Episode 3 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

Get down. Get down! Put your hands behind your back, now!

It's just an ordinary house.

It could be anywhere in the country,

but this is the Fake Britain house and it's filled with fakes.

You may not know it, but your home could be, too.

In this series, we'll investigate the criminals trying to get

their hands on your cash, by using fraud, forgeries and fakery.

And I'll be showing you how you can avoid being taken for a ride.

Today, on Fake Britain, we expose the shockingly dangerous

fake motorcycle safety wear on sale to British bikers.

That could be the difference between a rider

walking away, relatively uninjured, or severe injuries.

We tell the tale of the man who had £750,000 he was spending on a house

stolen by a fake firm of solicitors.

I was absolutely gutted. I felt sick.

I didn't think it was possible that anything like that

could ever happen.

In Dover, the discovery of a huge consignment of fake and dangerous

electricians' manuals being smuggled into the country.

To do something of this standard

requires a lot of time, a lot of organisation.

It is organised criminality.

And we join the border force, as they discover Class A drugs

ingeniously hidden in fake cargos.

I'm positive from the reaction there, there's heroin in this consignment.

Ask any biker,

the one thing you can't afford to compromise on is safety.

A good set of well-made protective clothing

can reduce your injuries in a crash, or even save your life.

However, it doesn't come cheap.

The whole lot - hundreds, or thousands, of pounds.

If you were to spend that money on this, however,

you'd be throwing it away, because this is a fake.

And as we've discovered, if you were to rely on this in a crash,

well, you could end up in real trouble.

1.2 million people ride motorbikes in the UK.

When things go wrong,

vital safety equipment goes some way to help to protect them.

If you haven't got proper, decent, safety equipment,

you are playing Russian roulette, as to whether you are going to

walk away without a mark on you

or you end up in A&E with catastrophic injuries.

Worryingly, Fake Britain's received information

that fake motorbike safety wear is being sold online.

We decided to investigate further

and see if these fakes are dangerous.

The results are shocking.

Looking online, auction sites advertise lots of bike leathers,

described as genuine, for attractive prices.

We opted for a set of Yamaha-branded leathers.

Very smart, too.

The leathers soon arrived. It turns out, they've come from Pakistan.

We took them to motorsport Mecca, Brands Hatch,

to ask the semi-professional riders there what they made of them.

The quality of leather straightaway gives it away. It looks like vinyl.

It doesn't look like a good-quality leather.

Even the stitching doesn't look great.

That would ring alarm bells straightaway.

You can tell the stitching's terrible. You'd come off...

It would probably wear down within seconds.

If they cost more than a fiver, I'd be surprised.

Yeah, just by weight. Again, that's the most obvious thing.

It just weighs nothing. It just hasn't got the material in it.

When we contacted Yamaha, they confirmed the riders' suspicions.

The bike leathers are fakes.

The counterfeiters had clearly tried to imitate the colours

and pattern of a genuine Yamaha suit.

But we wanted to know whether the fakes were also dangerous.

To find this out, we took the leathers all the way to Italy,

to internationally renowned motorcycle equipment manufacturer,

Dainese.

Genuine Yamaha bike suits are made here in this complex

in Molvena and are put through rigorous safety tests,

including an abrasion test

that mimics the conditions of an accident.

The number of seconds the suit lasts is equivalent to the time

it would protect someone sliding along the ground.

First, the team performs the test on a genuine suit.

To pass EU regulations for this test, the leather of the suit

must withstand five seconds against a hard surface at 70mph.

Reassuringly, it lasts 5.7 seconds.

But how would our fake from Pakistan fare?

The team cut samples from the fake suit and put it to the test.

After just three and a half seconds, it wears through to the skin,

failing the vital safety standard.

The fake leather would be very dangerous for the motorcycle rider.

You can break very easily this leather.

Back in the UK, we showed the results of our test to Tony Carter.

With 30 years as a police officer and now an accident investigator,

Tony's an expert when it comes to motorcycle safety.

What was most significant is the time it took to wear away

the poor quality leather.

The difference between the fake suit and a genuine quality leather,

2½ seconds nearly.

70mph on a motorway,

that could be the difference between a rider getting up

and walking away relatively uninjured,

or ending up in an ambulance and spending a long time in hospital

recovering from severe injuries.

Some parts of genuine suits actually have two layers of leather,

meaning they're substantially safer than our fake.

And British bikers are buying fake motorcycle safety wear.

Alan Routledge appeared in court for importing dangerous

counterfeit leathers, also from Pakistan.

Operating from units at a business park in Jarrow,

he made £400,000 a year for eight years, selling the leathers online.

Moving house is supposed to be one of the most stressful

things you can do - and no wonder.

First, you've got to find a property,

then get your offer accepted, arrange your mortgage,

then you might have to sell your old house

AND you have to sort out the move itself.

At least if you've got a solicitor, you can rely

on them to deal with the legal side of things.

and transferring huge sums of money.

Unless they're a fake.

In which case, you can't.

For most of us,

buying a house is the biggest transaction of our lives.

It generally costs hundreds of thousands of pounds,

and involves a fair few stresses,

but the reward of having your own home is worth it.

How would you feel, then, if you moved into your new home

and then lost it all through no fault of your own?

Nick Christophy lives in Hertfordshire

with his wife and two sons.

When a dream house became available in a sought-after neighbourhood,

he jumped at the chance to buy it, borrowing and scraping together

hundreds and thousands of pounds from his family.

I was very excited, the whole family were.

It's what you dream about when you're young and

you're growing up and you dream about the kind of house you wanted

and you think, "Right, this is the one".

And so we were ecstatic about it.

Nick's offer of £735,000 on his dream house was accepted,

and his solicitor worked closely with the firm representing

the owner, Acorn Solicitors, in order to seal the deal.

I've done all the right things. I bought through the estate agents

and the solicitors. I got the keys from the estate agent,

paid over our money and everything.

Nick and his family moved in, delighted with their new home,

but he was about to receive a huge shock.

Postman come, put the letters through the door,

and one of them said, "To the owner-occupier."

So I opened it, had a look at it and it was a notice of eviction.

Confused, Nick immediately phoned his solicitor, who tried to contact

Acorn Solicitors to confirm that the money had gone through.

She couldn't get hold of them. It was a dead line on the other side

and she came back and said the house hadn't been paid for.

That's when it all began to sink in.

The money had been received by Acorn Solicitors, based in Rotherham,

and not to be confused with any other firm of the same name.

But the company, with an office and staff, had vanished.

The awful truth dawned on Nick. Acorn was a fake firm of solicitors.

They'd hoodwinked the seller of the house, as well as Nick

and his solicitor, and stolen his entire purchase money of £735,000.

Nick was stunned, and faced the prospect of a crippling debt.

I was absolutely gutted. I felt sick.

Erm, I didn't think it was possible that anything like that

could ever happen.

And deep down, just thought that everything was going to be

all right and it couldn't happen to me.

To make matters worse,

Nick discovered that his dream house should never have been sold.

It was due to be repossessed.

I mean, I've worked hard all my life to provide for me and my family

and just for that to be taken away from you...

You literally own nothing. Erm, it was terrible.

I wouldn't wish it on anyone.

It was devastating.

The shock hit Nick and his family very hard.

It's completely changed my life.

Erm, emotions, stress,

anxiety attacks... I've had depression, as well, at times.

I try to protect the kids and to keep them out of this.

I didn't want them to get affected. It was a tough time.

The fakers had completely vanished

and police have been unable to trace them.

However, they've uncovered the complex means by which bogus

company Acorn carried out their audacious deception.

It involved stealing the identity of a genuine lawyer.

Looking online, the fraudsters discovered a retired solicitor.

Without his knowledge, they changed his name online, via deed poll -

a practice alarmingly easy and cheap.

The fakers then contacted the Solicitors Regulation Authority,

informing them the retired solicitor had changed his name

and was setting up a new practice, Acorn Solicitors.

Shockingly, the SRA, the official trade body,

didn't question the new company,

and put the fraudsters on the Law Society's Find-a-Solicitor website.

The fakers are thought to have used a counterfeit passport to open

a new bank account, in order to receive Nick's £735,000.

When Nick Christophy spoke to his solicitor,

she assured him the SRA, who'd registered the fake company,

had a compensation fund and he'd get his money back.

They'd say, "Don't worry, there's a compensation fund."

"You're covered, one way or the other."

His application for compensation was rejected by the SRA,

who are based here in Birmingham.

This was despite the fact they'd kept the fake solicitor's details

up on the website for six weeks after their fakery was exposed.

Antony Townsend is their Chief Executive.

Sadly, as a regulator, the Solicitors Regulation Authority

cannot help people who have lost money to criminals.

The SRA doesn't regulate criminals, we regulate law firms

and genuine solicitors.

Consumers must take responsibility for making their checks,

because if they don't check

and they go to a fraudulent solicitor and they lose money,

the only thing they can do is go to the police and see

whether they can recover their money through the courts.

Nick Christophy was left devastated, and feeling utterly abandoned.

I'm disgusted with them.

For someone, for me and my family,

I was hoping to get a bit of help, but there was no help, at all.

In an out-of-court settlement with his own solicitor,

Nick has managed to claw back two-thirds of the £735,000 stolen

by the fakers, but he lost his dream house

AND was faced with repaying his family the remaining

hundreds of thousands of pounds that he borrowed.

Worryingly, Nick's experience isn't unique.

Other families have also had their mortgage funds stolen

by fake solicitors.

With £600 million exchanged every day in return for houses,

it's an obvious target for criminals.

Lawyer David Robinson is an expert in property fraud.

Fraudsters like conveyancing transactions,

because they're high-value transactions

where large sums of money pass on completion,

and even on exchange of contracts.

David is bringing a case against the SRA, on behalf of Nick Christophy

and four other people who fell victim to fake solicitors.

The SRA had registered Acorn as a bona fide firm and they remained

on the Find-a-Solicitor website even after their fakery had been exposed.

The information on the site is misleading.

The system for admitting solicitors and holding them out

needs to be changed, to make it more difficult for fraudsters

to masquerade as lawyers.

As Nick Christophy discovered,

it can be very difficult to spot a fake solicitor.

However, David has some general advice for anyone

thinking of buying a home.

Check up on the vendor's solicitor's name and the firm's name.

Ask in person. Don't get fobbed off.

Double the checks that you're making on the vendor.

When appointing your own solicitor, choose - if you haven't chosen

one before - one recommended by a friend, family or work colleague.

Use all the checks that are available. Lawyer checker is one.

Don't search the internet for the ultra-cheap price.

It's a big transaction, so it's worth spending a few extra pounds

to get peace of mind.

For fakers, sometimes the hardest part of getting their hands

on our cash is getting their goods into Britain in the first place.

That means using all sorts of tricks and deceptions to get them

past the UK's Border Force and, as you're about to see,

that's a game that leads to some extraordinary discoveries.

Previously on Fake Britain,

we've revealed how fakers stashed counterfeit cigarettes

in kitchenware, coffee grounds and even air conditioning units,

in a desperate bid to get their fakes into the country.

This morning, Fake Britain's come to Heathrow Airport,

to join the Border Force, as they look for fake goods

and other illegal products hidden in packages entering the country.

It's not long before team member Annie turns up a suspect package.

The paperwork states that it contains receivers,

but that's not what's inside.

It looks like they are quite cheap headphones.

But when Annie opens a box, she's in for another shock.

OK! Surprise. They are Dr Dres.

They have concealed them

very carefully with a different wrapping on it, by putting

a different packaging, the description of goods

is completely different, as well, from what they are.

Annie suspects the headphones are fakes.

As a premium item,

Dr Dre Beats headphones are a popular target for counterfeiters,

but this level of sophisticated concealment is something new.

They will actually be sent to the right holders -

that's Dr Dres right holders -

and they will ascertain whether they are actually counterfeit.

It's not long before another suspect parcel is discovered by the team.

Right. This is a package from Pakistan.

It's described as Ludo boards. It's 32 kilos.

That's a lot of gifts for one person.

I say it's just a really strange shipment.

In all the years I've done this job, you don't come across it.

It just looks really, really odd.

I mean we're looking for packages, primarily. Class A drugs.

So, with this sort of thing, X-rays aren't really going to

show very much, so the only way to do it is going in by hand.

So, I'm going to have to damage these ones, I'm afraid.

It's unusual that the whole package is marked as

a gift for just one person.

Glen suspects the game boards could be fake,

and simply a way of smuggling something inside into the country.

And he's not sure what.

It's two layers of card, so...

Luckily, Glen's nose for fakes is highly developed,

and he soon finds something suspect.

There's no packages...

BUT there's like a chemical smell coming up from this.

It looks slightly wet and, when you come up close,

there's little glints, like crystallisation.

The damp patches could be glue,

but they could also be something much more worrying.

I think they've impregnated the cardboard with diamorphine.

That's what I'm suspecting from the smell.

Liquid diamorphine is better known as heroin.

But to be certain, he must do a special chemical test.

If the acid goes pink, there is heroin in the Ludo boards.

So, what we'll do now is get one of our test kits.

We have to cut a piece of the cardboard...

..put these bits in the test...

It's basically concentrated acid, so we have to be quite careful.

And we have to crack the acid open and then wait for the reaction.

So, let's crack the acid.

Can you see the colour there?

It's sort of going...like, a pink tinge.

Glen's suspicions seem to be confirmed.

So I'm positive from the reaction there,

there's heroin in this consignment.

The team search the remaining fake boards

and discover four they suspect have been laced with liquid heroin.

They soak the drugs in liquid form and then impregnate it on.

That's how they do it.

One final test remains,

and it involves a furry investigator.

This is Maggie, and she specialises in cash and Class A drugs.

She'll freeze and point at the consignment with her nose

where she thinks the Class A or cash is.

The Ludo boards are put back into the parcel,

and it's hidden amongst others to disguise its contents.

But Maggie makes straight for the suspect game boards.

I've brought the dog in, run over the consignment,

and she's given me a positive indication on a box in the middle.

We used the dog today to get another indication.

It backed up the field test as well, to say that's diamorphine in that.

It's good team work today. It's very good team detection.

And the team's left in no doubt that the board games were simply

a fake cover for smuggling heroin into the country.

These fakers are playing with people's lives.

Had the border agency staff not detected the package,

dangerous Class A drugs

could have been on the streets of Britain within days.

Glen can't be sure of the exact amount of the drug,

but it's still a good find for the team.

With this now, we're going to secure it in a safe environment

and maintain our chain of evidence if it goes to court.

And I've passed on all the details to our investigation colleagues

who will look into this seriously and proceed on with it.

Have a look at this big green book.

It's the Institution of Engineering and Technology's Requirements For Electrical Installations.

Electricians have another word for this, though.

They call it their Bible.

It's a rulebook that makes sure

that every electrical installation in the UK is absolutely safe.

However...

Here's another one.

Almost identical, but this one is a fake.

And, as we've discovered,

someone is trying to smuggle these into the UK in their thousands.

This morning, head of East Kent Trading Standards, Mark Rolfe,

is on his way to inspect a surprising new haul

of suspect goods -

fake wiring regulations for professional electricians.

The books were seized at Dover docks,

working with our colleagues in the Borders Agency,

and we've now got them in a secure storage unit.

Genuine wiring regulations have been in use since 1882, and are

the industry standard in Britain for ensuring electrical wiring is safe.

Containing what professionals call "the regs", every electrician

in the UK is expected to hold a copy of this gold standard.

For safety reasons, it's critical that they're correct.

This shipment of possible fakes was discovered being

smuggled into local docks.

Like every port in the UK, Dover is inundated with counterfeit goods

coming in from overseas.

The manuals have come from Latvia.

It's not the usual manufacturing source,

so the Border Force has immediately flagged them as suspicious.

Mark arrives at the storehouse and makes straight for the locker where

the suspect manuals are being stored.

There's quite a lot more there than I'd imagine, to be honest.

That's quite a significant printing operation.

Mark is keen to take a look at what's inside.

The paper is a reasonable quality paper, it's professionally bound.

I've seen books in the past where the binding isn't what it should be,

but this has clearly been professionally manufactured.

To do something of this standard requires a lot of time,

a lot of organisation - you know, it is organised criminality.

This isn't just a small-scale market trader chancing his arm.

Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble to do this.

There's a reason the fakers have laboured to counterfeit

something as unusual as an electrician's manual.

We know that the original version sells for somewhere

in the region of £80.

So I think somebody trying to sell a fake version of this

could easily get away with £40 or £50 and people would still think they're getting a bargain.

£50...800 copies,

that's still £40,000 of criminal benefit.

But it's not the money that's the real worry with these fake manuals.

We took one of the suspect books to expert Mark Coles.

He's Technical Regulations Manager for the IET,

the body which compiles the genuine electrical standard.

He immediately confirms it's fake, and is appalled by the possibility

of counterfeit versions of the book being out there in use.

This is the IET wiring regulations.

Now, every electrical installation in the country needs to comply

with the content of this book.

The idea of a standard is, every time the installation is performed,

we get the same result so that every house is as safe as the next one.

If you install to a counterfeit book,

then we could be installing a dangerous installation.

Compared with the real book, it's certainly very convincing.

What are the differences? Well, they're very similar.

Put the two together, you'll see that the counterfeit copy is darker,

darker green.

And you'll also find, if you do have a fake copy,

the paper's a bit thicker, a bit stiffer.

Now, when we put the two together and look at the spines,

we'll see in the counterfeit copy,

the printing on the spine is moved to one side.

The differences on the outside are one thing,

but it's those on the inside that have got Mark worried.

When we compare these two tables of the genuine and the counterfeit copy,

at this point in the table, we have the number 36.

At the same point in the table of the counterfeit copy, we have 26.

This means that you'll need to put a larger cable in,

therefore installing to this fake copy,

it'll cost a homeowner more.

Amazingly, this isn't the only fake IET manual the organisation

has come across.

Jack Day is currently studying electrical installation

at Cambridge Regional College.

Online, he bought another IET wiring manual, the On-Site Guide.

He tried to use it to answer a question set by his lecturer

about what thickness of cable to use in a particular installation.

It wasn't until I was sitting in class that we realised

there was something wrong with it.

It was when we were doing conduits,

so it went from, 16, 20 to 35 then 32, whereas it should have gone

16, 20, 25, 32.

Steven Devine is Jack's lecturer.

We quickly realised that some of the information here was false,

as there is no such thing as a 35ml conduit.

On identifying that there was a problem within this publication,

I contacted the IET and as a result of that,

I sent them a copy of the On-Site Guide

and they established that there were more than 80 errors

in the publication.

And potentially these errors could cause risk of poor installation

and, essentially, risk to life through fire or electric shock.

Jack's now bought the right manual,

but the experience has left him chastened.

It could've caused me to fail my exams.

I could've wired up a house.

I could've caught alight.

My message to these people who are putting these books together

is please stop, because you're doing untold damage to the industry

and also bringing dangers into peoples houses.

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.