebab".

The kebab shop worker is looking anxious.

It's not surprising, since the label's ingredient list

makes Susan believe she may well have just bought a fake lamb kebab.

-It looks like it might be beef.

-No, it shouldn't be. It's lamb.

Yeah, it's got lamb, but there's something else written above there, isn't there?

-Do you understand what the issue is here? Cos it's a lamb kebab.

-Yeah, yeah, I understand.

-Now, it's not very clear.

-You need to find out what is inside?

-Exactly.

And it's difficult to read this,

but I think that possibly says it's got beef in it.

It looks like the supplier has labelled the meat correctly,

but the shop is selling mixed meat kebabs advertising them as lamb.

Looking at its label, I suspect the product is probably fake,

which we obviously will need to confirm by speaking to the supplier

and also via the test that we get done by the public analyst.

Because it looks to me as though it contains beef as well as lamb.

With the suspect kebab and label bagged and tagged...

-OK, thank you very much.

-No problem.

-..Susan's work here is done.

-Thank you.

Back at base, chief tester Jon Griffin

has analysed the lamb kebab by checking the DNA

to reveal what meat it contains and whether it's a fake.

There can be an array of meats in there,

or you might just find the one.

A couple of shakes of a test tube,

and it's official -

the lamb kebab is a fake.

It contained 42% beef

and only 58% lamb.

And the restaurant that sold it is given a written warning

to ensure they stop selling fakes.

If they're what we're calling fake kebabs,

then the consumer is suffering from that point of view,

because they're just not getting what they're paying for.

The consumer must know what they're buying. That's the most important thing.

Earlier we saw how St Helens Trading Standards for the first time

uncovered a stash of fake spirits being sold

to unsuspecting customers in a licensed pub.

This is the biggest stash of fake spirits we've seen.

One of the brands on offer was a fake Scotch whisky.

It's just a spirit, a brown spirit, but it's not whisky.

Now, Scottish whisky, known as Scotch,

is so popular it's a multibillion-pound industry

that employs over 45,000 Brits.

In one year alone, Scottish distilleries produce enough bottles

to stretch between New York and Edinburgh six times over -

not that you'd want to do that.

Whisky writer and lecturer Charles MacLean

has a nose for the Scottish dram, and understands why it's so popular.

When you buy a bottle of Scotch whisky,

you're buying a hell of a lot more than liquor in a bottle.

You're buying craft, you're buying culture, you're buying history.

And if the whisky is not what it says it is,

it leads to disappointment.

And, yes, you've guessed it -

there are disappointed drinkers up and down the UK

as Scotch whisky has been targeted by the fakers.

And it's the job of Scottish Whisky Association lawyer

Lindsay Low to flush out the fakes.

Well, Scotch whisky is defined by law.

There are very strict regulations regarding how it must be made.

And the industry is closely supervised by UK customs,

who make sure that people are playing by the rules.

In order to sell it as a genuine Scotch whisky,

there are certain boxes the drink has to tick,

and failure to do so will make it a fake.

Scotch whisky is a very pure and natural product.

There are only three raw materials that are used in its production,

and that's water, cereal and yeast.

Another important part of the production process

is it has to be matured for at least three years

in Scotland in oak barrels.

The ageing of whisky in the wooden barrels is an expensive process,

and there are fakers out there trying to cash in

on the lucrative market by passing off substandard spirits

as a drop of the good old stuff.

When we come across fake Scotch whiskies,

we generally find that they consist of unaged, neutral spirits,

possibly with a small amount of genuine whisky added to them

to give them a superficial appearance and flavour of the real thing.

And it's not just what's inside the bottle that's designed to dupe.

It's the bottles themselves.

OK, well, we've got a few bottles here

that we've discovered in the UK, and they're all fake whiskies.

The first of these is Dexter,

and this product was seen widely across England.

It's the fake brand we saw Merseyside Trading Standards

seize from the White House pub.

The Scottish Whisky Research Institute ran specific tests

on the liquid in the bottle that claims to be a Scottish whisky,

just to see whether it's been aged in oak barrels

or whether it's just a cheap fake.

Probably most importantly, they've looked at the compounds

that are present as a result of it being aged in barrels,

so we can tell from that that it's not been aged

for three years as required, and therefore it can't be sold as whisky.

It also revealed that the liquid was a neutral, unaged alcoholic spirit,

most likely dyed to give it a similar colour to whisky.

It's quite clearly a fake whisky.

