Browse content similar to Episode 13. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
Line | From | To | |
---|---|---|---|
Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems. | 0:00:04 | 0:00:07 | |
Welcome to Fake Britain. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:09 | |
Police! SHOUTING | 0:00:10 | 0:00:12 | |
Get down! Get down! Put your hands behind your back, now! | 0:00:22 | 0:00:26 | |
Here at the Fake Britain house, things might look familiar, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
but don't be taken in. Because this is a house that's filled with fakes. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:34 | |
In this series I'll be revealing the counterfeits, copies and cons | 0:00:34 | 0:00:38 | |
that are flooding the market, fooling the public, | 0:00:38 | 0:00:41 | |
making money for the criminals and maybe even putting you in danger. | 0:00:41 | 0:00:46 | |
We'll be investigating those fraudsters | 0:00:46 | 0:00:48 | |
who are cashing in by selling us something that isn't real. | 0:00:48 | 0:00:52 | |
And we'll be showing you how to avoid falling for a fake. | 0:00:52 | 0:00:56 | |
Today on Fake Britain: | 0:00:57 | 0:00:59 | |
The fake batteries that could give you more power | 0:00:59 | 0:01:02 | |
than you bargained for... | 0:01:02 | 0:01:03 | |
The thought of that occurring on an aircraft | 0:01:03 | 0:01:05 | |
with maybe 400 passengers is horrific. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:08 | |
..the fake cosmetics keeping Trading Standards on their toes | 0:01:08 | 0:01:12 | |
I've been doing this job for 30 years, | 0:01:12 | 0:01:14 | |
and I've never seen this amount of fake cosmetics. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:17 | |
..and courier fraud. On the front line with the real police officers | 0:01:17 | 0:01:21 | |
cracking down on the fake ones. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:23 | |
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of valuables are being handed over | 0:01:23 | 0:01:26 | |
to these fake police officers and fake couriers. | 0:01:26 | 0:01:29 | |
We live our lives surrounded by technology that we take with us | 0:01:34 | 0:01:38 | |
wherever we go. Phones, laptops and cameras, just for starters. | 0:01:38 | 0:01:42 | |
And they all need portable power. | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
These are lithium batteries, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:47 | |
and increasingly they're the type you'll find in all these devices. | 0:01:47 | 0:01:51 | |
They're packed full of power, usually rechargeable, | 0:01:51 | 0:01:54 | |
and they're not cheap. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:55 | |
But at as you might expect, at the Fake Britain house, | 0:01:55 | 0:01:58 | |
none of these batteries is the real thing. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:01 | |
And as we're about to show you, the consequences of having a fake | 0:02:01 | 0:02:05 | |
lithium battery inside your device could be very serious indeed. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
The chances are, you're probably carrying one or more lithium | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
batteries with you wherever you go, and you'll have more at home. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:18 | |
Every year over three billion lithium batteries are transported | 0:02:18 | 0:02:21 | |
worldwide, and they're big business for an electronics giants | 0:02:21 | 0:02:25 | |
like Canon and Samsung. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:26 | |
The fakers know that. They're cashing in on our insatiable desire | 0:02:27 | 0:02:31 | |
for more portable power. | 0:02:31 | 0:02:33 | |
It's early morning in the north of England. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
The scam busters' north-west team, led by officer Wally Din, | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
are on the trail of a suspect thought to be selling vast | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
quantities of fake lithium batteries. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
We are hoping to find evidence of the sale of counterfeit | 0:02:48 | 0:02:52 | |
Canon camera batteries. | 0:02:52 | 0:02:54 | |
And when it comes to these batteries, | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
Wally's not just worried about trademark infringement. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
The problem with the fake batteries is that they could potentially | 0:03:01 | 0:03:05 | |
overheat and go on fire, so they could cause damage to property, | 0:03:05 | 0:03:09 | |
to somebody's expensive camera, or, in fact, they could cause injury. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:13 | |
The counterfeit and potentially dangerous batteries | 0:03:16 | 0:03:19 | |
need to be taken out of circulation. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:22 | |
The officers arrive at the suspect's address | 0:03:22 | 0:03:25 | |
and quickly get inside. | 0:03:25 | 0:03:26 | |
Hi, we've got a warrant to search the address. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
The search begins, and it doesn't take long | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
for the officers to find what they're looking for. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
We've got here what appear to be several boxes | 0:03:34 | 0:03:37 | |
of goods that we're looking for, counterfeit batteries. | 0:03:37 | 0:03:40 | |
Your phone is being seized as part of this operation. Mm-hm. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
As will your laptop be. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
The suspect is arrested and led away. | 0:03:46 | 0:03:49 | |
He'll be taken to the police station for further questioning. | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
As well as searching his house, officers take a look | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
in the suspect's car, and a first glance proves interesting. | 0:03:59 | 0:04:03 | |
Wally's pleased with what they've discovered. | 0:04:03 | 0:04:05 | |
We've found six large boxes of what appear to be fake batteries | 0:04:05 | 0:04:09 | |
of the type we're searching for. | 0:04:09 | 0:04:11 | |
There's also crucial evidence that could link the suspects | 0:04:11 | 0:04:14 | |
to the crime. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
Computers, documents, laptops, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:18 | |
mobiles used by the offenders. | 0:04:18 | 0:04:20 | |
With the evidence secured, it's time for Wally to take a closer look. | 0:04:22 | 0:04:26 | |
He's noticed something strange about the seemingly innocent | 0:04:26 | 0:04:29 | |
generic boxes claiming to contain battery chargers. | 0:04:29 | 0:04:32 | |
The packages are unbranded. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:35 | |
They say "Digital Camera Chargers", | 0:04:35 | 0:04:37 | |
which we think is an attempt to evade examination, say, by customs. | 0:04:37 | 0:04:42 | |
It contains fake batteries. | 0:04:42 | 0:04:43 | |
They've appeared to put one case inside another | 0:04:43 | 0:04:46 | |
in an attempt to disguise what's, in fact, inside them. | 0:04:46 | 0:04:50 | |
It's the fakers' version of pass the parcel. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
Fake branded batteries hidden inside generic packaging. | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
And there are thousands of pounds' worth of them. | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
Just to give you an idea of the scale, leafing through, you can see | 0:05:00 | 0:05:04 | |
that there's loads and loads of individual fake batteries | 0:05:04 | 0:05:08 | |
within each of these double packs. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
The retail price of these batteries is about ?60 each, | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
there's two in each. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:14 | |
There are thousands of batteries here, | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
so substantial monetary value to it all. | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
The batteries are convincing counterfeits, | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
even down to the fake hologram. | 0:05:21 | 0:05:23 | |
But in a situation like this, | 0:05:23 | 0:05:25 | |
how can anyone tell the fake from the real thing? | 0:05:25 | 0:05:28 | |
Fortunately, Wally's got some help from a gadget | 0:05:28 | 0:05:31 | |
that Cannon calls the handy viewer. | 0:05:31 | 0:05:33 | |
If you look at the hologram under the handy viewer, you can see | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
that it shows gold on both sides, | 0:05:36 | 0:05:38 | |
indicating that it's a fake one. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
On a genuine one, it shows black on one side | 0:05:41 | 0:05:44 | |
and then gold on the other one. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
And that indicates that that is a genuine item. | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
But Canon isn't the only major electronics company | 0:05:49 | 0:05:52 | |
to have their lithium batteries targeted, and Trading Standards | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
are concerned the fakers are also cutting corners on safety. | 0:05:55 | 0:05:58 | |
We have here what appears to be a fake Olympus lithium battery, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:02 | |
so the same safety considerations apply, really. | 0:06:02 | 0:06:06 | |
So we've got some Sony CyberShot batteries. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:09 | |
They are fake. They may not be safe. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:13 | |
Shockingly, it's not just potentially unsafe batteries | 0:06:13 | 0:06:16 | |
in this haul. | 0:06:16 | 0:06:18 | |
This is something else we've found. There are Olympus battery chargers. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:22 | |
Similar ones to these have been independently tested | 0:06:22 | 0:06:25 | |
and found to be dangerous. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:27 | |
So they're really not worth buying. | 0:06:27 | 0:06:29 | |
It's a good day's work for the team. | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
Today they've protected unwitting British consumers | 0:06:31 | 0:06:34 | |
from buying over 2,000 fake lithium batteries from online shops. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:38 | |
Despite the crackdown, | 0:06:41 | 0:06:43 | |
fake lithium batteries of all kinds are slipping through the net. | 0:06:43 | 0:06:46 | |
They're being sold on the web and they're duping customers. | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
Roy Wilson from Cheshire has been a keen amateur photographer | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
for several years. | 0:06:56 | 0:06:59 | |
He takes his passion seriously, | 0:06:59 | 0:07:01 | |
and he's invested in all the latest camera equipment. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:04 | |
When he realised that he needed a spare battery for his kit, | 0:07:06 | 0:07:09 | |
he turned to the internet to find a good deal. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:12 | |
It was ?50, | 0:07:12 | 0:07:15 | |
which is ?15 to ?20 cheaper | 0:07:15 | 0:07:18 | |
than if I went to the high street. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:21 | |
But this is not unusual. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:23 | |
You normally find, if you go online, you do get it cheaper. | 0:07:23 | 0:07:26 | |
If it had been ?10 for a Canon battery, well, I'd be a fool. | 0:07:26 | 0:07:30 | |
I would know you can't get a genuine battery for ?10. | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
But ?50, to me, was a reasonable and a fair price. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:38 | |
The battery was reassuringly expensive, | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
so Roy went ahead and ordered it. | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
When the delivery came, something wasn't quite right. | 0:07:46 | 0:07:50 | |
We showed Roy a fake Canon lithium camera battery, | 0:07:50 | 0:07:53 | |
given to us by Trading Standards, | 0:07:53 | 0:07:54 | |
that was identical to the one he bought, | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
even down to the packaging. | 0:07:57 | 0:07:59 | |
Now, the first thing is, I don't need a pair of scissors | 0:08:01 | 0:08:04 | |
because it's just really cheap packaging. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:08 | |
The hologram, when you look at it, this is cheap. | 0:08:08 | 0:08:11 | |
It's not even proper hologram. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:13 | |
Everything feels cheap and nasty. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
So, take the battery out. | 0:08:18 | 0:08:20 | |
And it just feels wrong. | 0:08:23 | 0:08:26 | |
Roy had heard stories about people unwittingly buying fake batteries | 0:08:26 | 0:08:30 | |
from online stores. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:32 | |
He immediately contacted the website where he'd bought the battery. | 0:08:32 | 0:08:36 | |
Not long after, he received a phone call. | 0:08:37 | 0:08:40 | |
Trading Standards tell me, "Could we come and get a statement from you?" | 0:08:40 | 0:08:44 | |
And now I'm thinking, although I can't officially know, I think | 0:08:44 | 0:08:48 | |
that's giving me the red light that, yes, it was a counterfeit battery. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:52 | |
I was annoyed, I was furious. I felt ripped off. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:56 | |
Because I'd spent ?50. | 0:08:56 | 0:08:58 | |
As I said, if I'd have spent ?5, ?10, that's my own stupid fault. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:02 | |
I paid good money. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
But it wasn't just being ripped off that worried Roy. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:10 | |
He'd done some research into fake lithium batteries, | 0:09:10 | 0:09:13 | |
and had discovered they can wreak havoc with your kit. | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
Not only are they ripping you off with money, | 0:09:16 | 0:09:19 | |
they can melt your equipment. They can cause serious damage. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:23 | |
Later, we find out how dangerous fake lithium batteries can be. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:29 | |
Someone could unknowingly buy a fake product, bring it | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
into their home and be using it, and this sort of reaction could happen. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:35 | |
Dior, Mac - two of the top brands of cosmetics out there. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:45 | |
So you might expect these gift sets to be expensive. | 0:09:45 | 0:09:49 | |
Take a look at the price tag, ?600. | 0:09:49 | 0:09:52 | |
But if you paid anything like that for these, | 0:09:52 | 0:09:55 | |
you'd waste your money, cos they're all fake. | 0:09:55 | 0:09:57 | |
The criminals are now upping their game | 0:09:57 | 0:09:59 | |
by moving into this high-end gift set market. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:03 | |
But they're not only a cosmetic con. | 0:10:03 | 0:10:06 | |
These fakes could also be dangerous. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
Here on Fake Britain, we have seen how private investigators | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
have been cracking down on fake cosmetics. | 0:10:14 | 0:10:17 | |
And how innocent online shopper Laura Barry was injured | 0:10:18 | 0:10:21 | |
by the fake foundation she unwittingly put on her skin. | 0:10:21 | 0:10:26 | |
It was really sore, my eyes were watering, my skin went all blotchy | 0:10:26 | 0:10:30 | |
and red and it was going all over my cheeks, down my jaw line here. | 0:10:30 | 0:10:34 | |
But the problem of fake cosmetics hasn't gone away. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:41 | |
Today Mark Rolfe from Kent Trading Standards | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
is making his way to a secret lock-up somewhere in the UK. | 0:10:44 | 0:10:47 | |
We just had a phone call from our colleagues in the UK Border Force | 0:10:47 | 0:10:52 | |
who tell us they've detained a shipment of what they believe to be | 0:10:52 | 0:10:56 | |
counterfeit cosmetics, so make-up and lipstick and that kind of stuff. | 0:10:56 | 0:11:00 | |
From what they tell us, this sounds like a fairly significant shipment. | 0:11:01 | 0:11:06 | |
There's a good reason why Mark wants to examine the fake merchandise. | 0:11:06 | 0:11:10 | |
Counterfeit cosmetics are one of those things | 0:11:10 | 0:11:13 | |
that in all the fake stuff that we deal with, | 0:11:13 | 0:11:15 | |
causes us the greatest concern. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
The reason is, you're putting it on your skin | 0:11:17 | 0:11:19 | |
and we have no idea what's in any of these products. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
But this is no lock-up. This is a warehouse. | 0:11:24 | 0:11:28 | |
Mark can't quite believe the sheer scale of what's in front of him. | 0:11:28 | 0:11:32 | |
I've been doing this job just over 30 years and I've never seen | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
this amount of fake cosmetics in the same place at the same time. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:43 | |
This is a really significant haul. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
There's a huge amount. | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
Each one of these is going to contain | 0:11:51 | 0:11:53 | |
probably 100 or 150 items in each of these boxes. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:57 | |
So there's a massive amount of stock here. | 0:11:57 | 0:12:00 | |
After doing a bit of quick maths, | 0:12:00 | 0:12:02 | |
Mark's come up with some staggering figures for the fake cosmetics, | 0:12:02 | 0:12:05 | |
thought to be crammed into these boxes. | 0:12:05 | 0:12:08 | |
Just a quick tot up of what we've got here would suggest | 0:12:08 | 0:12:11 | |
a value of between ?10 million and ?12 million. | 0:12:11 | 0:12:14 | |
I am actually generally wanting to get my way into some of these | 0:12:15 | 0:12:19 | |
to see what's here. You never lose the thrill. | 0:12:19 | 0:12:22 | |
It's time for Mark to take a closer look at exactly what's inside. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:28 | |
That's a Christian Dior. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:30 | |
The first thing is, this outer wrapper is really poor quality. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:37 | |
These are premium brands | 0:12:37 | 0:12:39 | |
so anything to do with this brand would be a good quality. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:42 | |
The wrapper would be good quality, the bag would be good quality, | 0:12:42 | 0:12:46 | |
and it isn't. | 0:12:46 | 0:12:47 | |
But what made me smile is that this has a price on it of ?600... | 0:12:47 | 0:12:52 | |
..which is just unbelievable, really. | 0:12:53 | 0:12:56 | |
Mark's spotted more tell-tale signs | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
that these high-end cosmetics are in fact fake. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
This is another set, supposedly with a retail value of ?450. | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
But it appears to have a spelling mistake on the box. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
A classic example of a counterfeit product. | 0:13:09 | 0:13:12 | |
They've misspelled the word curls. | 0:13:12 | 0:13:14 | |
Instead of 'curl', it's written 'cun'. | 0:13:14 | 0:13:16 | |
Border Force officer Andy Whybrow led the team | 0:13:18 | 0:13:22 | |
that intercepted this huge shipment. | 0:13:22 | 0:13:24 | |
It was his keen eyed officers who realised | 0:13:24 | 0:13:27 | |
that this make-up wasn't quite right. | 0:13:27 | 0:13:29 | |
Some of the mascaras | 0:13:29 | 0:13:31 | |
and eyeshadows inside the boxes had spelling mistakes, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:35 | |
small mistakes like, 'Made in Farance' | 0:13:35 | 0:13:37 | |
rather than 'Made in France'. | 0:13:37 | 0:13:39 | |
'Made in Camada' rather than Canada. | 0:13:39 | 0:13:41 | |
We didn't expect that, | 0:13:41 | 0:13:43 | |
a spelling mistake to be on a high quality product. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:46 | |
With more digging, Mark uncovers four high end cosmetics brands - | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
Mac, Chanel, Christian Dior and Bobbi Brown. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:55 | |
It's the first time Fake Britain has seen this volume | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
of fake make-up under one roof. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:00 | |
And the first time we've seen fakers turning their hands | 0:14:00 | 0:14:03 | |
to high end gift sets, | 0:14:03 | 0:14:05 | |
each of which contains an array of fake cosmetics. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
But it's what could be inside them that worries both Mark and Andy. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
What we've got here is a powder blusher mixture with its mirror. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:17 | |
What worries us about this is, | 0:14:17 | 0:14:19 | |
this is designed to be applied straight to the skin. | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
The people who make these fake products | 0:14:22 | 0:14:24 | |
really don't care what they put in them, | 0:14:24 | 0:14:26 | |
so we've no idea if this is going to cause a skin reaction, blistering. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:29 | |
It can have a really nasty effect on people | 0:14:29 | 0:14:31 | |
if it's got dangerous chemicals in it. | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
You've got the various colours of eyeshadows there | 0:14:34 | 0:14:36 | |
on what is reported to be a Mac eyeshadow kit. | 0:14:36 | 0:14:40 | |
I've just scratched the surface of the silver one here. | 0:14:40 | 0:14:43 | |
It's a black underneath. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:45 | |
I scratch the gold, and a green underneath. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:49 | |
Utterly useless, but there are two items in these fake gift sets | 0:14:49 | 0:14:53 | |
that are giving Mark particular cause for concern. | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
First up, the fake mascara. | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
Some fake mascara products contain paint stripper. I have no idea why. | 0:14:59 | 0:15:05 | |
It's a product clearly that shouldn't be in a gift set of this kind, | 0:15:05 | 0:15:08 | |
a cosmetic that you will put on your skin | 0:15:08 | 0:15:10 | |
and around your eyes in particular. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:12 | |
These products, there is no quality control. | 0:15:13 | 0:15:15 | |
They're just put together cheaply and quickly, | 0:15:15 | 0:15:17 | |
using whatever chemicals come to hand and who knows what danger | 0:15:17 | 0:15:21 | |
they pose to people who would apply them to their skin. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:24 | |
Next under the spotlight is a red lipstick that Mark's uncovered. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
More sham than glam, | 0:15:27 | 0:15:29 | |
it could leave you with red lips for all the wrong reasons. | 0:15:29 | 0:15:33 | |
Fake lipsticks, particularly red lipsticks, | 0:15:33 | 0:15:35 | |
to manufacture them as cheaply | 0:15:35 | 0:15:37 | |
as these people need to make the fake products, | 0:15:37 | 0:15:39 | |
they use chemicals to make the red colour which are not safe | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
and shouldn't be applied to your skin and shouldn't be around your mouth. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
Obviously the people who make the real thing are very careful | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
to make sure what they do is safe but the people who make these fakes | 0:15:48 | 0:15:51 | |
really don't care what impact they have on the users. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:54 | |
Shockingly, when it comes to using fake cosmetics like these, | 0:15:54 | 0:15:58 | |
you might consider yourself lucky to come away with just a rash. | 0:15:58 | 0:16:03 | |
This kind of fakery is one of the most dangerous types | 0:16:03 | 0:16:06 | |
that we come across. | 0:16:06 | 0:16:07 | |
Some of these products we know from experience contain chemicals | 0:16:07 | 0:16:10 | |
which are known to be carcinogenics. | 0:16:10 | 0:16:12 | |
If you're using these fake products over a period of time, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
the very worst case scenario is that they could cause cancer. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
Organised crime gangs have shifted up a gear | 0:16:19 | 0:16:22 | |
by faking these high-end gift sets but on this occasion, | 0:16:22 | 0:16:25 | |
it's the fakers and not us who are going to lose out. | 0:16:25 | 0:16:28 | |
The fakers behind it have lost out to the tune of millions of pounds | 0:16:28 | 0:16:33 | |
because of the alertness of our colleagues in the Border Force | 0:16:33 | 0:16:36 | |
and the actions of our Trading Standards Officers working with them. | 0:16:36 | 0:16:40 | |
The investigation continues into just where | 0:16:40 | 0:16:42 | |
this huge haul of fake cosmetics was destined. | 0:16:42 | 0:16:45 | |
Eventually, it will all be destroyed | 0:16:47 | 0:16:49 | |
so it can never reach the homes of any unsuspecting customers. | 0:16:49 | 0:16:52 | |
You get a phone call from the police or from your bank | 0:17:01 | 0:17:04 | |
saying they think you've been targeted by a fraudster. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:08 | |
You can bet you'll be taking that call very seriously. I would. | 0:17:08 | 0:17:11 | |
You'll probably try to cooperate and do whatever you can | 0:17:11 | 0:17:14 | |
to sort it out, to stop criminals getting their hands on your cash. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:18 | |
But as many people have discovered, that worrying call is actually | 0:17:18 | 0:17:22 | |
coming from fake police officers or fake bank staff. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:25 | |
It's become known as the courier fraud and right across the country, | 0:17:25 | 0:17:29 | |
criminals are getting away with millions of pounds of our money. | 0:17:29 | 0:17:33 | |
So, do you really know who you're on the phone to? | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
Peter Buckthorpe from Crawley in West Sussex was at home one day | 0:17:38 | 0:17:42 | |
when he received a phone call out of the blue. | 0:17:42 | 0:17:44 | |
A gentleman said that he was a police officer | 0:17:46 | 0:17:50 | |
from the Hammersmith Division and that they'd arrested two people. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:56 | |
They had found a book. | 0:17:56 | 0:17:58 | |
My name appeared and my address. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
They said they were concerned, they were following it up, | 0:18:00 | 0:18:04 | |
and they wanted to know initially, | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
did I still have my credit cards with me. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
The police officer told Peter that he was at risk of credit card fraud. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
He gave him a crime reference number and said he would transfer him | 0:18:13 | 0:18:16 | |
to the bank's fraud department. | 0:18:16 | 0:18:18 | |
I was connected through after a delay | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
to what was thought to be | 0:18:21 | 0:18:25 | |
the NatWest fraud squad. | 0:18:25 | 0:18:27 | |
So they took the number of my credit card | 0:18:27 | 0:18:31 | |
and my PIN number through a telephone keypad. | 0:18:31 | 0:18:34 | |
They then thanked me very much | 0:18:34 | 0:18:36 | |
and said my cards were now cancelled at that point in time. | 0:18:36 | 0:18:39 | |
Believing that he was now protected against fraud, | 0:18:39 | 0:18:43 | |
Peter was told there would be an investigation. | 0:18:43 | 0:18:46 | |
So he was put through to another police officer at | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
his local police station in Crawley. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:52 | |
He then said if at any time I wanted to get back to him or if | 0:18:52 | 0:18:58 | |
the line fell dead or something, | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
I could always call the national police line, 101, | 0:19:01 | 0:19:06 | |
and I would then get through to Sussex police | 0:19:06 | 0:19:10 | |
and I would be connected through to him. | 0:19:10 | 0:19:14 | |
Strangely enough, they did get cut off. | 0:19:15 | 0:19:18 | |
So, as instructed, Peter dialled the police nonemergency number, 101, | 0:19:18 | 0:19:22 | |
and spoke to someone who sounded like a Sussex police operator. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
She put him through to the officer he'd just been speaking to. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
I said to him that we'd obviously been cut off | 0:19:29 | 0:19:32 | |
and I got back to him as he'd suggested. | 0:19:32 | 0:19:35 | |
But they hadn't been cut off. | 0:19:37 | 0:19:39 | |
The man on the phone had only pretended to get disconnected. | 0:19:39 | 0:19:42 | |
In fact, he'd kept the line open while Peter dialled 101. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:46 | |
He said they felt that they had enough information now | 0:19:46 | 0:19:51 | |
to ask for a remand in court the following day. | 0:19:51 | 0:19:55 | |
But as part of the evidence, | 0:19:57 | 0:20:01 | |
they would very much like my credit cards to present at court. | 0:20:01 | 0:20:05 | |
Peter had no qualms about handing them over to the police. | 0:20:07 | 0:20:11 | |
The police officer helpfully arranged for a courier | 0:20:11 | 0:20:14 | |
to collect the cards. | 0:20:14 | 0:20:15 | |
The taxi duly arrived | 0:20:15 | 0:20:17 | |
and the envelope was given to the taxi driver and he went off. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:21 | |
But the friendly police officer on the other end of the phone | 0:20:21 | 0:20:25 | |
was about to make a very strange request. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:28 | |
I was suggested going down to the bank around try and draw ?2,000. | 0:20:28 | 0:20:33 | |
And that was the time that triggered suspicion in my mind. | 0:20:35 | 0:20:39 | |
The penny - well, it was rather more than a penny - finally dropped. | 0:20:41 | 0:20:45 | |
Suddenly the pieces started to fall into place. | 0:20:45 | 0:20:48 | |
The questions that I'd been asked, the people I'd spoken to | 0:20:51 | 0:20:55 | |
and the sequence all had great credibility, | 0:20:55 | 0:21:00 | |
but all of it leading up to an illogical question. | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
Go and withdraw ?2,000 from your bank account?! | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
Courier fraudsters sometimes ask their targets to withdraw cash | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
for safekeeping as they claim their bank accounts have been compromised. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:15 | |
Peter suspected that he was in the process of being conned. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:19 | |
He asked the man on the landline to hold while secretly | 0:21:19 | 0:21:22 | |
calling the police on his mobile. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:24 | |
I explained that I suddenly had a suspicion | 0:21:25 | 0:21:29 | |
that I was in the middle of a scam... | 0:21:29 | 0:21:32 | |
..and the person I was speaking to said, | 0:21:34 | 0:21:37 | |
"I think you're absolutely right. | 0:21:37 | 0:21:40 | |
"Don't go any further with the call, put your phone down." | 0:21:40 | 0:21:44 | |
But of course, what was going through one's mind was that at that point | 0:21:44 | 0:21:47 | |
of time, my current account, my credit cards were totally vulnerable. | 0:21:47 | 0:21:52 | |
Peter tried to stop the taxi before it dropped his cards off | 0:21:52 | 0:21:56 | |
with the fake officials he'd been speaking to, but it was too late. | 0:21:56 | 0:22:00 | |
The drop had been made. | 0:22:00 | 0:22:02 | |
A fake police officer, a fake bank official... | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
..another fake police officer had collectively taken, | 0:22:08 | 0:22:13 | |
at that stage, | 0:22:13 | 0:22:16 | |
?1,100 out of my bank account. | 0:22:16 | 0:22:20 | |
Peter gradually realised how an intricate web of fakery had led him | 0:22:20 | 0:22:24 | |
to hand over his money to a courier | 0:22:24 | 0:22:27 | |
who was controlled by the fraudsters. | 0:22:27 | 0:22:30 | |
It is a very elaborate scam. It's clearly very well thought-out. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:36 | |
I had a mental picture at the end of it of a whole group of people | 0:22:36 | 0:22:42 | |
sitting around a table in a room. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:44 | |
They were quite clearly different people who each were playing | 0:22:46 | 0:22:50 | |
their part in the scam, a female as well as male. | 0:22:50 | 0:22:54 | |
There was quite a group of them playing their part as if it | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
was scripted play and, quite frankly, an Oscar-winning performance. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:02 | |
Peter Buckthorpe is considered to be one of the luckier victims | 0:23:06 | 0:23:09 | |
of courier fraud - he finally got his money back from the bank. | 0:23:09 | 0:23:13 | |
But as we found out, other targets haven't fared so well. | 0:23:14 | 0:23:19 | |
Detective Inspector Danny Lawrence leads a task force that deals | 0:23:19 | 0:23:22 | |
with courier fraud involving fake police officers | 0:23:22 | 0:23:26 | |
and fake bank staff and the people who are left in their wake. | 0:23:26 | 0:23:30 | |
One handed over ?30,000 in cash having visited the bank | 0:23:30 | 0:23:34 | |
on a number of occasions to retrieve that amount of cash. | 0:23:34 | 0:23:37 | |
When it's not about cash and cards, it's about valuables. | 0:23:37 | 0:23:41 | |
One 89-year-old victim in London lost a ?100,000 painting | 0:23:41 | 0:23:44 | |
handed over for safekeeping. | 0:23:44 | 0:23:46 | |
One of the people that DI Lawrence's team came into contact with | 0:23:48 | 0:23:51 | |
had been so convinced by the fake police officers | 0:23:51 | 0:23:55 | |
that at first the real police were unable to help her. | 0:23:55 | 0:23:58 | |
These fake police officers managed to take | 0:23:58 | 0:24:01 | |
over ?22,000 out of that individual's four bank accounts. | 0:24:01 | 0:24:04 | |
We called the victim | 0:24:04 | 0:24:06 | |
and it took us half an hour to convince her that we were | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
the real police and that she'd been assisting fake police for a month. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:14 | |
Coming up, we follow DI Lawrence and his team | 0:24:16 | 0:24:18 | |
in a major crackdown on the courier fraudsters. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
Police! | 0:24:22 | 0:24:24 | |
Earlier, we followed Wally and his team as they seized a huge haul | 0:24:31 | 0:24:35 | |
of fake lithium camera batteries... | 0:24:35 | 0:24:37 | |
There are thousands of batteries here, | 0:24:37 | 0:24:39 | |
so there's a substantial monetary value to it all. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:42 | |
..and we saw how Roy Wilson lost out to the camera battery fakers. | 0:24:42 | 0:24:46 | |
I was annoyed, I was furious and I felt ripped off. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:50 | |
Fake Britain decided to investigate how easy it is to buy | 0:24:51 | 0:24:54 | |
a fake lithium battery for a phone or laptop computer. | 0:24:54 | 0:24:58 | |
Acting on a tipoff from an insider, | 0:24:59 | 0:25:01 | |
our researcher bought Samsung phone batteries from several phone shops | 0:25:01 | 0:25:05 | |
across London and from several online sellers. | 0:25:05 | 0:25:09 | |
Samsung later confirmed that the batteries were counterfeit. | 0:25:09 | 0:25:14 | |
We also ordered what our source told us was a fake laptop battery. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:19 | |
Armed with counterfeit batteries, we went to world-renowned test house | 0:25:19 | 0:25:22 | |
BRE Global to find out more about the dangers of fakes. | 0:25:22 | 0:25:27 | |
Fire investigator Ciara Holland agreed to show us what happens | 0:25:27 | 0:25:31 | |
when a fake develops a fault. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
We began by giving her the fake Canon camera battery. | 0:25:34 | 0:25:38 | |
We are going to place this onto a hot plate | 0:25:38 | 0:25:40 | |
and we're going to force it to overheat. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:42 | |
Ciara is simulating a fault in this fake camera battery. | 0:25:44 | 0:25:48 | |
All lithium batteries become highly unstable | 0:25:48 | 0:25:51 | |
when they heat up during a malfunction, | 0:25:51 | 0:25:53 | |
but fakes are far more likely to short-circuit than the real deal. | 0:25:53 | 0:25:58 | |
Fake lithium batteries have issues with quality control | 0:25:58 | 0:26:02 | |
and with the safety features that were put into them. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:05 | |
Ciara will force the fake into a state known as thermal runaway. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:10 | |
It's when the temperature inside a lithium battery rises | 0:26:10 | 0:26:13 | |
to a critical point and as it hits that critical point, | 0:26:13 | 0:26:17 | |
the battery starts to smoke. | 0:26:17 | 0:26:19 | |
So why would a fake battery explode like this? | 0:26:31 | 0:26:35 | |
It is more likely to happen with the fake battery due to | 0:26:35 | 0:26:38 | |
the fact of the poor quality control, | 0:26:38 | 0:26:42 | |
the lack of safety features that are within these devices. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:46 | |
Next up, it's the counterfeit Samsung phone battery | 0:26:46 | 0:26:49 | |
bought by fake Britain. | 0:26:49 | 0:26:51 | |
