Episode 3 Fake Britain

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

Welcome to Fake Britain.

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...

the fake sunglasses that could harm your health.

I was absolutely devastated.

We didn't realise that I would have to lose all of the eye.

The puppies with fake identities being trafficked into the country.

They came and collected him and took him away.

We have a close shave with fake razor blades.

It was tugging and it was tearing at my skin, at my hairs,

and I just had to stop immediately.

And the brake pads that could cost you your life.

It might not have the stopping distance,

they might overheat and that's why we need to get them off the market.

Designer sunglasses can be expensive,

but you're paying for the brand and the quality of the lenses.

They'll offer high levels of protection from the damaging effects

of the sun's ultraviolet light.

These say 100% UV protection.

Unfortunately, I can't believe that because these

and all the other sunglasses here are fake.

If you bought these you might not only waste your money

but also damage your eyes.

Deborah Caine from Manchester believes she knows all about

the dangers of fake sunglasses.

When she was in her teens and twenties,

like many people at the time,

Deborah was less concerned about the dangers or UV exposure.

She spent her summers topping up her tan in sunny holiday destinations.

Deb and her friends were on a heat seeking mission for the perfect tan.

No pain, no gain.

You knew you were catching the sun because

you could feel it burning you and you'd be there thinking,

"Oh, this is great cos I am getting a tan and

"know even though I'm going to burn, I will get a little bit of colour."

As well as chasing the sun, Deb was keen to hunt down the best deal

possible on fake designer sunglasses.

We used to bargain with the guys on holiday to get as many

different pairs of them as possible for the cheapest possible price

so that we could have a Chanel pair, a Dolce & Gabbana pair,

Armani pair, as many pairs as you want.

A few years later though, Deb started to have a problem with her eyesight.

I started getting double vision in my eye.

And then went to the hospital, they had a look inside my eye

and decided there was something pretty serious in there.

I went and had a scan done privately and it was malignant melanoma.

Deb had an ocular melanoma,

a rare type of cancer that develops in the eye.

I was absolutely devastated and at the time when they first told me

we didn't realise I would have to lose all the eye.

Deb's eye cancer was so dangerously close to her brain

that there was only one option.

Had two doctors that did it, very, really brilliant doctors,

that I wouldn't be here without them.

They took my eye out and the rest I suppose is history.

Long term exposure to UV light is known to damage our eyes in many ways

and can increase the risks of cataracts,

the leading cause of blindness.

Cancers of the eyelid are also linked to exposure to UV light.

Deb believes her eye cancer was due to excessive exposure to UV light

caused by wearing fake sunglasses on holiday.

So these are fake Chanel sunglasses

and these are my own genuine Ray Ban sunglasses.

When you compare the two, the difference is vast.

For example, you can see quite a lot of reflection on this cheap pair,

but on the Ray-Bans there's hardly any reflection at all.

This pair of sunglasses when I where them, it shades a lot of the light.

This one, there is hardly any protection at all.

You can see straight away it doesn't take any glare away at all.

Deb believes the fake sunglasses she wore on holiday

could have contributed to her serious medical problems.

I do think that there is a link between wearing fake sunglasses

and me getting a malignant melanoma.

We wanted to find out more about the possible links between

long term ultraviolet exposure and serious eye damage.

So we spoke to Doctor Mandeep Sagoo,

a leading eye surgeon specialising in eye tumours and ocular melanoma.

UV light exposure in early life may lead to problems in later life.

The effects of UV light on our eyes are being widely researched

and some of the conclusions are worrying.

Ocular melanoma is generally melanoma on the inside of the eye

and there are studies out of Australia which suggested a link

between UV light exposure and the development of melanoma.

When it comes to being out in bright sunlight the medical advice is clear.

Sunglasses are used to do a particular job.

One of the key ways of protecting yourself from UV light exposure to

the eye is to wear good sunglasses that have

the correct UV light blocking properties.

Fake sunglasses may end up letting in UV light

which over a prolonged period could cause damage.

If you're going to use sunglasses

then they should be ones with genuine UV protection.

And the sunglass business is booming.

We spend over £300 million a year on sunglasses,

so the profits to be made are pretty clear to the fakers.

John Jacobs from Scambusters South West has been at the centre of one of

the largest fake sunglasses operation he's ever had to deal with.

If you can imagine a place similar to this,

it was a huge warehouse, with wall-to-wall fake goods.

This is the largest quantity of fake sunglasses

that we've found in one seizure.

Somewhere in the region of 8,000 different sunglasses,

and we've got Ray-Ban, Gucci, Marc Jacobs, Cartier.

As John discovered,

these sunglasses were a cut above the usual knock-down fakes.

Here you have what appears to be a genuine pair of Cartier sunglasses.

They're set in a Cartier box,

within the box is also the pouch

and the documentation that goes with them.

Quite impressive, as you look at it.

It looks like the genuine article. If I saw that for sale

then I'd consider that to be the genuine article.

And being able to dupe online buyers into thinking these high-end fakes

were the real deal was exactly what the fakers were banking on.

They've used a range of materials within this.

You can see the different metals that have been used

and these were being imported, as they are, in their boxes,

designed to look like a genuine Cartier.

And then they can sell it for the genuine price

of somewhere around £200 per pair.

By selling fake sunglasses, online, at close to the price of

the genuine article, the fakers were making huge profits.

In total, the value of the fake goods that we seized

were well over £1 million.

Over a six month period from one site that these fake sunglasses

were being sold on, the criminals generated over £160,000,

so you can see how large a scale of problem this was and the amount,

the quantity of fake products being put out to the public.

Darren Ward and Timothy Tivney later pleased guilty to

unauthorised use of trademarks.

Ward was given a 13 month suspended sentence

and Tivney a year's community order with unpaid work.

In this major case,

John was concerned about more than just trademark infringement.

Claims about UV protection meant that these fake sunglasses

could have posed a public safety risk.

This booklet say, "The high quality Cartier sunglasses

"have been carefully selected to ensure excellent eye protection

"and maximum visual comfort."

If that is not accurate,

which we believe it not to be because it's a fake document,

then there's a potential of causing long lasting damage to your eyes

through unprotected UVA, UVB rays coming through.

Fake sunglasses like the ones seized in this raid

are turning up all over the country.

Paul Wright from Staffordshire Scientific Services

is in charge of testing fake sunglasses

that have been seized by his local trading standards team.

Many of them carry fake CE and ultraviolet safety markings.

When you see a CE mark on a sample

you assume that they have been tested and been shown to be safe.

That is not always the case.

Anyone can put a CE mark on a piece of equipment.

There has to be something to back it up.

Ultraviolet light from the sun is invincible light

that's more powerful than what we see and potentially damaging to our eyes.

Genuine sunglasses should block out some of this light

and protect our eyes.

Fake sunglasses might not.

Paul will measure how much UV light passes through

a pair of genuine glasses and a pair of fakes

using this UV visible spectrophotometer.

First up, the genuine sunglasses.

A line should be drawn on this graph here

which will indicate the amount of light being transmitted through

the lens of the glasses.

If the sunglasses have adequate UV protection, this red line

should begin to fall when it reaches the potentially harmful UV zone

on the left of the screen.

And this is what we're finding.

Little or no light is passing through these lenses in

the UVA, UVB and UVC regions.

So these genuine sunglasses should protect the eyes of

the person wearing them.

What about the fakes?

As we reach the ultraviolet region,

light is being transmitted through the lenses.

Paul's suspicions about the fake sunglasses are confirmed.

And in fact, 23.6% of UVA light is passing through.

These lenses do not provide adequate protection to the wearer.

The consumer is at a greater risk.

And Deb's not taking any more risks.

These days, when she goes out in the sun,

she makes sure she wears genuine glasses.

Fake sunglasses shouldn't be allowed.

It's shocking what they can do to your eyes.

If I knew now what was going to happen,

I definitely would never have taken the chance of wearing them.

Meet Joe and Princess.

Very handsome little doggies, aren't they?

They're Maltese Terriers, which is a very popular and valuable breed,

and they're worth around £1,200 each.

They're both going to have one of these put under their skin.

It's a microchip which proves who they are so that their age

and their inoculations can be confirmed,

but what if the chip wasn't proving their identity, but faking it?

What if it came from a completely different dog?

It's the puppy smugglers' latest con.

Joe and Princess's chip information will be genuine,

but has your puppy's been faked?

PUPPIES BARK

This is undercover footage of illegal puppy traffickers in Eastern Europe.

This woman is responsible for smuggling around 1000 puppies

into Britain each year,

earning herself tens of thousands of pounds.

PUPPY BARKS

In a new ruse, illegal breeders are faking the identities

of underage puppies to defeat UK border controls.

Many of these puppies will be sold to unsuspecting British buyers.

Dog-lover Sharon Fitzpatrick found out what the puppy identity fakers

are up to the very hard way.

We'd been talking about getting another puppy for quite a while.

Um...we both, me and my partner, like British Bulldogs and French Bulldogs.

French Bulldogs are one of Britain's most popular dog breeds,

with over 5,000 new registrations each year.

When Sharon spotted this little fella online,

she thought she'd found the family pooch of her dreams.

I fell in love with the photos straight away,

so I then texted the lady to ask her if she still had them available.

And the seller had a French Bulldog for sale.

Sharon did background checks on the puppy,

and was told he was a six-month-old, British-born dog,

with a microchip, passport and all his vaccinations.

We paid £2,000 for him, because as far as we were concerned,

we wanted a proper French Bulldog from a reputable breeder.

Hugo quickly became one of the family.

Just fell in love with him straight away.

He was just the right one for us,

so it was just so nice.

But Sharon's joy with the new housemate, Hugo,

was to be short-lived.

He started coughing,

and then Sunday lunchtime, he was really sniffly, runny nose,

really not himself, very lethargic, wouldn't play, which is not a puppy.

Sharon rushed Hugo to the local vet,

who could immediately see that Hugo was just nine weeks old.

The vet scanned Hugo's microchip.

He came back in, and told us, "Sorry, but this puppy's been imported."

Bizarrely, Hugo's microchip showed that he was a six-month-old Hungarian dog,

not a nine-week-old British puppy.

His chip had been switched to smuggle him into the country.

He'd been given a fake identity, and now he had pneumonia.

That was very emotional.

I cried,

cos we've gone into the vet with a puppy, walking out with nothing.

And it's just a horrible thought. I'm having to go home

and tell the children that we've no longer got a puppy at the moment,

cos he's very ill.

It was very touch-and-go then if he was going to come home or not.

Fortunately, Hugo did pull through.

But Sharon's ordeal wasn't over.

I get a phone call from Trading Standards to say,

"I'm really sorry, but we have to come and get Hugo,

"cos he has to go into proper quarantine,

"cos he's been illegally imported."

And they came, and collected him and took him away.

Sorry.

And that was just heart-wrenching, cos this was just all before Christmas.

And it ruined our Christmas.

You've got an empty cage sat in the corner,

and no Hugo.

Upsetting as it was for Sharon,

Trading Standards had good reason to rush Hugo into quarantine near Bristol.

For kennel owner Meg Purnell-Carpenter,

it was a matter of national public health.

Hugo could have had rabies,

and nobody would have found out about it,

and what is worrying is Hugo is only one of hundreds of puppies like this.

Meg comes across plenty of illegally imported puppies who are not quite what they seem.

We see a lot of these illegally imported puppies.

In some of the breeds that we've had here,

we've had Bulldogs, French Bulldogs,

Pugs, Beagles, St Bernards.

It's just amazing, the different breeds that have come in.

And these are all illegal.

In fact, thousands of puppies with fake identities

are being trafficked into Britain each year.

Under the Pet Travel Scheme, puppies are implanted with microchips,

which show where the puppy comes from.

The chip number matches the number in the puppy passport.

That shows how old the dog is, and what jabs it's had.

Puppies have to be at least 15 weeks old to enter Britain.

Any younger, and their rabies vaccines are ineffective.

But the fakers know that younger, cute puppies can be worth thousands more than older dogs.

They've found a way to smuggle underage puppies into the country,

cutting costs by not having been vaccinated.

And that's what happened to Hugo.

The microchip was taken out of a six-month-old puppy,

and then implanted into Hugo,

making it a fake identity microchip and Hugo's a fake.

In Hugo's case, the fakers gave him the microchip of a six-month-old dog,

to circumvent the system, and get the young pup into the country.

The Dogs Trust is the UK's largest dog welfare charity.

They're so concerned about the trafficking of puppies with fake identities,

that they sent investigators to Eastern Europe

to secretly film illegal breeders

preparing puppies with microchips, ready for export.

Many of the dogs destined for trafficking were being held in

appalling conditions before embarking on their arduous journey to be sold.

Paula Boyden is a qualified vet

and veterinary director of the Dogs Trust.

She's worried about the routine switching of microchips.

So this is a microchip.

You can see it's a little bigger than a grain of rice

and it's amazing that something this small is actually leading

onto the forgery of all of this information.

It's worrying the whole microchip situation,

which is a means to try and identify individuals,

again, is being totally abused.

Paula showed us some undercover footage of an illegal puppy breeder.

What we've got here is one of our Hungarian breeders that was

actually implanting a puppy with a microchip.

But do these illegal breeders know what they're doing?

DOG YELPS

The puppy is certainly in some distress while she's doing that.

Microchip implantations should only be done by a qualified vet

but illegal breeders like this are prepared to teach other DIY breeders

or, in this case, undercover investigators how to do it...

If the price is right.

We were given instructions of how to implant the microchip.

Now from a veterinary surgeon's perspective,

that's incredibly worrying.

If we're implanting the microchip in-between the shoulder blades

at the back of the next too deep,

you're straight into the spinal canal and the implications of that, so...

It's not easy and in particular if you're dealing with a small puppy,

perhaps one that's wriggling,

very easily in untrained hands could cause significant damage.

By swapping microchips from dog to dog, illegal breeders

aren't just changing the ages of trafficked puppies,

they're faking where they come from to make them more desirable.

Microchips do seem to be a bit of a commodity.

We came across one breeder who was quite happy to insert

an Hungarian chip but for a premium they would insert either

an Irish or a German microchip.

DOGS BARK

Irish or German registered microchips are more highly prized than

those from Eastern Europe as buyers often assume Irish or German puppies

are in better condition, with a better lineage.

By swapping microchips around,

this puppy identity faker is making a killing.

This one individual's responsible for almost 1,000 puppies

a year coming into the UK.

An individual bringing five puppies a week into the UK,

could easily be making in excess of £100,000 per year.

Paula simulated how to fake a puppy's identity with a helping

paw from lurcher puppy, Twirl.

So this is our fake passport.

We've already the certification for rabies

vaccination, for tapeworm treatment.

This is the microchip that relates to this passport.

All I need to do would be to go between

Twirl's shoulder blades,

pinch her skin, implant the microchip

and then Twirl has a completely new identity.

And there's a risk of disease to the British public from trafficked

puppies that haven't have their vaccinations.

A worry disease is a tapeworm called Echinococcus.

Now again this is zoonotic, it can affect you and I.

It really is quite a nasty disease.

The tapeworm will insist in organs, such as the liver, which will

significantly affect an individual's quality of life and their lifespan.

Echinococcus is already kicking at the shores of France

and again it's not a disease that we want to have in the country.

Some diseases have already reached our shores.

There was an outbreak of distemper in the UK last year,

which we haven't seen for years.

That was traced back to puppies coming into the UK from Eastern Europe.

There's a massive welfare impact for the puppies involved,

let alone the sorts of journeys they're undertaking,

40 hours by road to get to the UK

and the conditions they're bred in, as well.

Back at the kennels, it's a big day for Sharon.

-Hiya, Meg.

-The big day's come.

-I know, I can't wait!

She's about to be reunited with puppy Hugo after a five-week wait.

Hugo!

Hello, baby.

Hello.

Hello, gorgeous.

Don't you smell gorgeous. Have you had a bath?

When you think of all the problems

-and all the upset and it's caused by that little, tiny thing.

-Yeah.

-It's just unbelievable, isn't it?

-Definitely.

We can now register him officially with Petlogs,

so then he's now registered to me and will be our dog forever.

-And he's not a fake any more.

-And he's no longer a fake.

I can't wait to get him home now.

This is what makes it all worthwhile when they are reunited.

It's just a shame they've had to go through so much

to get their baby back.

Male grooming is booming.

Over 160 million quid is spent every year on the bestselling

brand of razor alone, all in the pursuit of a smoother,

closer cut-free shave but if you were spending your money on these,

you'd be in trouble

because you've just had a close shave with the fakers.

Gillette razors are one of Britain's biggest and best selling

brands of disposable, wet razor.

Since they hit our shelves in 1980...

# ..the best a man can get... #

100 million Gillette blades are now sold each year in Britain.

Made for men but also borrowed by wives, girlfriends and daughters,

Mach blades are amongst the country's most shop-lifted items.

They don't come cheap, they're around £10 for a pack of four.

And the fakers want a slice of the profits...

..as lifelong wet shaver Andy Green discovered.

I do spend a lot of money on blades.

I always try to buy the latest blade innovation, if you like.

One day Andy received an e-mail from an established online retailer

offering him nine Gillette Mach 3 blades, with a razor handle,

for 15 quid.

It was a few pounds less than he'd expected to pay on the high street.

So Andy bought them.

When the blades arrived the packaging looked fine.

I had no cause to assume that there was anything wrong with them.

The company I bought them from,

I've bought from before and have been very happy with my purchases.

Andy didn't give the razor blades a second thought

until the morning of his next shave.

So I opened the packet, put the fresh blade in the handle.

I lathered my face

and I started to shave.

But...there was a catch.

I noticed immediately it was tugging and it was tearing at my skin,

at my hairs and I just had to stop immediately.

I knew there was something wrong.

The blades weren't cutting it.

When you are having your hairs tugged,

rather than cut out of your face, it is quite a painful experience.

The feel of the blades I was using was really uncomfortable.

Compare that to the blade I was used to

and the blade I was expecting, which gives a nice, smooth,

lubricated cut, this was nothing like that.

Andy's not wet behind the ears.

Years of shaving told him something just wasn't right.

My feelings were one of anger, having been sold blades that

weren't fit for purpose and they could quite easily have cut me.

There was only one thing for it, Andy sent the razor blades

to Procter and Gamble, who manufacture Gillette razor blades.

They stated that these razor blades were, indeed, fake.

I was really angry.

I'm quite shocked that these fake razor blades are being sold online.

They were a bit cheaper than retail but not enough to make me

think they were dodgy or fake.

Fake Britain wanted to know what a shaving expert would

make of the fake razor blades that Andy bought.

We took some identical fake blades to Parsa Rad,

whose shaving skills are a cut above those of the average male groomer.

He's been crowned Britain's Fastest Wet Shaver.

He can shave a man in under a minute.

Parsa uses only the sharpest, genuine blades.

About the fakes, he's pretty blunt.

It's just been completely split in two

and the blades are uneven, as well.

They're going to catch the skin and strip the skin off.

So...

We shall see.

And Fake Britain did want to see.

So we asked Parsa to put the fake razor blades to the test,

alongside the real ones with a bit of help from our beardy assistant.

The right side of our brave subject's face will be shaved with

a genuine blade and the left side with the fake.

First up, Parsa gets to grips with the genuine razor blade.

It's very smooth and you can see the result how it's taking all

the beard off.

It's without any damage to the skin.

What about the fake?

I have to be very, very careful and gentle. It's already pulling.

You can see that they're not shaving everything off.

It's an immediate fail for this fake blade.

It's a grazer, not a razor.

It's not even shaving.

If I'm going to push it from here, the client will start jumping.

You can see that's a very big difference.

Even when I'm stretching the skin, it just leaves the beard behind.

The quality of the shave on this side,

it's a very huge difference to the other side.

Parsa is left having to tidy up Fake Britain's rather patchy

researcher with his own cut-throat razor.

I would definitely not recommend these to use at home

because they're quite dangerous.

Fake Britain wanted to find out more about the international trade in fake

razor blades so we spoke to Francis Chalk from Bristol Trading Standards.

He's been leading an investigation into a woman called Jocelyn Hunter

and one of the country's largest fake razor blades cases.

What Jocelyn Hunter was doing was acting as the middleman,

or go-between, between the factories in China

and the eventual customers in Europe, such as other retailers

in places like Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland

and it was seen as a lot easier to get goods into the UK first

and then export them out into Europe,

rather than send them from China directly into Europe.

But Francis' team was onto Hunter.

They intercepted a shipment of fake razor blades

at Coventry Postal Hub,

which led them to a suburban street in Wiltshire.

We were surprised by the sheer volume of fake razor blades

that were basically being controlled from one small house in Swindon

and exported into Europe.

The kind of quantity that Jocelyn was handling

can be seen around me here. We've got 46 parcels here

and there's one e-mail which talks about almost 200,000 boxes

which we conservatively have estimated a value of £2.5 million.

What Jocelyn was doing was sending out up to £2.5 million

of fake razor blades into Europe.

It was one of the largest seizures of fake razor blades

ever made in the UK.

And Hunter had devised a clever system to cover up her

import/export business.

The boxes themselves were addressed to the name of the eventual

customer in Europe and the address used was the address in Swindon

of a friend, or family member.

There were five or six in total and Jocelyn seemed

to be paying them £5 for each box they received.

It wasn't just the scale of the operation that was impressive.

The quality of the packaging of the fake blades was like nothing

Trading Standards had even seen before.

So this is a fake set of blades in my right hand.

In my left hand I've got a genuine set of blades.

When you look at the packaging, it's very difficult to tell them apart.

And if you saw that in isolation, you would never know that was fake.

And the faker's attention to detail continued beneath the packaging.

I've got the fake blades in my right hand.

Here I've got the genuine blades.

The quality of these fakes is very, very good.

It does really take an expert to tell them apart.

To the untrained eye, you'd never be able to tell

the difference between them and the real thing.

You do have to be almost impressed that they are such good copies.

Hunter was shipping not only fake Gillette Fusion blades

but also Mach 3 blades.

No-one knows how many might have fallen into the hands

of British consumers.

Trading Standards finally had enough evidence to arrest and charge Hunter.

Francis Chalk was at court for the final verdict.

I've just come from Swindon Crown Court where Jocelyn Hunter

has been sentenced to 15 months for selling fake razor blades.

It really does reflect the gravity of the offences that she was

involved in, selling these fake products that could

potentially be dangerous and also insanitary.

These fake razor blades were seized before they could do any damage.

But Fake Britain wanted to find out how easy it might be to buy others.

We bought 32 Gillette Fusion Power cartridges from an internet

seller for around £45.

A tempting bargain at around half the price of the high street.

We sent the blades to James Williams at Procter and Gamble for analysis.

He confirmed that the blades we bought were fake.

On the back of the cartridge,

there were a number of compression and pressure points

where we believe it was hand pressed versus the real Gillette razor blade,

which would be machine pressed. Something you'd never find on the real razor blade

because that impacts the quality of the shave.

There's only one way to see the real difference between

our fake blades and the genuine article.

Under 1,000 times magnification on an electron microscope,

the difference is stark.

What you see is the real Gillette razor blade here with a clean,

consistent and razor-sharp edge that's actually thinner than

a surgeon's scalpel, as opposed to on the counterfeit,

we see this, jagged, uneven edge which is going to give a very

poor shave, potentially unsafe shave.

Much more chance of nicks, cuts and effect on the skin

when using the shave.

I think when you see this razor blade,

people will be shocked at what they might be able to get hold of

if they buy a counterfeit product.

It looks dangerous and it is dangerous.

You wouldn't want to shave with this.

We sent our fake razor blades for independent testing.

The lab found traces of bacteria that they'd never expect

to find on a sealed packet of genuine razor blades.

Within our manufacturing facilities,

everything is 100% guaranteed in terms of in a sterile environment.

We cannot guarantee those same conditions

for the counterfeit products.

We don't know where they're made, the conditions in which they're made

and this is clearly an issue of consumer safety.

It's enough to make Andy think twice about where

he gets his razors from now.

If they contain bacteria and germs, and you cut yourself while shaving,

that would leave you open to infection.

Now I'm very wary about buying online

and I will only buy from the high street or supermarkets.

There are over 25 million cars on our roads and nearly all of them

are fitted with these - brake pads.

Without them, cars wouldn't be able to stop properly,

they're a life-saver, hidden away behind the wheels.

Most drivers probably don't give them a second thought

but think about this, what if the brake pads on your car were fake,

the consequences could be very serious indeed.

It's early morning and Simon Austin from Trading Standards is

leading his team on a joint operation with the police to arrest

a suspected fake brake pad seller.

This morning we're going to an address.

We've got evidence to suggest that brake pads are being sold.

Some of the brake pads are being sold as branded products.

They are advertised online as being for very various makes

and models of cars, like Ford Focus brake pads etc..

We believe that they are potentially unsafe as they're not marked

correctly and therefore we are interested in getting

hold of these and getting them off the market.

Fake brake pads can endanger the lives of motorists.

You need your car to be able to stop

and if the brake pads haven't been tested accordingly,

the worst outcome is that someone can have a serious accident.

The officers arrive at the address.

-Good morning. Is Mr

-BLEEP

-here?

We're from Trading Standards and we've got some police officers here.

Simon is told that the suspect is still in bed.

I'm going to have to speak to him.

If you can get him up for me that will be great.

A few minutes later there's still no sign of him.

The officers have no option but to go in.

It turns out the suspect is now in the shower.

Finally, Simon gets his man.

We're here because we've got reason to believe that

you are involved in the sale and supply of brake pads.

I'm going to have to get these officers to take you into custody

for today and we've got a warrant to search the premises.

The suspect is taken to the police station for questioning.

Now it's time to search the property for illegal brake pads.

Genuine, legal, brake pads should carry a laser etched

regulation 90 or R90 marking like this.

It's a European safety standard for brake pads covering key areas

like how they perform and how the packaging is marked up.

OK.

Shall we go and look in the garage?

Well, that's certainly where I would look.

Just a few.

Nothing.

That is not compliant.

That's a brake pad with no markings on it.

The brake pads that they find are really worrying.

Here we've got a blank box.

The requirements are that it should have a tamper evident seal over it

and some information on the side. This number is not sufficient.

If we open up the box...

Even though they are individually wrapped, there is

no markings which appear on the actual brake pad themselves.

So we believe these ones, potentially,

have not been tested and could be unsafe and dangerous.

Non-compliant brake pads might not have the stopping distance,

they might overheat and that's why we need to get them off the market.

There's a mixture of brake pads here

but not as many as the team expected.

They're wondering where the rest are being stored.

The officers have a lead as to where the other brake pads might be

so Steve Rycraft makes his way over to a second address.

My suspicion is that he's making more profit by selling

the product which isn't legitimate.

I suspect the products we'll find will be

mainly unmarked items.

Once in, Steve finds piles of suspect packages.

So these pallets here...

-These four pallets.

-These pallets here, everything here in a line.

It's a huge horde, hundreds of boxes,

exactly what Trading Standards have been looking for.

This is what we're interested in, these items here.

It's clear these brake pads are being sold on the internet

as the genuine item.

The listings are saying that these are Ford Focus brake pads

which would mislead a consumer into believing that they are produced by

the company and therefore would be safe and would be made

in accordance with the high standards that you would expect.

Obviously, these are clearly not produced by Ford.

Time to break the good news to the rest of the team

and figure out how to shift this load.

All of the brake pads here are of the ones we're looking for.

We're not going to get all of this in my vehicle.

This is what over one tonne of brake pads looks like.

61, 62, 63, 64, 65.

So 650 sets of brake pads.

Good.

Now it's time for some heavy lifting.

The brake pads will be loaded up

and later taken to a secure storage facility.

That's a really good result.

That's brake pads which are off the market which won't be put

into vehicles, which are unsafe then.

We're protecting the consumers by taking these off the market.

Fake brake pads previously seized by other Trading Standards in the UK,

such as these would be Volkswagen ones,

have been tested with worrying results.

Ian Featherstone is the technical manager

with brake pad manufacturers TMD.

The purpose of the test we're carrying out today

is to see if the stopping distance of the fake pads,

compared to the genuine equipment that should be fitted in these

parts, is significantly different.

The car will make three high-speed stops in quick succession.

The crucial stop being the third one when the pads have worn down.

What we're going to do,

is we're going to run 100km an hour down to zero at maximum

deceleration possible, which means that the driver will be

hitting the brake pedal with the maximum effort possible.

Then we will see the difference in the stopping

performance of the two materials.

The genuine brake pads are tested first.

They're the same ones used in millions of Volkswagen cars across the world.

The car performs two stops.

And then the crucial third one.

The onboard computer measures the exact stopping distance.

Ian gets the results for the genuine brake pads.

You can see that the first stop we had 41.9 metres.

Stop three we had 40.9 metres.

Effectively we've seen no change in the stopping power

between those three stops.

No change at all with the genuine material.

How will the performance of the fake brake pads compare?

They're fitted to the car which is then put through exactly

the same test.

Two preliminary stops at 100 kilometres an hour

and then the all-important third one.

The difference in braking distance between the real

and fake pads is clear to the naked eye

but the real proof is in the distances measured

by the onboard computer.

If you look at the fake product, tested on the same vehicle to the

same conditions, stop three with a genuine material

we had 40.9 metres.

Stop three with the fake material we had 55 metres.

Again, almost 15 metres of difference.

It's a massive difference.

When you consider 15 metres is approximately 40 some feet,

that's a queue lining up for a bus stop, or it's three cars.

It is a long way just in three applications.

The worst-case scenario with these pads is you could be

driving down the motorway at 70mph and go for your brakes

in an emergency situation and you wouldn't be able to stop.

First and foremost, it's safety critical

and there is a danger for life.

I think that's quite clear from what we've seen today.

Back with the team from Trading Standards,

the fake brake pads they've seized are currently undergoing testing.

The case continues.

That's all from Fake Britain.

Goodbye.