And it's not the only one.

In fact, over the last ten years,

Lindsay has seen 20 different fake Scottish whisky brands

being sold in Britain.

Here's one of his personal favourites.

This is another fake whisky.

Looking at it, it's got a lot of Scottish imagery -

it's got the Highland dancer, it's called Scottish Swordsman.

If you read the back label,

"Aged and blended in the Highlands in the old Scottish tradition."

But again, this is completely fake.

It's neutral, unaged alcohol - a far inferior product.

Genuine blended Scottish whisky retails from around £12 a bottle,

and the cost of producing it varies

depending on how long the liquid has aged for.

But a neutral unaged spirit,

packaged as a fake Scotch like this Scottish Swordsman,

can be knocked up in a Del Boy distillery for significantly less.

Well, there can be no doubt that people will be buying this

in the mistaken belief that it's Scotch.

And as Charles MacLean knows only too well,

it's the drinker's palate that ultimately pays the price.

These counterfeiters who can buy some very cheap base spirit

and colour it up and stick it into a bottle,

from a flavour point of view, is disastrous.

But drinkers aren't the only ones to suffer.

Scotch whisky sells because it's a natural,

high-quality, iconic product.

If it's widely faked, we could lose that,

and it's something that we probably wouldn't be able to get back.

Later, recycling's not always good -

old bottles filled with botched Scotch.

Who knows, maybe it's single cask washing-up liquid.

I don't know, but it's not the real deal.

Take a look at this. It's a name you might recognise.

LS Lowry, famous for the matchstick men he created

in industrial scenes of life

in the north-west of England where he lived,

he often made sketches like this on almost anything -

the back of a napkin or a postcard.

Look, here's another signed Lowry.

In fact, we've got a whole pile of them.

You guessed it - they're fakes.

If they were real, they could be worth thousands of pounds each.

When it comes to art, the fakers are everywhere.

From a Monet to a Michelangelo,

fake art has been around almost as long as art.

However, in recent years, fake art has taken on a more sinister trend,

something art and antiques valuer Aubrey Dawson's seeing a lot more of.

In the past, a lot of paintings were forged with the intent of trying

to deceive the big museums, the big galleries

and the people at the top of the art market.

Today, with the advent of the internet,

pictures are far more available to the people on the street

so forgers and fakers are not focusing so much

on the Rembrandts, on Monets, on Picassos,

they're focusing on smaller artists who are much easier to fake,

lower prices and, as a result, people will buy them.

So, online fake art sellers trying to swindle art lovers

out of their hard-earned cash doesn't sound too good.

What's worse, it looks like it's here to stay.

To the fraudster, it's big business.

We've seen a great influx from the Far East

so, in some parts of China,

there's whole cities dedicated to churning out fake paintings

so the seller says it was found in an attic in the 1960s

when, in reality, it was probably made last year in China.

One of the few living artists to be targeted by the fakers

is Ashley Jackson, a watercolour painter from Yorkshire.

There are people in life who want an easy way out

and this is their easy way out - fake everything.

To me, they're killing an industry.

And like a lot of things in the world of fakes,

it all began with a tip-off, to Ashley's agent, Claudia.

We received a phone call to the gallery from an anonymous caller,

advising us that Ashley Jackson's work

was being sold on an online auction site.

There is a genuine resale market for Ashley Jackson originals,

which can fetch tens of thousands of pounds.

But when Claudia had a thumb through the adverts,

she could tell something wasn't quite right.

This one, its title is saying "original Ashley Jackson watercolour signed 1972".

In terms of knowing it's a fake, it's poor composition

and the signature is not Ashley's

and it is just a poor, wishy-washy imitation.

If Claudia's eagle eye wasn't enough to prove these paintings were fake,

it was a howler the fraudster made

which was the final nail in the coffin.

One of the later drawings he's done,

I think he found that the first one had sold so well

that he'd reproduce a second one of the same image.

He has reproduced an image and said it's an Ashley Jackson watercolour.

His wording is that he's saying it is an original.

Now, the whole point of an original

is there is only one of them ever made.

It's got to be unique.

The bloke churning out this fake art

clearly had difficulty understanding that concept

as he faked the same image twice.

It's ridiculous to think he could even feel he could get away with it.

His forging days were numbered

as Claudia and Ashley reported the fakes to the police

and the fraudster was swiftly collared and given a caution,

along with a lifetime ban from eBay to stop him selling any more fakes.

