Episode 10 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

-Police!

-SHOUTING

Get down! Get down! On the floor now!

Put your hands behind your back now!

Here at the Fake Britain house

we'll reveal the fakes that are flooding the market,

conning people like you and me, and making money for the criminals.

We'll investigate the fraudsters who are selling us

something that isn't real and could be dangerous,

and we'll help you avoid falling for a fake.

Today on Fake Britain, we reveal the trade in fire blankets

whose safety claims go up in smoke...

Clearly that hasn't worked.

..we pay an unwelcome visit to the suspects thought to be running

counterfeit operations at their own homes...

I'd describe this as, like, a little shop.

Everything that's for sale on the fake market is

represented in this one room.

..and we expose the fake tattoo inks

that could mean clients get a lethal injection.

This could potentially cause something fatal

such as a heart attack.

It is happening all over the country.

More than four million of us are now cutting out the daily commute

and working from the comfort of our own homes.

People running all sorts of home-based businesses, trades

and professions could be your neighbours.

You might not even know a business was there.

And never one to miss a trick,

the fakers are getting in on the act, too,

running their counterfeit empires from behind their own four walls.

So, do you know what's going on next door?

Right across Britain an ever-increasing number

of stay-at-home fakers are setting up shop

behind the doors of ordinary domestic premises.

It's a detached dwelling.

If there's any cash, I would ask that the cash be seized.

For Trading Standards officers like Chris Jeffs, this emerging trend

means changing tactics

to take the fight to the fakers on their home turf.

We are finding people are moving away from market stalls,

car-boot sales,

and operating counterfeit sales from the comfort of their own homes.

They think they're safer in their own home

because they don't think they're going to be discovered.

But, of course, with technology today we can locate them.

We will find them.

Today, Chris is on the trail of a suspected faker, who

intelligence suggests has a thriving trade in counterfeit car parts,

which he runs from his home.

There was a large amount of sales on the seller's pages.

It isn't a genuine item and, of course, there is the enormous loss

in revenue for the genuine trademark holder.

While none of the goods are thought to pose a danger to the public,

if fake, they are threatening legitimate jobs

by taking sales from genuine companies.

And as with any fake enterprise,

there's no knowing where the profits may end up.

We are now in the street at 7:30 in the morning,

so I would imagine there would be somebody at the address.

Morning.

Hello, I'm from trading standards.

My name is Chris Jeffs and this is a local police officer.

We'd like to search the property.

We do have a warrant under The Trademark Act. Thank you.

The team gain access to the property and after a rude awakening,

the suspect appears and Chris gets straight to the point.

Is there any parts here, can you indicate anything to us

in the garage or upstairs?

-They're outside, in the hut.

-In the hut outside?

-Yeah.

-OK.

-As anyone working from home knows, it is important to have a

-space

where you can go about your business without being disturbed.

It seems this unassuming garden shed is the hub of a suspected home faker's operation.

It is a purpose-built shed, if you like.

Drawers full of vehicle parts that are being sold.

Centre wheel covers - BMW, BBS.

Each drawer has a different wheel centre cap.

Chris has uncovered a massive stash of suspected counterfeit car badges

being shipped in from China and sold over the internet.

These apparently fake goods aren't simply being stored here.

There's evidence of a whole dispatch operation being run out of the garden shed.

There's an item here for measuring the envelopes prior to dispatching.

On the desk, there's padded envelopes for postage.

As the team begin to bag and tag the evidence,

the scale of this backyard operation is becoming clear.

It's very pleasing and particularly because it's been

operated from a private house, as opposed to a business premises.

Yes, we've been to premises which are factory units

where there is perhaps more volume but, of course,

this is a business being run from home and from a garden shed.

As the evidence is taken to a lock-up,

Chris's suspect gets taken in for questioning.

But this apparent home faker is just one of an ever-increasing number.

Some are much more brazen about their dealings.

Nearly 200 miles south in Bedfordshire,

Chris Jones is en route to another suspected stay-at-home faker

that he has heard has been running an open house.