Less than two and a half minutes later, it fails dramatically. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:58 | |
Here we go. | 0:26:58 | 0:26:59 | |
We have obviously forced this reaction today, | 0:27:03 | 0:27:06 | |
but it is similar to the reaction that can occur when these | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
fake batteries are within devices, either being charged or being in use. | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
Last but not least, it's time to test the fake laptop battery | 0:27:17 | 0:27:21 | |
that we ordered from the internet. | 0:27:21 | 0:27:23 | |
The internal failure causes a massive explosion. | 0:27:34 | 0:27:37 | |
The shocking results have left Ciara concerned about the effects | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
of this happening in somebody's home. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:47 | |
Whilst the fake batteries have been forced into a state of failure, | 0:27:47 | 0:27:51 | |
they can heat up and explode without outside intervention. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:54 | |
Someone could unknowingly buy a fake product, | 0:27:56 | 0:27:59 | |
bring it into their home and be using it | 0:27:59 | 0:28:01 | |
and this sort of reaction could happen, | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
creating what could be quite a serious fire. | 0:28:04 | 0:28:06 | |
So fake lithium batteries could be dangerous in our homes. | 0:28:08 | 0:28:12 | |
What could happen when they're in the air? | 0:28:12 | 0:28:15 | |
Geoff Leach knows a thing or two about dangerous goods | 0:28:16 | 0:28:19 | |
being carried in aeroplanes - | 0:28:19 | 0:28:21 | |
he headed up the Dangerous Goods Office | 0:28:21 | 0:28:23 | |
at the Civil Aviation Authority for over a decade. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
Lithium ion batteries are now | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
so widespread it would be quite common for an passenger | 0:28:28 | 0:28:31 | |
on an aircraft perhaps to be carrying maybe ten batteries, | 0:28:31 | 0:28:35 | |
if you like, in the laptop, the mobile phone, the e-reader, | 0:28:35 | 0:28:39 | |
a light for an e-reader and so on and so forth. | 0:28:39 | 0:28:43 | |
They really are everywhere. | 0:28:43 | 0:28:45 | |
We showed Geoff the results of our tests on fake lithium batteries. | 0:28:46 | 0:28:50 | |
Yeah, it's just... | 0:28:52 | 0:28:53 | |
..horrendous. | 0:28:54 | 0:28:56 | |
The thought of that occurring on an aircraft | 0:28:56 | 0:28:58 | |
with maybe 400 passengers is horrific. | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
A fake lithium battery blowing up on or near an aircraft | 0:29:01 | 0:29:05 | |
isn't just a theoretical scare story. | 0:29:05 | 0:29:08 | |
This laptop battery here was carried on a passenger aircraft | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
from Hong Kong to London Heathrow Airport. | 0:29:11 | 0:29:14 | |
Shortly after landing at Heathrow, the packaging in which it was | 0:29:14 | 0:29:17 | |
contained was in the mail sort facility and it caught fire. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:20 | |
There were four-foot-high flames in the facility. | 0:29:20 | 0:29:25 | |
The fire was extinguished very quickly to avoid | 0:29:25 | 0:29:28 | |
what could have been a potentially disastrous fire. | 0:29:28 | 0:29:32 | |
The people who came into contact with this fake lithium battery | 0:29:32 | 0:29:35 | |
had a lucky escape. | 0:29:35 | 0:29:37 | |
A few hours before, this battery was in the hold of | 0:29:37 | 0:29:40 | |
the passenger aircraft with maybe 350, 400 passengers on board. | 0:29:40 | 0:29:45 | |
This obviously happened with a fake battery. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:47 | |
There's next to no chance of this happening with a battery | 0:29:47 | 0:29:50 | |
from a genuine source. | 0:29:50 | 0:29:52 | |
And it isn't the only occurrence. | 0:29:54 | 0:29:57 | |
Geoff showed us a frightening video of a laptop computer. | 0:29:57 | 0:30:01 | |
Clearly something has gone wrong with the battery, | 0:30:01 | 0:30:04 | |
which is out of the laptop. | 0:30:04 | 0:30:06 | |
You'll see somebody move the laptop away from the battery | 0:30:06 | 0:30:10 | |
and then it rather... Some rather dramatic effects. | 0:30:10 | 0:30:13 | |
This lithium battery was about to be taken onto an aeroplane. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
It may or may not have been a fake battery, | 0:30:17 | 0:30:19 | |
but what it does do is illustrate the power that is contained | 0:30:19 | 0:30:22 | |
within lithium batteries and the problems that can occur | 0:30:22 | 0:30:25 | |
if they are not treated appropriately and this | 0:30:25 | 0:30:28 | |
kind of incident is far more likely to occur from a fake battery. | 0:30:28 | 0:30:32 | |
The fake batteries have the potential to cause a very | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
serious fire as we've seen from these videos | 0:30:37 | 0:30:40 | |
and really, really should be avoided. | 0:30:40 | 0:30:42 | |
Earlier, we saw how Peter Buckthorpe from West Sussex | 0:30:50 | 0:30:53 | |
became a target of courier fraudsters, | 0:30:53 | 0:30:55 | |
losing over ?1,000 to fake police officers and fake bank staff. | 0:30:55 | 0:31:00 | |
What was going through one's mind was my current account, | 0:31:00 | 0:31:04 | |
my credit cards were totally vulnerable. | 0:31:04 | 0:31:07 | |
The police are taking courier fraud extremely seriously. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:11 | |
It's daybreak in North London. | 0:31:11 | 0:31:13 | |
A major police operation is under way to arrest a gang | 0:31:13 | 0:31:16 | |
of suspected courier fraudsters. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
Detective Inspector Danny Lawrence aims to prevent any more | 0:31:19 | 0:31:22 | |
innocent members of the public from being conned | 0:31:22 | 0:31:25 | |
out of thousands of pounds. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:27 | |
These are effectively fake police officers phoning innocent victims | 0:31:27 | 0:31:32 | |
and gaining their trust and getting them to hand over their cash | 0:31:32 | 0:31:36 | |
and their cards and their valuables. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
The courier fraudsters have been convincing people to hand over | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
credit cards and PIN numbers. | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
Posing as police officers and bank staff, | 0:31:47 | 0:31:49 | |
the fakers are making a killing. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:51 | |
This runs into millions of pounds. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:54 | |
It is organised crime on a significant scale. | 0:31:54 | 0:31:56 | |
There's a number of teams we've dismantled and disrupted already | 0:31:56 | 0:32:00 | |
and a number of teams that we'll continue to target. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:02 | |
Today, over 80 officers will be targeting multiple addresses | 0:32:04 | 0:32:07 | |
across the country. | 0:32:07 | 0:32:09 | |
The unit arriving at this address will need to secure | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
the area as quickly as possible. | 0:32:14 | 0:32:16 | |
The officers are trying to take the suspects by surprise. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:22 | |
Police! | 0:32:23 | 0:32:25 | |
SHOUTING | 0:32:25 | 0:32:27 | |
Stay where you are! Move, move! Police, hands where I can see them. | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
Anyone else upstairs? | 0:32:36 | 0:32:38 | |
Get off! Get off! | 0:32:38 | 0:32:40 | |
It's all right, it's all right. | 0:32:40 | 0:32:42 | |
Is anyone else in the room? | 0:32:42 | 0:32:44 | |
It looks like it's been a wake-up call for this suspect. | 0:32:46 | 0:32:49 | |
We've got a warrant to search the address, OK? | 0:32:49 | 0:32:52 | |
I'm just going to take some details first | 0:32:52 | 0:32:54 | |
and then we'll explain what's going on, OK? | 0:32:54 | 0:32:56 | |
As the search gets under way at this address, | 0:32:56 | 0:32:59 | |
another team of police officers is at a second premises nearby. | 0:32:59 | 0:33:03 | |
Comparatively, they're taking it softly-softly. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:07 | |
I'm outside the door. | 0:33:07 | 0:33:08 | |
Quickly, otherwise it's going in. | 0:33:08 | 0:33:10 | |
But whoever is inside doesn't seem to be in a hurry. | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
You ain't got very long to show your face, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
otherwise it's going to get put in. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:17 | |
Quick as you can. That's it, just open the door, then. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:20 | |
Morning, police. We've got a warrant. Hello, fellow. Hello. | 0:33:22 | 0:33:26 | |
We've got a search warrant at this address and in a minute, | 0:33:26 | 0:33:29 | |
one of the officers is going to tell you something you might not like. | 0:33:29 | 0:33:33 | |
One of the suspected courier fraudsters is handcuffed | 0:33:33 | 0:33:36 | |
and read his rights. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:37 | |
You're under arrest for conspiracy to commit fraud. | 0:33:37 | 0:33:40 | |
You don't have to say anything, but it might harm your defence | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
if you don't listen when questioned | 0:33:43 | 0:33:44 | |
something you later rely on in court. | 0:33:44 | 0:33:46 | |
Two of the suspects are arrested | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
and taken into police custody for further questioning. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:52 | |
For DI Lawrence, this operation is already looking like a success. | 0:33:52 | 0:33:56 | |
The individuals that we arrested we are hoping have been involved | 0:33:56 | 0:34:00 | |
in this courier fraud as fake police officers or fake bank employees. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:04 | |
We suspect that they are the people that make the calls. | 0:34:04 | 0:34:07 | |
They are also part of the team that go and collect the cards | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
and they are part of the team that goes and reap the rewards, | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
the financial rewards from this fraud. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
With the suspects detained, it's time for the officers | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
to begin a search for evidence that could link the men to courier fraud. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:24 | |
Anything they find is bagged, tagged and taken away for analysis, | 0:34:24 | 0:34:28 | |
including this computer, which could contain vital information. | 0:34:28 | 0:34:32 | |
The officers also find a mobile phone | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
which one of the forensics team examines for fingerprints. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:41 | |
The fake police officers could have used this phone to make calls | 0:34:41 | 0:34:44 | |
that have cost people thousands of pounds. | 0:34:44 | 0:34:47 | |
In one of the rooms they found this safe. | 0:34:49 | 0:34:51 | |
Without the pass code, there's only one way to find out what's inside. | 0:34:51 | 0:34:55 | |
This looks interesting. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:02 | |
If you've got card details, | 0:35:02 | 0:35:04 | |
enough to clone a new card with these cloning devices here, | 0:35:04 | 0:35:08 | |
this machine, you need to keep it clean, | 0:35:08 | 0:35:12 | |
and that's a very specific item for cleaning swipe machines. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:15 | |
This could be evidence that the suspects are faking cards. | 0:35:18 | 0:35:22 | |
Well, I think it's interesting... why the average person would need | 0:35:22 | 0:35:26 | |
to clear the head on any card reader. | 0:35:26 | 0:35:28 | |
It will certainly be something we'd discuss in interview. | 0:35:28 | 0:35:31 | |
The four suspected courier fraudsters arrested here | 0:35:33 | 0:35:36 | |
all later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud | 0:35:36 | 0:35:39 | |
by false representation. | 0:35:39 | 0:35:41 | |
The investigation is ongoing, but it's just one of many in a fraud | 0:35:41 | 0:35:46 | |
that has spread right across the country. | 0:35:46 | 0:35:48 | |
Courier fraud has become an epidemic. | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
People are losing tens of thousands of pounds. | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
Hundreds of thousands of pounds of valuables are being handed over | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
to these fake police officers and fake couriers for what | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
they perceive to be safe keeping or assisting in an investigation. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
This is a national issue. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:07 | |
On the raid that Fake Britain accompanied us on, | 0:36:07 | 0:36:09 | |
we can attribute that organised crime group to committing offences | 0:36:09 | 0:36:13 | |
in as far afield north as Grimsby, | 0:36:13 | 0:36:15 | |
south as the south coast towns, Hastings, | 0:36:15 | 0:36:18 | |
to Lowestoft on the east coast | 0:36:18 | 0:36:20 | |
and to Gloucester in the west of the country and everything in between. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:24 | |
The police have already chalked up some big wins | 0:36:24 | 0:36:27 | |
against courier fraudsters. | 0:36:27 | 0:36:29 | |
DI Lawrence led the investigations | 0:36:29 | 0:36:32 | |
into brothers Dulu Miah and Shilu Miah, | 0:36:32 | 0:36:35 | |
fake police officers who led a jet-set luxury lifestyle | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
with the money they stole from the bank accounts | 0:36:38 | 0:36:41 | |
of over 200 innocent people. | 0:36:41 | 0:36:43 | |
They attributed ?244,000 of loss to victims | 0:36:43 | 0:36:46 | |
in their role as fake police officers and fake bank officials. | 0:36:46 | 0:36:50 | |
The Miah brothers were finally jailed for a total of ten years. | 0:36:50 | 0:36:54 | |
They are not the only gang who've been enjoying | 0:36:54 | 0:36:56 | |
the spoils of this type of crime. | 0:36:56 | 0:36:59 | |
This group of individuals, who were purporting to be | 0:36:59 | 0:37:02 | |
fake police officers and fake banking officials, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:05 | |
got away with hundreds of thousands of pounds. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:07 | |
This CCTV footage shows the teenage courier fraudsters | 0:37:07 | 0:37:11 | |
using one of their victims' credit cards. | 0:37:11 | 0:37:14 | |
First they make a test purchase of ?50 to make sure the card works. | 0:37:14 | 0:37:18 | |
When it does, they embark on a spending spree, racking up | 0:37:18 | 0:37:22 | |
a bill of ?2,500 on designer clothing in just 20 minutes. | 0:37:22 | 0:37:27 | |
Six members of this gang were charged with conspiracy | 0:37:27 | 0:37:31 | |
to commit fraud and sentenced to a total of four years | 0:37:31 | 0:37:34 | |
and nine months for their crimes. | 0:37:34 | 0:37:36 | |
DI Lawrence wants to get the word out to stop other | 0:37:39 | 0:37:41 | |
members of the public from falling for courier fraud. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:45 | |
Should anyone call you and ask for your bank cards, to go | 0:37:45 | 0:37:48 | |
to the bank to withdraw cash or ask for your PIN number over the phone, | 0:37:48 | 0:37:52 | |
I'm 100% certain that they are likely to be fake police officers | 0:37:52 | 0:37:56 | |
or fake banking officials. | 0:37:56 | 0:37:58 | |
My message is if somebody does call you | 0:37:58 | 0:38:00 | |
and ask you to do that, is to hang up the phone, | 0:38:00 | 0:38:03 | |
use an alternative phone and contact 101 and phone the police. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:07 | |
Earlier, we saw how dangerous fake lithium batteries could be | 0:38:15 | 0:38:18 | |
when they heat up... | 0:38:18 | 0:38:20 | |
..but the story doesn't end there. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
Consumers across Europe could unwittingly be using fake | 0:38:24 | 0:38:27 | |
lithium phone batteries to power their smartphones. | 0:38:27 | 0:38:30 | |
What if their phone also turns out to be a fake? | 0:38:32 | 0:38:35 | |
Faisal Sheikh is a mobile phone expert | 0:38:36 | 0:38:39 | |
and he thinks there's a problem. | 0:38:39 | 0:38:41 | |
There are so many here now. | 0:38:41 | 0:38:43 | |
You see so many cases of people bringing in phones for repair | 0:38:43 | 0:38:45 | |
where they've got a broken screen and they want us to fix | 0:38:45 | 0:38:48 | |
their Samsung Galaxy S5 or their iPhone and it's not actually | 0:38:48 | 0:38:51 | |
an iPhone, it's not a Samsung device. | 0:38:51 | 0:38:53 | |
Faisal has to break the news to the smartphone users | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
that they have in fact bought a fake phone. | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
Fake Britain wanted to see how easy it is to buy a fake smartphone, | 0:39:03 | 0:39:07 | |
so we asked one of our industry insiders who managed | 0:39:07 | 0:39:11 | |
to purchase a suspected fake Samsung Galaxy S5 phone. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
We sent the phone to Samsung. They verified that it was indeed a fake. | 0:39:16 | 0:39:21 | |
We took our fake smartphone to Faisal to see what he thought | 0:39:21 | 0:39:24 | |
of it compared to the genuine article. | 0:39:24 | 0:39:27 | |
Well, what you have here are a couple of Samsung Galaxy S5s | 0:39:27 | 0:39:31 | |
with the exception being that this one here is real | 0:39:31 | 0:39:33 | |
and this one here is fake. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:35 | |
Faisal powers up both phones to see exactly what he's dealing with. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
The actual software on the fake one is very impressive. | 0:39:41 | 0:39:44 | |
It looks like a Samsung device, | 0:39:44 | 0:39:46 | |
whereas a lot of the fake phones that I've seen, you can tell | 0:39:46 | 0:39:49 | |
the minute that you get to the interface that is non-genuine. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:52 | |
If you don't know any better, you won't know this | 0:39:52 | 0:39:55 | |
and you can easily be duped by this kind of stuff. | 0:39:55 | 0:39:58 | |
Our fake Samsung Galaxy phone | 0:39:59 | 0:40:01 | |
came with a fake lithium battery included. | 0:40:01 | 0:40:04 | |
Having seen how potentially dangerous these fake lithium | 0:40:04 | 0:40:07 | |
batteries can be, we wanted to see the effects of one developing | 0:40:07 | 0:40:10 | |
a fault when it's inside a fake phone. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:13 | |
So we took it to Ciara Holland at the BRE Global test house. | 0:40:13 | 0:40:17 | |
So we have a fake Samsung phone | 0:40:19 | 0:40:23 | |
and it's also got a fake Samsung battery inside of it. | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
It's not long before the fake battery fails dramatically. | 0:40:34 | 0:40:37 | |
So you can see the sort of damage that it's done to the phone. | 0:40:40 | 0:40:43 | |
This will have been caused by the battery itself. | 0:40:43 | 0:40:47 | |
The worry is that a reaction like this is more likely | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
with a fake phone. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:52 | |
This could happen in someone's house. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:54 | |
It could happen where it's charging. | 0:40:54 | 0:40:56 | |
You're more likely to get this type of reaction with a fake device | 0:40:56 | 0:41:00 | |
or a fake battery, lithium iron battery, than you would with | 0:41:00 | 0:41:05 | |
the genuine product such as a genuine phone or a genuine battery. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:10 | |
That is down again to quality control measures. | 0:41:11 | 0:41:15 | |
It's not just something that's happening in the lab. | 0:41:18 | 0:41:21 | |
There are numerous media reports of mobile phones | 0:41:21 | 0:41:24 | |
across the world exploding whilst charging or even when in use. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:28 | |
All of the incidents involve lithium batteries, | 0:41:28 | 0:41:31 | |
many of which were suspected or proven to be fake. | 0:41:31 | 0:41:35 | |
Phone expert Faisal told us about | 0:41:35 | 0:41:38 | |
the particularly horrific case of Swiss teenager Fanny Schlatter. | 0:41:38 | 0:41:42 | |
She had a Samsung Galaxy S3 in her pocket, in her back pocket | 0:41:42 | 0:41:47 | |
and it just blew up. | 0:41:47 | 0:41:49 | |
You can see from the device the kind of damage caused. | 0:41:49 | 0:41:53 | |
It's intense heat needed to do something like this to a phone. | 0:41:53 | 0:41:56 | |
She's got a huge bandage there, a big burn mark. | 0:41:56 | 0:42:01 | |
Wow. | 0:42:01 | 0:42:03 | |
Wow, I mean, that's horrific. | 0:42:03 | 0:42:05 | |
That's quite a horrific burn. | 0:42:05 | 0:42:07 | |
Fanny suffered second and third degree burns from the explosion. | 0:42:09 | 0:42:12 | |
She claimed the accident left her with no feeling in her right thigh. | 0:42:12 | 0:42:17 | |
Fake Britain contacted Samsung about Ms Schlatter's exploding phone. | 0:42:17 | 0:42:22 | |
Samsung confirmed that following an investigation, it was found | 0:42:22 | 0:42:25 | |
that the battery that caused the explosion wasn't one of theirs. | 0:42:25 | 0:42:29 | |
Faisal thinks it could have been even worse. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:31 | |
She could have been on the phone next to her face, | 0:42:31 | 0:42:33 | |
that could have been a lot more nasty. | 0:42:33 | 0:42:35 | |
It must be a frightening experience. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
Faisal believes we could soon see accidents like this involving | 0:42:37 | 0:42:41 | |
fake phone batteries in the UK. | 0:42:41 | 0:42:43 | |
It's quite scary because there are so many of these batteries out there. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:46 | |
There are telltale signs to watch out for. | 0:42:48 | 0:42:51 | |
If your phone is heating up, it's not a good sign. | 0:42:51 | 0:42:54 | |
These kind of batteries that we have here where they're starting | 0:42:54 | 0:42:58 | |
to swell, that will eventually get to an exploding battery | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
if we don't give it more attention. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
So don't ignore this stuff. | 0:43:04 | 0:43:05 | |
That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye. | 0:43:11 | 0:43:13 | |
I think we've found four incredible cooks. | 0:43:44 | 0:43:45 | |
But now it's finals week, we turn up the heat. | 0:43:45 | 0:43:48 | |
We want to find our final three. | 0:43:48 | 0:43:50 | |
It's time for business. | 0:43:50 | 0:43:52 | |
It's going to be so sexy. | 0:43:52 | 0:43:54 | |
It's like playing a cool game. | 0:43:54 | 0:43:56 | |
I wanted to show that I can do something different. | 0:43:56 | 0:43:59 |