Episode 6 The Real Hustle

This is the most successful scam show of all time,

a hit in 45 countries around the world.

The Real Hustlers have stolen cars...

It's perfectly safe there.

..burgled houses...

..picked...

..switched...

-..and ditched.

-A tenner for the whole lot!

They've carried out close to 500 scams and stolen over £1 million

and now they're back for an 11th series.

Alex, Jess and Paul,

with new recruits, Holly and Jazz.

Their job? To expose the tricks of the criminals' trade so that you don't get scammed.

On tonight's show, the odds are stacked in Jess' favour.

A gin and tonic would be lovely. Thank you very much.

This mark gets left offline in a computer scam.

And guest hustler Gemma Atkinson plays fast and furious.

I am paying you to be here to make this work for me.

The hustlers have invited celebrity friends

to see if they can cut it as con artists.

But they'll have no clue what the scam is about and there are no dress rehearsals.

This is sink or swim.

Today's guest hustler is former Hollyoaks star and lads' mag favourite, Gemma Atkinson.

I'm hoping I've got the qualities to be a good hustler.

I've got the acting down. I just always feel bad for people.

I don't like lying to anybody. I like to be honest.

Today I have no clue what I'm doing.

I'm excited, I'm nervous, I'm curious.

Hopefully it won't be anything too dangerous.

Gemma's been dropped off at an iconic landmark, the Falkirk Wheel,

where Alex is waiting to give her a thorough briefing.

-Hello.

-Hello. Are you OK?

-I'm good. Come in.

This is my rather strange boat. Hi, I'm Alex.

-Nice to meet you.

-Have a seat.

-Thank you.

-You're probably wondering what we're doing today.

-Yes, very much.

-Today involves four or five high performance cars...

-Brilliant.

-..that we're going to get away with.

-We're going to pinch the cars?

It's going to be a bit like The Fast and the Furious.

We're going to be fast and you're going to get furious.

OK, that's fine. I can get furious.

And like with any heist, we need our secret weapon.

Our weapon's not so secret because we're actually sitting in it.

We're going to use this barge to get away with four very high performance vehicles.

This one? This little one?

This little one. And that massive wheel out there.

Come with me and I'll tell you all about it.

-This is interesting.

-It is! It's going to be fun.

Gemma's about to get involved in a real life game of Grand Theft Auto

in 'The Wheel Deal'.

The Falkirk Wheel is the world's only rotating boat lift,

connecting the Forth and Clyde canals to the Union Canal and the rest of the country.

The impressive scenery is the perfect backdrop for today's scam,

a fake commercial being filmed by a company called TRH Productions.

The ad's all about slick design so the team have arranged to hire a top of the range Ferrari for the shoot

and Alex and Jazz are in position to welcome the driver.

See where the coach is? If you pull in this car park, there's a guy who's part of that shoot.

Lovely car, by the way, mate.

That stonking motor's a Ferrari 360 Spider, worth a cool £100,000.

Alex is playing the commercial's producer.

That guy driving the Ferrari is the first mark.

-Hi. Ian.

-Nice to meet you. Thank you.

And here comes Gemma, playing the most difficult client in the history of advertising shoots.

Already, she's not looking too happy with that gorgeous sports car.

-Ian!

-I'm just coming.

-This isn't going to work.

Have a seat here for me.

Have a seat.

Alex is just about to get his first earful.

-I think it looks fine. We're going to have the shot here.

-No, Ian.

-We've got the beautiful view of this...

-Oh, great!

The picture you sent, the sun was beaming, the sky was blue.

-I can't change the weather.

-The weather can't change, but the shot can.

I arranged for you to get more than one car.

Is this the only car or can you get more?

No... I mean, we agreed on one car.

I am paying you to be here to make this work for me.

We need more than one car.

The strop immediately gets the mark's attention.

I'm paying you to do your job.

I don't know if I can get more cars here...

If you can't get more cars within three hours, it's finished. I'm not wasting any more time or money.

All right, erm...

What's the poor harassed producer going to do now?

Sorry about this.

Erm...

-I'll arrange it myself, Ian.

-It's all right. I'll handle it.

Do you think it would be possible at all, erm...

to get three more cars down here by 2:15pm?

Could you call your boss and find out whether that's possible?

We need the cars not up here because we're going to change the location.

We're going to put them down by the visitors' centre.

Believe it or not, it's what we agreed on.

-Would that be OK? Could you make a call and check for me?

-That's absolutely fine.

The car has come from a supercar hire company

and the mark goes off to ask his boss if any more cars are available.

They're looking for four top of the range sports models and they need them now.

Tell them to come after lunch, please, Ian.

I need to e-mail my people and tell them it's changing again.

We're going to get everything sorted.

Gemma's throwing herself into the role.

We don't need this car right now. You can go back.

Did you say you had a Lamborghini?

Yes, you said you had a Lamborghini. Yes.

Cue the commercial's director.

It's Paul, who's also just about to get an earful

-from his obnoxious client.

-It's perfect.

She's not happy.

-What's wrong?

-She wants more cars, which this gentleman...

Does she want me to switch the rain off?

How are you? Nice to meet you.

I'm going to confirm 100% we're going to get more than one car?

Yes, I think... Four, and they'll be here at 2:15pm.

-Definitely?

-What is she talking about?

She now wants four cars here at 2:15pm and I need to let you know about something else.

The location's changed as well. She wants to shoot down there.

Gemma starts laying into him.

I don't care how long it takes. It needs to look right!

It doesn't matter if it takes a long time to set up!

Sorry. Tricky client. She's quite feisty.

Thanks for arranging the other cars. You've saved my skin, actually.

The mark has saved Alex's bacon.

He's managed to organise four more cars to turn up later.

Alex and Jazz set up further down the road,

making room for those new cars...

Now we just wait for a growling noise.

..giving Gemma and Paul just enough time to set up a makeshift production office

in a room the team have hired for the afternoon.

Job done.

And, right on cue, the unmistakable growl of expensive sports car fills the air.

True to his word, the first driver has sent along four of his colleagues.

That's four brand new marks to con in four new motors.

First up, a shiny red Ferrari 430.

It's worth a cool £170,000 and is being driven by the first new mark.

Next up, a sleek black Lamborghini. Gemma will be pleased.

Costing over £170,000, its driver is our second mark.

-The sound of the engine is brilliant.

-ENGINE REVS

A souped-up Ford rally championship racing car worth £45,000.

The driver is our next mark.

And, finally, our fourth and final mark

is driving that Porsche Turbo 911, a snip at £120,000.

Together, this haul of cars is worth more than £500,000.

This is the biggest money heist the hustlers have ever tried to pull off.

Guys, can I ask you to follow me?

Alex is keen to get on with the scam but the safety conscious marks

make sure they lock up those prize motors before leaving the car park.

Right now, the hustlers have over £500,000 of cars in their sights

but they're all locked and the four drivers are keeping a very close eye on them.

How on earth are the hustlers going to pull off their biggest scam ever?

Coming up,

a boat trip these marks and Gemma won't forget in a hurry.

I'm going to be sick if I don't get off.

Plus the biggest getaway ever attempted on The Real Hustle.

When hustlers go out, they don't take money, they take prop bets.

The proposition bet has only one rule

and that's that the hustler always wins.

I've got a challenge for you. A nice, fun challenge.

You'll be able to relate to this. You know how men are quite bad at guessing sizes?

You two will agree, I'm sure. This one's for you.

I've got with me, I've got eleven 10p pieces.

Normal 10p pieces. I'm just going to stack them up like that.

In my other hand I've got some coins.

I've got a £2 coin, a 10p piece

5p piece, 2p piece, 50p and a 1p.

The challenge is, you need to pick the coin

from this line here that, on its side,

would be the same height as this stack of eleven 10p pieces.

If you can do that, I'll buy you a drink.

-If you can't, you buy me a drink. Is that a deal?

-It's a deal.

-Wicked.

Sounds simple enough. Jess' new friend needs to pick the coin that,

when standing on its side, will be the same height as a stack of eleven coins.

You look like you know the answer already which scares me a bit. Which one are you going for?

-Erm, the £2 coin.

-You think it's going to be the same height?

It's the biggest one.

OK, we'll put that on its side.

It's actually not. It's quite a lot bigger than the 10p pieces.

Not to worry. I am going to give you another go.

Which one do you think now?

-2p?

-Also quite big, that one. The second biggest one.

Let's have a little look.

That also is too high, I'm afraid. You still picked too big.

Third time lucky. I'll give you another go.

-Men are so bad at guessing sizes.

-I apologise.

You're thinking it's smaller than what it is.

OK, wrong... wrong combo.

-It has to be the 10p.

-If you'd have guessed this at the start,

you would actually have lost.

It's still too big.

-I'll put you out of your misery. Shall I show you which one it is?

-Please do.

-If I was to tell you it was the 1p, what would you say?

-No chance.

-Way too small.

-Yeah.

Let's have a little go.

It's actually the exact same height as the 10p pieces.

-You wouldn't have guessed that, would you?

-It's deceiving.

-You would have thought all the other ones apart from that.

-Yeah.

A gin and tonic would be lovely. Thank you very much.

This is a smart hotel in the centre of Edinburgh.

But this guy isn't checking in. He's here to buy a cut-price laptop.

That makes him the mark...

..in 'The Double Switch'.

The person selling the laptop is Rob Marks and he looks a lot like Paul.

Charlie, nice to meet you. Have a seat.

Someone else is coming as well. She'll be here in a second.

Just take care of everybody at the same time.

That mystery someone else is Jess.

She's looking more chavvy than normal but that's all part of the scam.

-Are you Rob?

-Yes.

-Sorry. Suzy.

-How are you?

-I'm all right, yeah.

-Have a seat.

My boyfriend can't find a place to park so he's waiting outside.

So dodgy-looking Jess has a dodgy bloke waiting for her outside.

So these are...my company gives these away to clients.

Basically, we have a whole bunch of them left over.

So they're £200 cash,

but this particular model is about £500 if you buy it in the shops.

It's a pretty good deal. Do you want to check it?

You probably should. I don't know if you want to or not.

-They're the same, aren't they?

-They're both exactly the same. Let me open it.

Paul explains that the laptops are leftover client gifts from his company.

The mark wants to check what's in the box and Paul's happy to oblige.

Sure enough, it's a brand new, high-spec laptop worth hundreds of pounds.

I have one just like it but it's about a year old.

-OK, I think that's all right.

-It's fine. They all work.

There's a warranty card in here. Just send that off.

You can do it online and it's covered for two years.

So, £200, please.

So the goods are kosher and the mark seems happy to pay.

Out comes the money.

Do you mind if I check it? It's not that I don't trust you.

Here you go.

Paul checks the cash and transfers it to a new envelope.

And that goes in his jacket pocket for safe keeping.

Would you mind, before I give you the money, can I show it to my boyfriend outside?

I don't know much about computers.

-Can he come in?

-No. We couldn't find a place to park.

Can I just take it out to him now and show him? I'll be two minutes.

-Can I bring it out to you?

-I'll just tell him.

Charlie, would you...?

Yes, absolutely.

Could you hold that for a second? I don't want to take cash out.

Paul clearly thinks Jess looks well dodgy.

He's unhappy about meeting some stranger in a car park

and asks the mark to keep hold of his cash just in case it turns out to be a trick.

After all, you can't be too careful these days.

The mark waits patiently for Paul to return.

Still no sign of Paul, but the mark's so happy with his purchase

he's even chatting on the phone about it with a friend.

A full half hour later and Paul's not back yet.

The mark's still chilling though.

He's got his laptop, he's looking after the cash. What could possibly go wrong?

Maybe he can surf the web to kill some time. Or can he?

So what's really going on?

Earlier, Jess timed her entrance perfectly

from her stakeout in the caff next-door.

Once Paul had the mark's cash,

he transferred the money into another envelope.

Jess distracted him with her cock and bull story about her boyfriend.

And Paul made the switch by replacing the envelope containing the mark's cash

with an identical one filled with bits of newspaper.

Paul then walked out with the real laptop, meeting Jess outside.

All they had to do was pop into a nearby cafe until everything had blown over.

-Is that pepperoni?

-No, I think it's just cheese.

That box looked convincing.

It really contained a pack of cheap printer paper.

But the mark still thought he had that envelope of cash that Paul left with him.

But after a quick peel inside, he couldn't believe his eyes.

Instead of crisp £20 notes, it was stuffed with newspaper.

The realisation that he'd been scammed

hits him like a slap in the face.

*BLEEP*

This all seems pretty legit.

The mark has seen a laptop coming out of its box

and naturally assumes that the other box is identical.

Whenever buying anything privately, be aware that con artists

are experts at gaining your trust and separating you from your money.

Always be vigilant

and remember that a deal may not be as fair as it first seems.

Earlier, the hustlers took delivery of over £500,000 worth of sleek supercars.

They've arranged for them to be here for a TV commercial they claim to be filming.

Guest hustler Gemma Atkinson is playing the role of the tantrum-prone client,

and producer Alex and assistant Jazz are wrangling the motors.

Right now, they're all safely locked up in the car park

and director Paul is just about to explain his artistic vision to the four marks

in 'The Wheel Deal Part Two'.

When it comes to the shot, all you need to do is drive on to the boardwalk,

but I want you to be staggered in a specific way.

We're going to decide on the positions now.

I'm not being picky but we've got all this stuff and it's going to take ages

-so if we get up there and it's not right...

-We've got plenty of time.

We've not got time to come back and shoot it because of the light.

Everyone's starting to look a bit uncomfortable with all the squabbling.

If it's just us who goes up and they don't like it, fine.

-I'm going to take these guys up...

-Can I come as well?

-Absolutely.

The marks are being taken on a quick trip up on the wheel

so that Paul can explain the shot he's planning

and show them where he'll need the cars to be positioned on the ground.

Control-freak client Gemma is insisting she's coming too.

-I'll see you at the boat, yeah?

-Yeah. Thank you.

So can I have your keys because I need a camera in a couple of these?

The marks are still holding the keys to the motors but, as director Paul explains,

he wants to rig some cameras inside the cars so needs them open.

So here comes producer Alex with his assistant Jazz to get them.

-Cameras are on Park Road.

-All right.

Can I get the keys from you guys?

Got 'em.

Alex assures the drivers he's looking after those prize wheels,

-but they're not that bothered.

-I'll be with the cars at all times.

After all, they're just going to be on the boat for a short trip

and they can easily keep an eye on the cars on the way.

But this is a boat trip with a difference. The barge starts off in an enclosed gondola,

which lifts it 35 metres into the air, hoisted by that massive wheel.

Once they get going, the marks will get a bird's eye view of the car park.

-How long does it take because...?

-Are you all right?

They've only just set off but grumpy client Gemma seems to be uncomfortable already.

This is where I want the first car to come in. The first car we'll see.

Director Paul gamely explains what he needs the drivers to do during the shoot.

Gemma's still not looking happy.

The wheel's going higher and higher and she's going greener and greener.

I want to jump off the thing. I need a bathroom.

It just goes down here, turns around and comes back.

It's very, very gentle.

She really is looking sick as a parrot.

Can Paul arrange an emergency stop?

Is it possible for the lady that's with us to get off?

I'm going to be sick if I don't get off.

It has to be down there. I'm sorry.

I'll stay with you. It's all right. Just...

I feel so sick.

All right. Just take it easy.

I'm going to take her off and take her down to the thing and meet you on the other side.

It's not a scheduled stopping point but they manage to negotiate an early exit.

Paul explains to the marks that for health and safety reasons they'll have to stay put.

I'll be back in ten minutes.

What do you want to eat tonight? What's good?

Any Indian food?

Shut up talking about food.

Paul promises to come back once he's deposited Gemma safely back on dry land.

Guys, I'll see you in ten minutes, all right?

All right. Thank you.

And she's off, swiftly followed by director Paul who puts a caring arm around her shoulder.

The marks seem less sympathetic.

I'm going to send you down the hill a little bit so they can watch me.

Just keep on going down there.

But here's the thing, that was the last chance to get off this boat.

The marks are now going for the scenic tour whether they like it or not.

They're stuck on that boat for the next 25 minutes.

Once inside the tunnel, the marks can no longer see the cars

and Jazz cues the final part of the scam.

They've all entered the tunnel on the boat.

We're ready to cue the van now. Get the van down here now.

With the marks now out of sight, it's safe for Paul to catch up with Gemma.

Now that's one heck of a getaway vehicle,

specially hired for the day by the hustlers.

Gemma and Paul join Alex and Jazz for their first glimpse of all those cars.

If I had to pick one, it would be the Porsche, I think.

-How much time have we got?

-Probably about 20 minutes.

20 minutes is not a lot of time to get the cars on to the transporter

before the marks complete their journey.

Blissfully unaware that anything untoward is going on,

the marks are quite literally in the dark, with no clue that their prize motors

are being nicked from right under their noses.

One by one, the cars are loaded on to the transporter.

Meanwhile, the marks have reached the halfway point

and the barge has turned around to make its return trip through the tunnel.

The hustlers better get a move on.

This operation has to be done quickly, slickly and safely

as it's only a matter of time before the marks come out of that tunnel

and will be able to see exactly what the hustlers have been up to.

The barge finally comes back out of the tunnel.

There's no sign of director Paul and what on earth is going on in the car park?

This wasn't in the briefing. The marks can see the supercars being loaded on to the transporter

and they certainly didn't give permission for that.

The marks can now see in plain sight

the cars are no longer where they left them.

-How was that boat ride?

-Beautiful.

I felt sick. It was terrible for me.

But they're still on the boat. Unable to jump ship, they're completely helpless...

..leaving then hustlers free to drive away

with the biggest money-maker they've ever managed to pull off.

Well done, guys.

TRH Productions seem to have closed for the day

and the hustlers have scarpered, leaving the marks with a very long bus ride home.

We just went along with what we thought was a professional package.

It seemed legit.

-It's something you think will never happen to you.

-It makes your blood boil.

On the getaway with Paul, I felt great.

It was relief more than anything.

I just said, "We've done it", and we did a high five.

I kept saying, "Can they see us? Can they still see us?"

It was just utter relief that it worked and everything was all right.

If we'd done this in real life, I'd have to give them back.

I'd feel absolutely rotten.

This is a complicated and elaborate professional scam

where criminals could potentially get away with £500,000 worth

of luxury motorcars.

The message here is, never part with keys to a luxury vehicle or your home or any other kind of goods

unless you're completely confident of who you're dealing with.

These people were strangers.

If you want to know more about how this show is made, go to:

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