From our intelligence today, it appears that there is a garage

at the rear of the house which is full of Ugg boots

and some of these headphones,

so it should be quite a lot of stuff today.

He's believed to have duped customers with his counterfeit goods

and they've shopped him to Trading Standards.

-Mr

-BLEEP?

I'm from Trading Standards.

We have a warrant to search your premises for fake items.

The suspect leads Chris to his garage, housing not his car,

but what appears to be a counterfeit stash.

Wow.

Welcome to the latest store, just off the high street,

where everything seems to be a fake.

I would describe this as, like, a little shop.

Everything is on display.

We even had carrier bags to take the stock away,

and all the stock was displayed in the varying brand areas.

So we have watches with watches, electrical goods together,

and clothing in another section of the shop.

So it's like a corner store for fake items.

All these watches are Michael Kors watches.

Well done, jewelled, all working.

In fact, his collection is so extensive

some of it's even new on Chris.

I've never heard of this Michael Kors hat,

and never heard of the Ugg hat.

So it'll be interesting what the brand holder comes up with.

To be honest with you, I didn't know

that the brand made that particular product.

Like any shopkeeper the faker's not only got the latest gear,

he's also on hand to answer questions.

-Are you able to tell me how much you would charge for that?

-How much?

-Yeah.

-25.

-OK, thanks for that.

This Ralph Lauren and SuperDry stuff,

I'm going to that row, right?

As it is, it's easier if we do that.

The faker's even willing to throw in a free extra.

-You can have the hangers.

-You sure?

-Yeah.

The suspect might be trying to make light of the situation

but the evidence against him seems overwhelming.

The van's going to be full.

We're on about something like, I think, Exhibit 25,

of these big bags of varying products.

Not had so many different ones at all, like this.

It's a bit of everything.

Virtually a current "what's for sale" on the fake market

is represented in this one room.

It's not just clothes on sale

but also suspected counterfeit electrical goods.

This is a radio mic.

Very popular with young people at the moment.

And actually, to buy the real, non-fake product, very expensive.

But cheap counterfeits often don't meet British standards

and could pose a danger to the public.

Eventually, two vehicles are crammed full of confiscated goods

which will be analysed back at base.

And Trading Standards has proved that selling from home

rather than on the high street

doesn't offer suspected fakers a safe place to hide.

This chap is like a general shop in any high street in a town.

So he's been making good money out of it.

He's lost a lot of money today, cos his stock has gone.

Last year, 30 people were killed and more than 3,000 injured

as a result of cooking fires in the home.

Little wonder that many of us choose to protect our homes and loved ones

by having safety equipment like these fire blankets close at hand.

They should provide us with peace of mind

but these are no comfort blankets.

They're on sale, they're untested and make fake safety claims

that could be putting lives at risk.

Britain's fire services

are called out to over 20,000 kitchen fires every year.

In fact, they make up over two-thirds of their shouts

to domestic premises.

These fires can burn out of control in an instant,

causing untold damage, and putting lives in danger...

..something which furniture designer John Crawford

became very aware of when a family friend was seriously injured.

She'd unfortunately been very badly burned in a kitchen fire.

She'd been cooking dinner for her children,

wearing a loose shirt and her shirt had caught fire

and spread very quickly.

She didn't have anything in the kitchen, such as a fire blanket

and, as a consequence, really, was very badly burned.

I think it does strike a chord with you,

it's a daily activity that we do,

we're cooking dinner for the children every night,

and it does chime with you that

that could very easily happen in your own home.

Spurred into action by what he'd heard,

John went online to buy a fire blanket

that could help protect him and his family.

But what had appeared like a quality product online

began to look very questionable when it arrived.

As I took it out of the box, it became clear

that the packaging of the product looked a little bit unusual.

The immediate thing that jumped out was

where you would expect to see a manufacturer, a country of origin,

there's nothing there.

You start to read the text that's on it and we have,

"If clothing is on fire, force victim to groud."

"Wrao", instead of "wrap", "..in fire blanket."

So they're immediately very obvious grammatical or English mistakes on there.

Altogether you do start to wonder

if the product isn't right in packaging terms,

is it really going to do the very serious function

which it's designed for?

In Britain there are no compulsory standards for fire blankets,

but there is a voluntary European standard they can be tested to.

John's blanket claimed to meet that standard.

If true, it would mean it had been proven

to suppress a fire within seconds

and that the fire wouldn't reignite

if the blanket was removed after 17 minutes.

But there are some more basic tests the fire blanket must pass first,

and the British Standard Institute's head of fire safety, Bob Wells,

can tell it falls short of the first hurdle and it's a fake.

On the blanket itself you should have a label,

rather like you find in a T-shirt or your trousers,

relating to the manufacturer's name,

manufacturer's address, and a model reference.

As you can see, this product has no marking on it at all.

Failing to meet this simple requirement

means there's no way the blanket would have been approved

and casts doubt on whether it's even up to the job.

I'd be pushing these aside

and going for something perhaps a little bit more expensive,

but I know it's going to work when I need it to.

Alarmingly, Fake Britain has discovered

thousands of cheap fire blankets being sold,

many making false safety claims.

Whether they actually work is anyone's guess.

To find out, later we'll call in the professionals

and put a selection of them to the test.

We're just going to place it over.

Here on Fake Britain, we've shown you

how the fakers have infiltrated the high street,

the internet, businesses and even our homes.

But now they are literally getting under our skin.

That's because tattoos are more popular than they have ever been.

Look at these.

They're inks that a tattooist might use, but they're fake,

and that's a very serious problem.

We all know someone who's got one because tattoos are now mainstream,

with high-profile figures from David Beckham to David Dimbleby...

-Ow!

-..sporting ink on their skin.

In fact there are over 10,000 tattoo studios

dotted up and down the country,

adding body art to the 1.5 million Brits

who get permanently inked every year.

Charging around £100 an hour, it's a multi-million-pound industry

that's seen massive growth in recent years.

And that growth has been fuelled by the work of people like Louis Malloy

and his celebrity clients.

I have worked on quite a few famous clients, including the Beckhams,

Sir Bradley Wiggins,

Andrew Flintoff,

I could go on and on, but I won't.

With over 30 years' experience,

Louis is one of Britain's most respected tattooists

and is a master of his art.

But with the rise in popularity of tattoos

he's seen a rise in fakes flooding the industry.

I've seen examples of products

that are manufactured by European and American companies,

literally within weeks of them releasing those products,

the Chinese are then doing counterfeits.

A long-time target of the fakers has been these tattoo machines.

Determined to make their mark, though,

the fakers haven't stopped there.

We can reveal that they've moved on to tattoo inks,

something which alarms leading industry figures like Louis.

When you move on to things like tattoo colours,

it's a whole different ball game

because they're going into people's skin.

You're dealing with an unknown quantity,

and it can be very, very dangerous

because you've got no idea what you're putting into your body.

One of the most popular and trusted brands of tattoo ink is Intenze.

A single one-ounce bottle costs around £10.

That is, if it's the real deal.

This set of 14 Intenze inks, for example,

is on offer for the unbelievable price of £26 for the lot.

As you know, we can't resist a bargain here at Fake Britain,

so we snapped them up and took them

to Intenze's sole UK distributor, Global Tattoo Supplies.

Boss Steve Crane sells these inks day in, day out,

and, before he even takes them out of the packet,

he confirms that they may be cheap but they're also a con.

The fakes we can tell immediately.

They would never be shrink-wrapped

or loosely packaged in this foil.

And, once he gets his hands on them, Steve's experienced eye begins

to uncover a trail of telltale signs that the fakers have left behind.

On the fake,

the ingredients and the disclaimers

are all going into a tonal grey colour.

On the original, all of the ink on the label is the same tone.

No barcode information on the fake, but it is on the original.

Another giveaway is the colour tone.

This is the original Mario's Light Blue.