So when somebody says this is a faceless crime

or a victimless crime, they're wrong, totally wrong

because this person isn't just stealing his artwork and his name,

he's stealing his life.

And he's not the only thief.

The more popular Ashley Jackson has become,

the more fakes he's seen in circulation.

We get a lot of people coming into the gallery

and saying, "I've got an Ashley Jackson."

I look at it and say, "I'm sorry, sir, it isn't an Ashley Jackson

"because mine has got soul in it. That has got money in it."

Unfortunately, the internet is awash with fake artwork.

Today, Aubrey's off to meet author and lecturer Dr Richard Howells,

whose fascination with the fakes

inspired him to purchase a stack of artwork

by the most faked British artist, LS Lowry.

Over the last five years,

Richard's bought around 25 or so fake sketches online,

sold as being by the great, late Lowry.

And there are a number of different ways

the fraudsters make these fakes look like genuine artwork.

-A little look at this one here.

-Oh, yeah, that's a winner.

So we've got a nice little industrial scene with the tall chimneys

and what looks like some Earl Grey has been...

So, the fakers use the classic "let's make it look old" trick.

But the materials are only half the battle.

If a fake is to sell well,

it needs a good old-fashioned story to go with it.

The standard pitch would be,

"This was an old attic find in Salford."

"This turned up at a car-boot sale in Greater Manchester."

So the pieces purport to have been found in or near Salford,

which is where Lowry lived, to further convince you it is for real.

I've seen fakes exactly like this and they've sold for big money.

They've sold for 500, £1,000, £2,000.

Richard may have bought his for fun,

but for anyone else thinking about buying artwork online, be warned.

Your Manet might not be worth much Monet.

Earlier, we saw how Scotch whisky has fallen foul of the fakers.

It's not just the modern whiskies.

In Blackpool, online whisky auctioneer Angus MacRaild

deals in rare vintage whiskies, a commodity that is in great demand.

Whisky, in general,

particularly malt whiskies and vintage malt whiskies,

in the last few years at auctions

have been getting increasingly more valuable

and prices are going up all the time.

It's a problem now that, as more money comes into whisky,

then certainly on the secondary market, the auction market,

then more fake bottles appear.

Now, it's common for some genuinely old bottles

to fetch thousands of pounds at auction,

some even tens of thousands.

But there are fakers out there buying empty antique bottles

and refilling them with a modern liquid.

And, as a result, collectors up and down the country

are getting duped into buying

what they think is a bottle of liquid history

that turns out to be nothing more than a worthless fake.

I can give you a couple of examples. We've got here a few Macallans.

This one here, we know this is a fake.

But to the outward eye, it looks OK.

The untrained eye might just see that

and think, "Yes, it's a bottle of Macallan, it's fine."

But for an eagle-eyed auctioneer like Angus,

there are a few telltale signs that the bottle's been refilled.

First of all, the capsule looks pretty shoddy.

It looks like it's been reworked to some extent.

That's a really telltale sign

because normally they should be very tight, very clean.

-It's not the only way to spot the fakes.

-If you give it a shake...

..you get this froth that just sits there.

The froth, or beading as it's known in the trade,

indicates how strong the liquid inside the whisky bottle is.

But when Angus compares the real one to the fake,

it's pretty obvious which is which.

You give them both a shake and you notice immediately the differences.

The beading here dies down

in concurrence with the 43% alcohol whisky.

This... Who knows?

Maybe it's single cask washing-up liquid, I don't know,

but it's not the real deal.

Being a fake, it's worth a couple of quid at most.

If it was genuine, it would fetch around £700.

But the effect is not just on the price of the whisky.

In the last few years, Angus has noticed

as the number of fake refilled bottles has gone up,

so has the price for genuine empty bottles.

Here's an empty bottle of Macallan Private Eye

which is being sold online and the price that's being asked is £199.

200 quid for an empty bottle does seem a touch steep,

but if you scroll through the elaborate photo gallery and description,

you'll find a rather interesting sales pitch.

"Bottle is empty.

"£1,500 when full." Check out Bonhams auction or something.

If you click the link, lo and behold,

you'll find a recent sale at auction where a full bottle fetched £1,500.

It's clear that they know what someone who buys it

is probably going to do with it - refill it.

199 buys you an empty one

and if you've got the means to refill it and reseal it,

then there's definite motivation there for people

to go and fake the bottle and make money on it.

Terrible!

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye!