Episode 4 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

Get down! Get down! Get on the floor, now!

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 be investigating 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, the crooks using fake cards to buy fuel,

and then putting lives at risk.

Well, if that van was travelling on this road

and you had a source of ignition, you would have

a major chemical fire,

and would probably bring this part of London to a halt.

The fake references on sale online.

It's actually quite shocking that somebody

is able to falsify their career.

And the dog with a nose for fake tobacco.

That's what we're after.

Yes, good boy!

Here in the UK, thousands of companies use these - fuel cards.

Their employees use them to buy fuel at petrol stations

and then the company that the card is registered to is billed directly.

It's big business,

with millions of pounds being spent on these cards every year.

And, unsurprisingly, they're a target for the fakers.

What's more of a surprise, though,

is that it's you and your car that could lose out.

Previously on Fake Britain, we've seen criminals manufacturing

fake credit cards, but evidence is now emerging of a new card scam,

one targeting corporate fuel cards and putting innocent lives at risk.

City of London Police were alerted to this disturbing new trend

when a fuel card company contacted them to report unexplained

and substantial spending on customer accounts.

Thousands of litres of fuel were being stolen every week.

Police quickly established that while the account numbers were genuine,

the actual cards themselves were fake.

John Unsworth is Head of Intelligence for

the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau of the City of London Police.

They were getting hold of people's actual numbers

by doing shoulder surfing or by having people working

in the garages that were actually double swiping

and taking the details.

And then it's simply a case of pressing them numbers

onto the plastic cards and moving it from there.

And a card number could be stolen

and faked in minutes.

There's instances of people paying correctly for their fuel

and within minutes, their card being compromised because somebody's

captured the numbers, e-mailed it -

using their smartphones - to a colleague

that's miles and miles away, they've printed it onto a card,

and then they've dished it out and gone out and used it.

Within the information the fuel card company had passed

to City of London Police were a multitude of leads.

We had the information that was saying where cards were being used,

we looked at CCTV to see who the people were

that were using them there, we're then able to look at

vehicle number plates and actually trace it back from there.

It was clear that this was organised crime being carried out

on a grand scale.

It turned out all of the vehicles were white vans,

most of which were registered to hire companies.

They're your run-of-the-mill Ford Transit type vehicle.

What they looked for was a vehicle

that had a sliding door that was next to

the petrol filler, so that when they pulled up

into a garage, they could slide open the door

and not be seen filling up.

But it was the huge quantities of fuel inside the vans

that alarmed the authorities.

What they had was lots of plastic containers,

which they literally just used to fill up.

So to anybody watching, it doesn't look suspicious,

it looks like there's somebody stood next to the petrol pump

filling up the petrol.

It's a ticking time bomb. What you've got is a van full of fuel

sloshing around in the back of it.

Now, there's a reason that fuel is transported in a regulated way.

It's because it's hazardous, it's flammable, it's dangerous.

Being in the back of a transit van

is not a safe way of transporting it.

We asked Roger Bibbings,

from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents,

to assess the dangers inherent in transporting fuel this way.

Well, if that van was travelling on this road

and there was an incident,

and you only had a small loss of containment,

and you had a source of ignition,

you would have a major chemical fire.

A major explosion. Far bigger than a car fire involving petrol...

perhaps 10, 50 times bigger.

A major chemical incident that would do massive damage

to people roundabout and would probably bring

this part of London to a halt.

With a threat to public safety on this scale,

the police needed to build their case quickly.

They spent several weeks following suspects and gathering evidence.

Soon, they established that the gang was based in London,

but would target filling stations outside the M25.

The fuel-laden vans, nicknamed "Molotov motors",

were clocking up thousands of miles every week.

Police suspected that the fuel being stolen

was destined for the black market.

It was time to take these fakers off the roads.

With innocent customers

unaware of what's happening,

the undercover police officers allow the offender

to pay with his fake fuel card.

But as he leaves, he's grabbed and taken out of sight.

A second police team then swoops, encircles and arrests his accomplice.

Fake Britain spoke to one former gang member who now regrets

ever getting involved in criminal activity.

For his protection, we've disguised his identity.

We started by asking him where the gang would travel to

in order to steal the fuel.

We use all the motorways. We go all over the UK.

One day, we go to Milton Keynes, the next day, Nottingham.

We go to Swindon, Bristol, Coventry. We go everywhere.

He told us about the industrial scale of the operation.

On a normal day, we'd get around 1,500 litres of fuel.

So imagine that there were five of us on the roads.

That's nearly 7,500 litres.

These vast quantities of fuel were transported back to a lockup garage

in a residential estate in West London.

The garage is now in new ownership, unconnected with the crime.

We asked Roger Bibbings to look at one of the main locations

where the fuel was stored.

I think this is just incredible.

I mean, that amount of fuel stored here in a garage,

in a lockup underneath somebody's flat,

so they don't even know it's there, the level of danger

is absolutely incredible, and it's just amazing that the people

who are handling this stuff don't recognise that.

And police photos taken immediately after the raid

reveal the conditions in which the fuel was kept.

If you look here at the shot of this garage - absolute chaos.

Tyres, equipment, everything thrown in on top of one another.

The absolute opposite of safety.

They even seem to be using some kind of pump for dispensing this stuff,

which certainly isn't approved for flammable liquids.

We also asked Roger about the risks

the criminals were exposing themselves to.

The guys who are driving these vans

are really playing Russian roulette with their health.

A little bit of petrol vapour, such as you and I might smell

at the petrol station, that's really no consequence at all.

But to drive for eight hours a day, for example,

in a van like this with leaking petrol vapour, exposing yourself

to high concentrations, you're going to get problems

with your nervous system, headaches, liver damage even.

And remember, petrol contains benzene,

which is a cancer-causing agent,

so you could end up with something like leukaemia.

The former gang member we spoke to claims

he started feeling ill as soon as he began working for the gang.

Every day, we smelt of fuel. Our shoes, our jackets.

And when we had all the fuel in the van,

we got really bad headaches almost every single day.

If I eat something, I need to go to the toilet straightaway.

I had bad heartburn, things weren't right with me internally.

The gang behind the fake fuel card scam was selling

the fuel on the black market.

The fuel would be sold to minicab drivers

or roadside recovery drivers.

But incredibly, innocent motorists may also have unwittingly bought it.

They have their own petrol stations

and they're using this petrol

to actually go and fill the tanks up at those stations

and sell it to general members of the public.

The fuel would be taken to petrol stations' employees.

They would buy the fuel at a discount,

maybe 90p or £1 a litre.

So, motorists have been sold fuel

stored in conditions like this.

When fuel - whether it's diesel or petrol - is kept in warm,

uncontrolled environments, such as this lockup, condensation is created.

The fuel can start to turn cloudy and, in extreme cases,

bacteria can start to breed.

We asked Tony Sweetland, a chemist specialising in fuel analysis,

what damage this condensation can do to a car engine.

Water in a diesel can reduce the power output of the engine

or cause stuttering and things like that, simply because

the injectors all get clogged with the water,

so enough fuel isn't going into the engine.

It can also cause problems with the injectors being clogged as well,

if there's bacteria present within the fuel, as well.

And longer term, it may lead to corrosion issues on the fuel system

because the water will obviously start to corrode through

the metal pipes within the engine.

Many of the London-based

gang of fuel fakers have now been convicted,

but in the course of their investigation,

the police have become aware of other gangs developing

better disguised vehicles, capable of storing

even larger quantities of fuel.

The diagram we've got here actually shows how the criminals

have moved on, how they've

moved away from using

plastic containers

and the side of the transit vans

into a much bigger operation.

You can see, when you look at it,

the size of the van that they're now using, you can see that

they're not going straight into the container.

They're using the correct procedures to fill it up.

But what's really happening is,

the fuel is being diverted into containers

that are in the back of the van.

But while the criminals might be getting more sophisticated,

the police are aware of their plans,

and they have a warning...

You will get caught.

No matter how victimless you, as an offender, think it is,

we will come after you.

It's a competitive job market out there right now.

In some cases, there are hundreds of applicants

applying for a single position.

Often, the difference between success and failure can be one of these.

A good reference. But this one is a fake.

Cooked up online for a fee by fraudsters.

Fake Britain has discovered that the business of supplying fake references

is now huge, and that British businesses are being

routinely targeted. That means thousands of jobs are going to

the wrong people, and the right candidates are losing out.

Fake Britain wanted to establish just how widespread

the use of fake references by job applicants is.

So we teamed up with the Federation of Small Businesses to carry out

the most extensive independent survey ever undertaken in the UK

into the use of fake references.

Over 1,800 employers responded.

And for Mike Cherry, Policy Chairman of the FSB,

the results made for interesting reading.

17% had actually found that some of their employees,

particularly those at mid-level, had provided fake references.

And of that 17% of companies,

6% had received fake references

on more than one occasion.

But as our survey proves, many employers don't check references,

so the true figure is likely to be even higher than 17%.

Surprisingly, the survey also revealed

men are twice as likely as women to fake a reference.

Well, that was an interesting point that really came out

very, very strongly, I think nearly three-quarters,

so that is certainly an interesting one

that we'd never picked up on before.

And the fakers are applying for jobs

across the employment spectrum.

40% of the fakers applied for entry-level positions,

and the same number applied for mid-management roles.

But there's trouble at the top, too.

12% of the fake applications were for management roles.

And 2% were for roles as a company director.

I think that's a very worrying trend, going forward.

You've seen it in the media in the past, where some fairly high flyers,

so to speak, have actually falsified their CV

or their job experience in some way.

The survey also asked members about a disturbing new trend.

A number of websites now offer to provide fake references.

They promised to provide unwitting employees with glowing references

for fake candidates.

The employer can even call a number,

where he or she will speak to a genuine-sounding

human resources officer.

Now, of the small business owners

the Federation of Small Business surveyed,

over 70% weren't aware that

online fakers like this lot

are out there. It's of concern to Mike Cherry.

Potentially, it can be very damaging indeed, because if you actually

take someone on who you believe has got that skillset,

and then it's proven that they haven't,

you've still got the raft of employment legislation

that you have to comply with.

And if you don't find it out till sometime down the line,

you could have some real problems on your hands.

One of these sites, The Reference Store,

boasts how its fake reference service has hoodwinked

numerous companies into offering jobs to its clients.

Fake Britain informed one of these companies - The London Taxi Company,

which sells and leases black cabs - about the testimonials page.

Graham Jones, the company's HR Director,

was incensed to see his company name on the testimonials page.

I felt annoyed.

I mean, we're proud of the company that we work for,

we're proud of what we make, we're recognised the world over,

and then somebody belittling the company by claiming that somebody

could be fraudulently recruited, that they've got the skills

to match the people that we've got now,

I think that was just ridiculous, really.

As soon as Fake Britain

made The London Taxi Company aware of the claim that

The Reference Store had supplied a fake reference

for one of their employees, Graham took action.

He ran checks on all the company's current staff.

They're satisfied none of their staff have been employed

on a fake reference, and they've stepped up their controls.

Rather than just assume that we weren't affected,

we actually did a physical check.

So I went back through the records of everybody that we've employed over the last two years.

We will verify the company, we will check a website,

we will pick up a registered address,

we will contact Companies House to make sure that company is valid.

We do a postal check as well,

to make sure the company is located where it should be.

Now, while it appears that some of the testimonials

on The Reference Store's website are fake,

how convincing are the fake references

that these companies are offering?

Fake Britain decided to find out.

We used another website - The Fake Reference Service -

to order a fake reference for a janitor

looking for employment in a school.

Surely the fakers wouldn't provide references for an employee

working with children or teenagers?

24 hours later, the fakers e-mailed to say they'd be happy

to supply us with a fake reference.

For just 190, or £115, the company promised to provide us

with a fake reference.

They also told us they would build us a bespoke website

for a fictional school, in order to make our fake reference

all the more convincing.

Bill Andrews runs an accredited teacher recruitment agency in London.

We asked him to look at the website the fakers had built for us.

The organisation has gone to great lengths to put this website together

to give it more credibility.

Not only does it have a home page,

it also has detailed 50 years' worth of history

about this particular school.

It details the families that it serves,

it details what its history is,

its links to other organisations and universities.

There is information from everything from nursery

through primary and secondary education that is provided

as provision at this school.

There are details of its admission policy.

On our behalf, Bill then contacted the fakers

and sought a reference for our fictional janitor.

It arrived within 24 hours.

They provided details about their key duties,

they provided additional information with regards to their performance,

their sickness record and, indeed,

when providing information about their performance and conduct

within schools, they had made sure that not everything was perfect.

But for a sharp-eyed employer,

there are clues that this reference is a fake.

Going to the website, there is no phone number for the organisation,

there's no fax number,

there's no information about any of the staff that work there

or any contact details, other than an 'info@' e-mail address.

And for Bill, the fact that a reference from a previous employer

could be faked so easily is deeply alarming.

A reference is a key part of any application

for a job within a school.

It's actually quite shocking that somebody,

for a very small amount of money,

is - within a very short space of time -

able to falsify their career and go and get one, two,

perhaps more references, and seek employment then in a school,

working with vulnerable children.

Following the findings of our investigation,

the Federation of Small Businesses has written to all of its members -

that's 200,000 employers - warning them about the websites

that are offering to provide fake references.

I think it's important that small business owners are aware certainly

that these fraudulent activities are taking place.

There are fake references out there,

there are companies providing these on the web or elsewhere,

and unfortunately, just another symptom of

where we are today in having to check all the references

and all the bits and pieces

behind getting decent recruits for our businesses.

We've shown before on Fake Britain just how sophisticated

the international criminal trade in counterfeit tobacco products can be.

Look at these - seized by the police.

Completely convincing, completely fake.

but it's not just the smugglers who are getting inventive.

The people who actually sell the illegal products here also have

to try and keep one step ahead of the law.

Fake Britain has been out

with Trading Standards officers who reveal some of the tricks

of this illicit trade.

In 2013, the authorities seized over 1 billion illicit cigarettes,

and around 500 tonnes of illicit rolling tobacco.

Amongst the haul are numerous different counterfeit tobacco brands

and products. The smuggling and sale of illicit tobacco

costs HM Revenue and Customs billions of pounds every year.

In a bid to stub out the trade in illicit tobacco sales,

Staffordshire Trading Standards launched Operation Ash,

which targets the unscrupulous retailers who sell the tobacco.

Today, the teams are acting on intelligence

gathered over the last month and have warrants to raid five shops.

We're with senior investigator Nigel Cotton as he heads

-to his team's target.

-Once we arrive at the premise,

we'll quickly alight the vehicles and get in there as quickly

as possible. We don't want to alert them more than necessary.

We'll go in, I'll introduce myself and issued the warrant, basically,

telling them that we're going to search

the property for illicit tobacco.

We'll then introduce the sniffer dog and see if it can detect

any illicit tobacco on the property.

The team head in and question the first person

they believe to be a member of staff.

Can you come inside the shop a minute? Ta.

So are you working here?

OK, I've seen you in another shop around the corner.

Are you calling the boss? OK.

The gentleman here has contacted the shop owner

who, apparently, is on his way. He's only three minutes away.

But Nigel has a secret weapon -

Ozzie.

He's undergone a specialist training programme

which has conditioned him to seek out only concealed tobacco.

The tobacco on display won't interest Ozzie

as he'll only get a reward

if he can sniff out the tobacco that's been hidden.

As you can see, the sniffer dog's come in and I think it's indicated

that there might be some tobacco behind the counter.

The dog's just indicated an interest in this...

which, if we open it up,

as you can see,

are some examples of illicit tobacco in it.

Inside this box is an unholy mix of illicit tobacco.

We've got unregulated cigarettes,

known as cheap whites,

packs smuggled in from Europe to avoid paying the duty,

and counterfeits.

It looks like some sort of first-aid kit.

But Ozzie has found something else at the back of the store.

That's a good boy! Yes, a good boy!

The dog has indicated an interest in that demonstration canister,

I suppose you'd call. As you look inside,

it looks like it's full of cans.

If we lift out that and look inside,

you'll that there's a load of cigarettes...

which are what we're after, basically.

Yes! Good boy.

Ozzie's earned a reward - his beloved squeaky ball.

He's a good boy, did you know that?

Erm, this is a counterfeit brand,

so we don't know who manufactures that.

It's a copy of the original, and the problem with copied brands

is that you don't know what they're putting in the tobacco, basically.

It could be sweepings off the floor, animal droppings...

have been found in the past.

So, you know, it could be anything.

And some of the tobacco found here has been cunningly packaged.

Well, I believe that these are made up to look very similar to

Golden Virginia. They're not called Golden Virginia.

They're called Original Virginia.

Clearly, whoever's manufacturing them is trying to circumvent

some sort of law by not doing an exact copy,

but they're making it look very similar.

-Good boy!

-Well done, dog.

The dogs are proving... I think we've shown them

that they're an asset to working as a team

with Trading Standards and Customs to finding

-where the tobacco has gone.

-TOY SQUEAKS

As the fakers have become ever more inventive,

the dogs have become crucial.

The concealments that we're coming across now are very, very clever.

They are being made, purposely built, to hide illicit tobacco.

One of Ozzie's most eye-catching successes

was sniffing out the illicit tobacco hidden within this hydraulic lift.

Inside the lift, Lincolnshire Trading Standards found

a stash of fake cigarettes.

This devious device

is just one of a number of

the fakers' hi-tech hiding places.

We've had electromagnets that are hidden in walls.

Ones that are on beepers and sensors. Plugs.

There's all kinds, and it's becoming...

It's obviously becoming a moneymaking scheme to make these

and to hide the tobacco for these reasons.

When it comes to finding hidden cigarettes, Ozzie's a machine!

You can't hide it from the dog.

This find is enough for Nigel to ask the police to arrest the man,

who's suspected of working in the shop.

You're under arrest under the Consumer Protection

of Narco Trade and Regulations.

You do not have to say anything,

but it may harm your defence if you do not mention

when questioned something which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be given in evidence.

The police have just cautioned him and arrested him.

He will be street bailed later, in a few moments.

Finally, the shop owner arrives.

He's got a lot of explaining to do.

-We've visited your shop this morning.

-Yes.

We've found some illicit tobacco, basically, under the counter

-and hidden in the back of the shop.

-Yep.

-We've made a receipt out for all the property which is here, OK?

-Mm-hm.

But Ozzie's not finished yet.

He's picked up something in one of the cars parked outside the shop.

The vehicle's registered to the shopkeeper,

and there's two big boxes of illicit tobacco

on the back seat.

All the brands that we found in the shop, Original Virginia,

a bit more stock this time, though.

There's probably about 1,000 cigarettes in this box.

Both the man the police arrested in the shop

and the shop owner will be prosecuted at the magistrates' court.

If found guilty, they'll face fines and community service orders.

For Nigel, though, it's been a successful day.

Seven arrests have been made

and about 10,000 illegal cigarettes seized.

It's just one of dozens of retailers

Trading Standards are investigating all over the country,

suspected of selling fake tobacco.

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.