Unfortunately, the fake is slightly darker,

so there wouldn't be any consistency for the tattoo artist

and the customer in getting an ongoing piece of tattoo art.

With the appearance so different,

Steve's keen to see what this

means for the quality of the product inside.

What we're going to do is we're going to try the fake first of all.

All I'll do is put a little drop of ink down on the paper...

..and spread it around with my thumb.

As we can see, we've got quite a streaky consistency,

and it's spreading out quite a lot on the paper.

This is the original product.

What we're going to do is exactly the same thing again.

Straight away, you see it's a completely different,

denser product, giving us a nice, bright finish

as opposed to the streakiness of the fake.

The difference between the real and fake inks is immediately clear.

What he's seeing makes Steve worry about the customers who end up

with this fake ink injected into their skin.

There would be concern that the tattoo pigment itself

is so thin and weak that it would result in a bad tattoo

and also the health risks associated

with any inconsistencies in the manufacturing and bottling

and the hygiene side of this product.

Years of research has gone into the genuine products

to make sure they're safe to use on human skin,

and comply with European regulations on the content of tattoo inks.

The fakes are untested and their true contents unknown.

What he's already seen is giving Steve serious cause for concern

and, as the ink dries, alarm bells begin to ring about the fake's

potential to cause serious harm.

The fake ink is just rubbing away

and disappearing as we touch it.

The original one is not moving at all.

This is telling me that we have

a good, strong, stable product.

Here, I don't know what we've got.

With the fake inks looking not just dodgy but potentially dangerous,

it's time to get them tested and find out exactly what they contain.

At the University of Loughborough, two chemists have agreed

to run a series of tests that will reveal once and for all

whether these are harmless inks or a potential health hazard.

Whilst Dr Matt Turner gets to work determining exactly what

chemicals the inks contain, a floor below, his colleague,

Professor Sweta Ladwa, is testing the fake's claim to be sterile.

What I've done so far is just dilute the dye

in some liquid nutrient broth,

which is essentially, in layman's terms, bacteria food,

and I'm going to swab onto an agar plate.

What we'll then do is incubate the plates

and we'll see if anything grows.

If it was sterile, we should see nothing.

The plates stay in the incubator for 48 hours

at a temperature of 37 degrees,

designed to replicate what would happen in the human body.

When they're taken out, the genuine product is all clear, as expected.

But the fake white ink paints a very different, and scary, picture.

We saw that there was bacterial growth.

It was quite shocking actually because you could

see that there was certainly something growing in there.

The dye is contaminated

with some sort of bugs.

There are two families of bacteria present.

I suspect one is the streptococcal family,

the other is the proteus family.

Proteus bacteria are found in human and animal faeces,

meaning, far from being sterile,

these inks are being produced in squalid, unhygienic conditions.

Anyone getting a tattoo with these could be in serious trouble.

If this particular dye is injected into the skin,

if it does get into the bloodstream

then this could cause a variety of problems.

The worst-case scenario we're looking at is sepsis, where we've

got inflammation occurring due to the infection in the body

and this could potentially cause something fatal,

such as a heart attack.

Sweta's findings mean that

anyone being conned into buying these counterfeit inks

could end up administering a deadly dose to one of their clients.

The results from Matt's analysis of the contents are equally concerning.

On the top, we have the genuine tattoo ink,

where we have just two major components.

On the bottom, we've got the fake black tattoo ink,

where you can see there are several different components.

We don't know what these components are,

or what they'll do once they get into your body.

Using his years of experience to interpret these findings,

Matt fears what he's seeing in the fakes poses a real danger.

These dyes could be industrial dyes

that are used in paints or clothing,

and were never meant for use to come into contact with skin.

The worst-case scenario

would be these inks getting into your bloodstream,

the materials in the ink accumulating in your body,

and in your organs, and you get a severe allergic reaction

and it shuts your organs down.

The findings could hardly be worse,

with the fakes declared potentially lethal on two fronts.

For respected tattooist Louis Molloy,

who campaigns against counterfeit products,

this time the fakers have gone too far.

