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 be investing 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.

If you have a crash in a helmet like that,

the chances are you are not going to walk away from it.

You'll end up in a mortuary.

We tell the tale of the man who had three quarters of a million

pounds he was spending on a house stolen by a fake firm of solicitors.

I was absolutely gutted. I felt sick.

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

ever happen.

We meet the people who were sold fake caravan

holidays by serial fraudster Michael Fisher.

Michael Fisher is a public menace.

How do you tell a seven-year-old kid that she's not going to Butlins

when I promised her?

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 branded Yamaha leathers. Very smart, too.

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

We took them to motor sport mecca Brands Hatch to ask

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

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

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

Just the quality...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 Malvina

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,

2 and a half 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 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.

Coming up, we reveal it's not just bike leathers being faked.

Poor quality counterfeit helmets are also being sold online.

We show just how dangerous they are.

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.

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, 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 came, 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 like 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 the 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 convention 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 firms 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,

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 Dre's.

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 Dre's 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 going sort of 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 peoples 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.

Earlier, Fake Britain revealed that a set of bike leathers

we bought online was fake. Tests at world famous Italian

manufacturer Dainese also showed them to be dangerous.

But if your leathers are important, it's nothing compared to your lid.

Dainese also make genuine helmets for AGV.

Shockingly, they've discovered fake versions of AGV helmets

made in China on sale online.

They agree to put one to the test to see just how dangerous they are.

To demonstrate the difference in quality between a fake and genuine

helmet, they set up a drop test that re-creates

the conditions of a rider landing head first onto asphalt.

First up, a genuine AGV helmet.

It's dropped five times at a

speed of 7.5m per second to mimic

possible repeated collisions

with the road, pavement corners,

or other hard surfaces.

Even with repeated blows,

the genuine helmet remains intact.

How will the fake get on?

It's already chipped

by the first drop.

And it only gets worse.

The counterfeit helmet breaks in a very dangerous way.

You can guess how dangerous it is during an accident.

A helmet is the most important piece of safety wear for a biker.

This fake has failed crucial EU safety tests categorically.

It's illegal, and very dangerous.

Back in the UK, we also showed the results of the helmet tests

to motorcycle safety expert and accident investigator Tony Carter.

I'm staggered. Genuinely staggered.

I have investigated many thousands of crashes

involving many motorcyclists,

and I have never seen a helmet split like that has.

The crash helmet is designed to absorb the shock of your head

hitting the road surface.

If you have a crash in a helmet like that, the chances are you are

not going to walk away from it, you'll end up in a mortuary.

To see what motorcycle enthusiasts thought of our fake safety wear,

we took it to the motorcycle show at Birmingham's NEC arena.

First impressions, eh, not very well made at all.

Stitching's coming out there so obviously

if you have an accident, it's not going to do you so well.

I wouldn't cut costs on leathers or any safety gear.

Helmets, gloves, you know, boots, because at the end of the day,

you can't put a price on your life.

There isn't any substantial elbow on this either.

I can feel it straightaway. That's not going to do you any good at all.

Stall holders at the event can't believe the poor

quality of the leathers.

It is dangerous because you're travelling at 70mph

on a bike potentially. If you come off, you want something to be close

to your skin that's going to give you protection.

The stitching is just going to give.

I suspect if I pull this hard, it would probably fall apart.

I wouldn't feel comfortable wearing this at all.

In fact, I wouldn't put anyone in this.

I wouldn't put my worst enemy in it.

If you go into your local dealer, you can touch, you can feel,

and you can examine what you're buying, and then you know that

you're getting a genuine product if you buy from a genuine dealer.

Safety expert Tony Carter has clear advice for anyone wanting to

buy new motorbike safety equipment.

It is imperative that you buy the best that you can afford,

the best quality, and it's genuine.

Because as we've seen already with fakes, you are literally

running the gauntlet as to whether it is going to do the job or not.

With a round a million earthings in the UK,

it's no surprise that caravanning has become a multibillion pound

holiday industry, employing 90,000 people.

And if you fancy a go, you don't have to buy. You can rent.

It's never been easier.

There are dozens of websites booking them out across the whole country.

It should be a fun, affordable week of freedom,

unless of course, your caravan holiday is a fake.

This is the story of how a serial fraudster stole

over £100,000 from would-be holiday makers in an audacious plot

involving a web of lies, forged documents and 20 fake caravans.

Julie Tippling and her family live in Bradford.

When her father was diagnosed with cancer, she decided to

book them all a holiday to help them try to deal with the trauma.

At the end of 2008,

my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and his

prognosis was very upsetting because he was given 12 months to survive.

So, we thought it would be nice for us to book a holiday,

give us something to look forward to.

Julie decided on a caravan in Butlins at Skegness.

They're often sub-let online by owners,

and she found what appeared to be a great offer on eBay.

We were looking to book for the following summer

because I knew my dad would undergo some chemotherapy

and brain radiation so he would need time to recover.

The offer came from a company called Lucy's Caravans.

They boasted that they

owned 20 Caravans at the Butlins Skegness site, and at £350

for a week for the whole family, it seemed like a terrific deal.

She rang the number and spoke to a Mr Michael Fisher.

He reassured me because he told me that he was there at Butlins.

It seemed quite busy with children in the background.

Julie went ahead and made the booking.

And everything came back OK.

I received a receipt for my money,

I received a booking form headed "Lucy's Caravans", and I received

a sub-letting form headed "Butlins" so I though everything was OK.

The whole family was very excited about their forthcoming holiday.

But a few months later, Julie received a letter from Fisher,

saying he'd changed his company name to Blue Sky Lettings.

She thought nothing of it.

Then Julie got another letter that did make her worry.

I received another letter saying that the company had ceased

to trade, and that they'd been forced to cease to trade with

an ongoing legal dispute with Butlins.

That's when I thought, "hmm, something's not quite right".

Julie wrote to Butlins to find out exactly what was going on.

She was stunned by their response.

They wrote back stating Mr Fisher had no caravans at the site.

Julie was confronted by an awful truth.

The caravan and the holiday she'd booked were fake.

She was devastated.

I knew the holiday was gone.

I felt really annoyed and frustrated

and upset that he could really do this.

And especially with my father being terminally ill.

As a family, we were all really really disappointed.

Julie Tippling wasn't the only would-be holiday maker

duped by fraudster Michael Fisher.

He was pedalling his fake caravans to as many people as he could.

Further south in Cambridgeshire, Paul Toms had also spotted

Fisher's deal online.

Amazed at the low prices, he'd also snapped up a family holiday.

I was so convinced that my nephew came round who lives in Basildon

and I said to him, "This would be great for you for a honeymoon."

The caravan would have suited him ideal and he says "Oh, great.

"I'll phone up now."

And he phoned up and he booked one next to ours almost.

So, again, he got a booking form, a receipt for his money,

order of acknowledgement, everything seemed above board.

Paul Toms even booked a third holiday, an Easter break,

meaning he'd paid faker Fisher a total of £900.

But after weeks of not having heard from Fisher,

and with his holiday approaching, he called Butlins. Like Julie Tippling,

he was shocked by the truth.

And I phoned Butlins

and said "Do you have a Mr Fisher as an owner of yours?

"He tells me he's got 20 caravans there" and they said,

"No, he's got no caravans here. We've had problems with this already."

And then alarm bells started to ring.

Butlins directed Paul, Julie

and others conned by Fisher to Suffolk trading standards.

Lee Nunn was deluged with complaints and began to investigate.

Initially, we were alerted to this fact by colleagues at

trading standards in Lincolnshire.

They reported that some consumers had arrived at the Butlins

site in Skegness, only to find that their bookings weren't valid.

Lee and his team visited the business premises of Michael Fisher.

This office complex here was where Mr Fisher was based, and this is

the place where we completed an entry and seizure of various documents.

Fisher had already fled.

But inside, Lee was flabbergasted by what he found.

Not only had Fisher duped families with fake holidays,

he'd forged documents

and attempted to buy genuine caravans with worthless cheques.

Mr Fisher used a variety of bank accounts,

some of which were in existence,

but never had more than a few hundred pounds in when he was writing

out cheques to the tune of £20,500, £16,000, £16,500.

He even, when his scam was uncovered, tried to repay some of the consumers

with cheques from the same accounts that didn't have any funds in.

He even manufactured, he forged, caravan contract agreements to try

and provide evidence to innocent people that he actually owned

some of these caravans.

This caravan owner never knew anything about this contract,

never had any agreement with Mr Fisher to purchase that caravan or

allow Mr Fisher to advertise and let holidays for this actual caravan.

In total, Fisher's caravan con had duped over 200 families.

Some still didn't know their holiday was a fake,

and it was Lee's job to call them.

Sadie Blunderfield was amongst them.

She'd booked an '80s weekend

and a family holiday at a total cost of £730.

Trading standards got in touch with me and my stomach just dropped.

My kids were really looking forward to it because we go to Butlins

every year and they really enjoy it so yes,

they were really excited about going.

I'm just asking "Why?" basically.

How could he do that to families with young children?

I'm just asking "Why?".

When they were told they weren't going, my youngest at the time

was six and he couldn't understand why someone had done that.

Julie Tippling was so enraged that faker Fisher had conned her

and her dying father out of their last holiday,

she pursued him through the small claims court.

Eventually, she got almost all of her money back,

but others weren't so lucky.

The police did track Fisher down though.

He appeared at Ipswich Crown Court

and was charged with fraudulent trading under the Fraud Act.

It emerged the faker had stolen over £100,000 from members

of the public and legitimate businesses.

Fisher pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 40 months in jail.

Lee Nunn was delighted.

I was pleased with the sentence.

As much for myself and my department,

-I was pleased for the victims that had some form of closure.

-Maybe.

But for those who lost money and precious time together,

thanks to Michael Fisher, they still have to count the cost.

It's a despicable crime. People don't...

He's preying on people who are trying to save money or who

have got very little money to go on holiday.

You know, how do you tell a seven-year-old kid here that

she's not going to Butlins when I promised her?

He's an absolute waste of space.

I just think he's horrible.

He obviously hasn't got a conscience because of what he's done.

He's deceitful, dishonest, a serial fraudster.

Michael Fisher is a public menace, he's a serial fraudster,

and he has no care for any of the victims that he's scammed.

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 some 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, 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 whole morning 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 the 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 Davine 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.