I think it's quite shocking that someone is prepared to make

something like that and sell it. It's wrong, it's very, very wrong.

It shouldn't be allowed.

People who manufacture counterfeit tattoo pigments

put profit over people's health.

They're just scum, in my mind.

Earlier, we saw how thousands of fire blankets are being sold bearing

fake safety claims, with no proof that they're even up to the job.

And if something does go wrong,

it's your local fire service who has to come to the rescue.

West Midlands Fire Service is one of the busiest brigades in the country.

With over 20 years on the job, operations commander Steve Harris

knows just how dangerous kitchen fires can be.

Recently we had a fatal kitchen fire, so it's a serious situation.

We advise people just to get out and stay out and call us out

to put the fire out for them.

But for the thousands who have fire blankets to hand,

and use them to bring a fire under control,

they must, at the very least, be reliable and up to the job.

Steve's shocked to learn that there are fakes on the market.

If fire blankets turn out to be fake

and don't do what they say they're supposed to do on the tin

then, yes, it could make the situation worse.

Somebody might believe they're using a genuine product

to put a fire out, and actually it doesn't do the job,

makes the situation worse, puts that person in danger,

and then we have to go into the building to try to save their life.

At the service's training base, Steve's getting kitted up

to put a selection of six fire blankets we've found

bearing fake safety markings through a real-life scenario.

This mobile unit is normally used to demonstrate to the public

just how lethal chip pan fires can be.

Now, Steve's firing it up to discover how this lot perform

when the heat is on.

We're just going to place it over.

It quickly becomes apparent

that, far from protecting themselves,

anyone relying on these fake fire blankets

could be putting themselves in serious danger.

Clearly, that hasn't worked. It is still a substantial fire.

That would've set fire to a kitchen now,

and you'd have a significant property fire.

I can't comment on the European standard.

What I can say is that doesn't work.

That doesn't do what I expect a fire blanket to have done.

The blanket itself has not cut off oxygen to the fire,

so we still have oxygen, we still have heat,

and we still have fuel, and we still have a fire.

I'd be very worried that people are selling these

and the public are buying them,

assuming that they would put out a chip pan fire.

The advice from us is to just get out, stay out and call 999.

Then you're not in any danger.

Five minutes in, the fire is still burning

and the fire blanket's claims are clearly fake.

The kitchen would've been destroyed by fire by now.

On average, it takes around five minutes for a fire engine

to get to a property.

This has been five minutes and we still have a fire.

So it's worrying.

In fact, it takes more than eight minutes for the flames

to finally die out.

Something in this blanket has caused it

not to do what it's supposed to do.

Some of this is heat damaged

and we would expect that from a blanket that's done its job,

but this one has just gone very, very brittle now.

As you can see, it didn't do its job.

It didn't work.

Disturbingly, it's not the only one.

Almost instantly, the flames broke through this blanket and,

as you can see, there's still fire on top of the actual fire blanket

so, in essence, the fire blanket has not done anything.

I certainly wouldn't want to use that kind of fire blanket

in my property,

and I wouldn't suggest that anybody buys a blanket of that standard.

Out of our sample of six,

two have been engulfed by flames and had no effect.

But this test has taken place under more forgiving outdoor conditions

and, having seen them up close, Steve's not happy any of

these blankets could be relied upon in an emergency inside a property.

It appears it's a bit of a lottery as to which one works.

You don't know whether it works until you actually need it.

You can't test a fire blanket.

You use it, and it works or it doesn't,

and that's too much of a chance for me.

We showed John Crawford, who bought one of these fake fire blankets

to protect his young family, the results of this trial by fire.

I am very glad that I did buy another blanket.

It's quite scary, really, to see

the intensity of the flames after the blanket has been put on.

By trusting his suspicions,

John realises he may have had a lucky escape.

It's clearly quite dangerous, what's being done.

I think a good comparison is perhaps buying a car that claims

to have airbags and by the time you have an accident

and you realise that no airbags were fitted then it's clearly too late.

That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye.