Barely Legal Grafters

This programme contains strong language.

Anyone need tickets? I'll buy any spare ones.

Britain's black market is booming.

I'm doing a raid on the near Continent tomorrow.

Do you need any for this next week?

It makes up an incredible 10% of our economy.

How much for the Superdry T-shirt?

-They're £10 each, sir.

-£10, all right.

These are some of the canniest businessmen in the country.

£2.95, if I can open this bag.

This Paloma Faith crowd, though,

there'll be a lot of them tonight that don't get out much.

Supplying champagne tastes on lemonade budgets.

If you go to Debenhams and John Lewis,

it's £106 for the real thing.

But up against this army of entrepreneurs are thousands

of trading standards officers and private detectives.

There's good and there's bad.

We catch bad guys and we protect the good guys.

-Hollow wall, here.

-KNOCKING ON WALL

-Have you got a spare ticket?

-Yeah.

-Wonderful.

For three months, we follow the men and women of the black market,

as they graft for a living and try to evade the prying eyes of the law...

Unbelievable.

I want to get through there without being stopped,

that's my major consideration.

Suspicion of burglary, possession of drugs, possession of firearms.

I mean, they come out with any excuse to stop you.

-Excuse me.

-Yes?

-Is it all right if I have a quiet word with you?

They know what they're doing,

and I think they know what they're doing is wrong.

They're coming down the road now. Oh, here we come.

..and ask in these hard times,

don't we all want to make a bit on the side?

HE LAUGHS

This is the black market. Here it is.

Middle-class people doing this.

My name is Philip Cooper,

otherwise known as Slim.

I'll buy any spare tickets for today, or other games.

I've been in the business 35 years.

It's like Max Boyce, like being back in the '70s.

Ticket tout, ticket broker, call me as you wish.

I want to make it a reception, down the mines.

Slim has some simple rules -

buy for as little as you can...

Go on, I'll have that off you.

Cos it's only one on its own, sir, that's the problem.

Not worth anything after kick-off, are they?

There you go, there's your 50. All right, sir?

..sell for as much as possible...

Look, they're £85. I'll charge you 50 quid each, all right?

I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll take £150 for the two.

Row 13, row 13, have a wonderful time, all right?

..avoid the police...

First two spins I have, the Old Bill never got on to me.

..and if anyone asks how much you've made, you just say...

That's between me and my accountant.

Between me and my accountant.

And sometimes my barrister.

One of the world's biggest sporting events kicks off

shortly here in the UK, when England take on Fiji

in the opening match of the Rugby World Cup.

You sound very, very nervous.

Please, it's not like going to a prostitute for the first time, sir.

The Rugby World Cup has come to the UK.

The next two months will make or break Slim's year.

The Rugby World Cup in 1999 was phenomenal for us.

How much money did you make?

I can tell you that now

cos, legally, after six years, all the books have been destroyed!

A fucking lot.

Yeah, a lot.

You're looking at 140 grand.

Now the way he drums up business is to post adverts on the internet.

"We're attending the match ourselves, so it will be

"no trouble at all to meet you on your arrival with your ticket.

"Many thanks, Albert."

Slim's actual name is Philip.

I said Albert's got a particularly trusting side to it, hasn't it?

"Oh, bless him, an old boy," you know?

It's particularly good for boy bands.

It's like, "I'm taking my grand daughter."

They've got this picture of you taking the grandkids.

"Oh, yeah, he's going to turn up, he's an old geezer,

-"you can trust him," you know?

-HE LAUGHS

Afternoon, can I help?

Afternoon, can I help?

Can I help?

So far, Slim has over 50 orders for the opening game.

But no tickets.

He doesn't buy until he sells.

Not that his customers know that.

Whereabouts are they? They're fantastic seats, yeah.

You won't believe where you're sitting.

You'll enjoy yourselves there. All right?

Neither do they know he's working from his flat in Birmingham.

At the moment, I'm in Newcastle at the moment.

I'm an ambulance driver, you see,

and we can't answer phones while we're driving.

It's merely sales.

It's a play on words, innit? It's not really telling untruths.

We're not out to, you know, rob anyone,

that's the most important thing.

Slim has been selling tickets for the nation's biggest concerts,

theatres and sporting events for three decades.

'How did I become a ticket tout?

'When I was 14, 15 years of age,

'I'd just nip in the box office and buy a few tickets

'because the touts can't buy themselves,

'cos they're known at the box office, you know?'

-MOBILE RINGS

-'It evolves from there, you know.'

Good afternoon, can I help?

'Careers lessons probably done it for me, you know.'

Speaking, how can I help?

'Tracey's going to be a nurse and David's going to be a fireman,'

and I looked at the teacher and I thought, "Do you know what?

"You're on £40 a week. I got more at West Ham on Saturday afternoon."

I think that made my mind up for me.

Slim has travelled down to Twickenham.

It's only hours before the Rugby World Cup kicks off.

There are thousands of potential customers.

But also, lots of touts.

Trading in their own slang is good for talking business,

without the police, or customers keeping up.

Give us a cockle, here you are.

Got the oddie? Have you got an oddie?

No, no, not a bottle.

-What do you want? Oddie?

-Yeah.

You know these rugby Richards, right?

-Very rarely see the eck here, do you?

-No.

He's asked him. Fucking, a monkey!

Slim has internet orders worth five grand,

but despite all the haggling, still no actual tickets.

It's five-and-twenty past three

and we said we'd serve them at four o'clock,

so we've got 35 minutes to...get about 50 tickets.

If he's going to make money, he needs to buy...quick.

I'll buy any spare tickets for today or other games.

Buy any spare tickets.

I'll buy any spare tickets for today or other games.

Who's got tickets they wish to sell?

I'll buy any extra tickets for any days.

There are tickets are out there,

but the people selling are demanding huge prices.

No, I can't do one-and-a-half, mate.

They're burning a hole in your kick, ain't they, mate?

Who's got tickets they wish to sell?

I'll buy any extra tickets for any days.

Fuck all happening here.

It don't look good, does it?

Kick-off is getting closer

and the punters who made orders with Albert are getting nervous.

Where's my tickets? Good afternoon, can I help?

Yeah, we're just coming down the M40 now.

I'm going to be honest with you, miss.

Another gentleman phoned up this morning

and I've been out all day and I haven't got internet access.

Go on, then, mate.

The game has started.

Fuck it!

None of the customers that answered Albert's ad have been served.

Slim's big pay day has not materialised.

It's almost like taking crack cocaine.

One minute, bang, you have a great day and, equally,

you can have an absolutely disastrous days.

But Slim is not one to give up.

It's the first game, so you don't take it on one match,

you'll take it on the whole of the tournament.

Six weeks' time, we're going to get a few quid out of it.

15 years ago, Mark used to live the high life as an ad exec in London.

This Earl Grey just takes a little bit more to defuse

than your regular builder's tea.

But he left it all behind.

Now saving money is a way of life.

Come and have a look at this.

When it was new, £1,200. Bought that for £32.

This is a very big jar of oregano, 2.99 euros for that amount.

Last you years. These babies, free. Rosehip jam.

These three pans, boot sale, never used. Two quid.

Pallet table, 20 quid to do.

The fish tank itself was ten quid from the tip shop.

I think the fish were the most expensive part about it.

Photoelectric cells fitted six weeks ago.

We're net exporters of electricity.

If we can see an opportunity to make money, we'll take it.

And it just... Oh, and tobacco, obviously.

I don't call myself a smuggler.

I call myself a transporter of tobacco products.

Mark has been importing tobacco

and illegally selling it for the last five years.

He runs the operation from his back room.

You've got to know the people you're selling it to

because you've got to make sure they're not connected

to certain government agencies, etc.

No, they're not there.

People work.

Mark knows his clients well and provides a personal service.

You just have to hit them right at the right time.

They normally get down to about two packets

and start panicking because they think,

"God, I've got to go to the shop and it's 18 quid a go,"

whereas I can get it for £9.50, £10.

That's when they get quite panicky...

..to the point of almost hysterical.

PHONE RINGS

Hello?

All right, Stephen, how are you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing a raid on the near Continent tomorrow.

Do you need any for this next week?

I'll reserve you some.

This is the black market.

This is it. Here it is.

Middle-class people doing this.

Importing the cigarettes is not just about funding his own 60-a-day habit.

Do you know, they taste even better when they're cheaper.

If they were free, they'd be even greater!

It's also about principles.

You've got to pay taxes.

The country's got to run. I understand that.

But everything is just taxed.

When you've got savings in the bank,

they want a little bit on the interest.

They have rules and regulations for everything.

It's not just the taxman,

it's things like health and bloody safety.

There.

Small people have to get by as well as the big people.

We're just finding strategies that make our life easier

and less stressful.

And is that illegal?

Of course it is.

But tomorrow, he's making the round trip to Belgium to bring back

a consignment of contraband cigarettes.

Michelle, his girlfriend of six years, normally goes with him.

Before embarking on any trip,

they fill up the car with sunflower oil,

a cheaper, untaxed alternative to diesel.

It lowers your carbon emissions as well.

Done. There you go.

Do you worry about getting into trouble?

Well, it's not as if we're, like,

giant smugglers of tonnes of whatever.

It's just a couple of kilos of tobacco.

-Basically, we know all the people we sell it to.

-Yeah.

So, they're happy, we're happy.

Do you worry about Customs?

I don't like them!

Tonight, one of the biggest rugby matches

ever played in the south-west.

We're live at Sandy Park with history in the making

as the World Cup draws in fans from all over the world.

-Oh, you

-BLEEP!

It's the second week of the Rugby World Cup.

Slim has driven the 170 miles down to Exeter.

The helping hand today is a man called Teatime.

Don't ask me while we call him Teatime.

Teatime does not want to be identified.

Your back was always the best side of you anyway, wasn't it?

Who you work with depends on a number of things.

It might be that they are very close friends

that you might have grown up with.

It might be a geographical thing.

You could have been in prison together and formed a bond that way.

There's different reasons why.

You need some starters, don't you?

That is for purchasing tickets.

It's merely the tools of the trade, innit?

You could quite easily go to a World Cup final

or a European Cup final and you might have to have

20, 30, 40, £50,000 on you.

You can't start writing cheques out in the street, can you?

Would you take a cheque off a man like me?

Authorised vehicles, that's a bit of us, innit?

Slim and Teatime decide to park in the official car park.

-Hello, mate.

-Just dropping off?

-No merchandise security.

We've got to park up and collect our passes.

Without a pass, they pose as trading standards officers.

We've got to drive round and look out for these bootleggers.

You know what they're like, selling all these scarves and all that.

-All right.

-Fucking busybodies, these helpers!

All right, young man?

We can get out now.

Anyone got any spare tickets they wish to sell?

I'll buy any spare tickets.

I'll buy the extra tickets.

Who's got tickets they wish to sell?

Namibia versus Tonga might not be one of the glamour ties

but they think there's money to be made.

What you've got to try and do in this business

is work the numbers game.

Now, this ground holds, what, 12,000 people?

Hopefully, there's only going be two or maybe four, five workers

here at the most.

So if you work out the percentages,

that's better than going to Twickenham,

when there's probably 70 or 80 workers there

and it holds 70,000 people.

With few other touts, there's less competition,

but they're much more visible to security.

Selling tickets outside a ground is a breach of street trading law.

-Got busybodies, security, Old Bill.

-That geezer, was he a busybody?

Fuckin' hell.

Touts can be arrested

and their money confiscated under suspicion of money-laundering.

Buy any spare tickets.

Slim could lose the hundreds in his pocket.

Any extra tickets you want to sell, girls?

'It's very difficult because you need to draw attention to yourself

'to potential buyers and sellers.'

Any spare tickets you want to sell, miss?

Any extra tickets you want to sell, girls?

'If you're drawing the attention to those people, invariably you're

-'going to draw attention to yourself, to the authorities.'

-Has it sold out?

-Do 30?

-Not for one on its own, mate.

-Really?

-No.

They need to buy and deliver 18 tickets to fulfil their orders,

but it's not that straightforward.

-Excuse me.

-Yeah?

-Is it all right if I have a quiet word with you?

There's been a report of possible ticket touting, something like that,

-and you're matching the description that's been given to me.

-Yeah.

When a police officer approaches you, you obviously don't just

say, "Yeah, I'm a ticket tout, blah, blah, blah."

-Are you here to watch the game? Have you got tickets?

-I've got a ticket, yeah.

OK, that's all right.

'I mean, they come out with any excuse to stop you.'

You probably knew straightaway what this was about.

-We're trying to get to the bottom of it...

-Yeah.

Despite the police being suspicious,

it's selling tickets that's illegal, and Slim has only been caught buying.

-So you haven't got a problem with me buying tickets, no?

-No.

You're very kind.

Don't forget, most of the coppers are half my age, anyway!

So they're on the back foot straightaway!

Thanks for your civility, officers.

I'll go and buy some more tickets for myself.

-No worries. Good luck.

-Cheers.

Fucking...couldn't have worked out better, that one.

Slim and Teatime are on the radar now,

but it's not going to stop them working.

Keep away from me.

You haven't got a spare ticket you want to sell, have you, miss?

Give you £20. All right?

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

-Thank you, sir.

-You all right, boys and girls?

-Hello, there.

-Are you buying a ticket off of this...?

-Yeah, I've got one now.

The unlucky punter gets pulled for selling.

I feel sorry for that gentleman, cos, erm, you know,

he had a spare ticket.

Once more, Slim, as the buyer, is in the clear.

This gentleman's got a spare ticket. I could buy one off of him.

-Here you are, sir. Have you got a spare ticket?

-Yeah.

-Wonderful.

Whereabouts is it?

But again, the police are on him as he tries to make a deal.

You're not going to check this gentleman out and all, are you?

He's on holiday.

This time, he knows he's in the right.

Where are all...? I'd like to find a tout to buy the tickets off him.

-What, in Exeter?

-Yeah.

-Are you sure you're not a tout, sir?

-Yeah.

You seem to have a lot of spare tickets.

Oh, I'd keep your voice down in front of an officer, you know.

Could be bordering on corruption, here, you know?

International money-laundering and all sorts.

Cheers.

Don't worry, it's not that serious, otherwise we'd be both carted off.

Yeah.

Lovely.

Thank you. Cheers.

Thanks for your civility, Officer. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Keep them peeled, as Shaw Taylor used to say, for these ticket touts.

That was a close one, wasn't it?

Of course we're not, I got you out of that. Take your 20 and fuck off.

Despite the problems, Slim - or Albert,

as his customers know him - has picked up the 15 tickets.

All right, princess? Got two great seats there, look at that.

Category-A tickets, the best in the house. All right?

-You're Albert, are you?

-Yeah. Thank you ever so much.

-Hi, I'm Dave.

Hello, David. I wish my daughter treated me like this. All right?

Well, there was just a misunderstanding.

They thought I was a ticket tout, which...

You know, clearly, they haven't got any evidence, have they?

So, erm, we was all agreed it was a big misunderstanding,

but they're coming down the road now. Oh, here he comes.

They're coming down with security now!

A right rigmarole, weren't it?

You got your cap on?

Get me out of this piss hole.

I've got roasting chickens on today, two for a fiver.

Legs like Tina Turner, breasts like Dolly Parton.

Britain has got a big counterfeit problem.

There are estimates that the UK economy loses 13 million a year

in the sale of fakes.

That one there, smells like a Gucci.

I've only had that in a week.

My name's Eric, Eric Bert, and my wife...

Mary Bert.

We're both market traders.

Eric and I have always worked together from the day we met.

35, 36 years, we have worked together every day.

We make a good partnership because 95% of the time,

Eric does as he's told.

What happens the other 5%?

I don't speak to him.

Eric and Mary have one of the most popular stalls on Widnes Market,

supplying perfumes to a loyal clientele.

But they, too, are trading on the very edge of the law.

A smell-alike is a perfume or an aftershave

manufactured to have a similar fragrance to the brand.

£2.95. If I can open this bag, I'll pack it in for you.

Produced in British factories,

their tribute scents smell almost identical to well-known brands.

Yeah, my daughter actually...

I can't think of the brand she wears,

which she paid £70 for, but she comes here

and she buys this stuff, what she says is for work, and it's as good.

I don't understand the women's thing, but they say it's for work.

Yes, I'm probably modelling some now.

I'm wearing...I think it's Silver something or other.

Silver Mist, I think it's called.

It's a profitable business but it has risks.

If trading standards think they are overpromising,

they can shut them down and take them to court.

"If you like Poison, you might like this."

We're not saying you WILL like it. You MIGHT like it.

It would be illegal if we said it was a copy of a Calvin Klein

or a copy of a Poison.

It's not illegal because it's not a copy, it's a smell-alike.

The worst that can happen is you make the stall smell nice.

One of the reasons smell-alikes

are so much cheaper is, they don't spend money on expensive advertising.

"A magic love potion of sweet temptation..."

I ought to say "that".

"..that leaves a trail of embracing sensuality."

Now, what that means, I've no idea.

Yeah, I mean, that's one I actually made up myself.

"A rock'n'roll fragrance for a tough guy with a tender heart."

HE LAUGHS

That's enough to make you want to buy it!

It's not labels alone that attract the customers.

Their scents can be 95% cheaper than the perfumes they're imitating.

This one, if you go to Debenhams and John Lewis,

is £106 for the real thing.

-And how much is that?

-They're a fiver.

But not everyone loves their bargain prices.

If the perfume companies could shut us down, legally,

they would do it in a heartbeat.

Graham represents some of the UK's biggest brands.

Is there a moral grey area?

No.

HE LAUGHS

Sorry, mate! I had to do that.

Graham Thomas Mogg. 31 years in the police

and four-and-a-half years running my own investigations company.

You actually think I'm a complex character,

but I'm not, I'm black and white. There's good and there's bad.

Bad is evil. We catch bad guys and we protect the good guys.

That's life. That's easy.

But all this fluffy stuff in the middle, of people feeling

warm and cosy and carrying a Louis Vuitton handbag, well,

excuse my French, but bollocks, you know. It's like...

It's black and white, bad and good.

Today, Graham and his colleague Mike are going

undercover on a surveillance mission.

-When does mist become fog and fog become mist?

-Fantastic.

-That's one for an academic, that.

-It is one for an academic, yes.

'In the '80s and '90s, it was all CDs, DVDs.

'21st-century, it's all high-value designer goods.

'Clothing, the footwear, handbags, belts, accessories,

'makeup, jewellery.'

They've been hired by several fashion labels to trap people selling fakes.

They're on their way to one of the most-renowned markets in England.

Monday to Saturday, Bristol fruit market is a legitimate market,

selling fruit. Renowned nationally and internationally.

On Sunday, it turns into a counterfeit market,

which has got the same reputation.

People in the past have had bus tours to Bristol fruit market

on a Sunday just to buy the counterfeits.

Any sign of filming and the market would empty within minutes.

So Mike is wearing a disguise and a hidden camera.

Mike is the type of person that blends into most places,

which is what you need to be to do this type of covert work.

Mike will be doing the buying whilst Graham will be watching his back.

Markets can be a dangerous place for investigators.

In the past, detectives have been chased out by stallholders.

Some are now known to employ security to keep them out.

Mike sees a sea of suspiciously cheap trainers.

Graham provides cover as he goes to make a buy.

Got any children's sizes?

Have you got anything like a girl's pink or something?

-Or something girly?

-Over there.

-That's not too bad. Are they £30 as well?

-Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir.

Two stalls along, they notice a hidden room.

Once Graham is in position, Mike heads behind the curtain.

Hiya.

The room is full of what appears to be big-name brand clothes.

-You all right?

-How much for the Superdry T-shirt?

-They're £10 each.

There you are. I'll have one of them, please, mate.

It's 60% less than the real thing would cost.

-How much are they, mate?

-£10.

-They're £10 as well.

-Small, yeah?

Marvellous.

-Thank you.

-Thank you.

But outside, Graham thinks their cover might have been blown

by two of the security guards.

-Gentlemen, thank you.

-Thank you.

Fearing hostility, the moment Mike is out, they make their escape.

Once they are a safe distance, they check their purchases.

If they can confirm the items are fake,

they will hand the case to trading standards.

Previous investigations have led to hundreds of arrests.

-Do you feel anything for them?

-No.

No.

They know what they're doing, they know what they're buying,

they know what they're selling.

They've chosen to do that as a career.

So, you know, if they get caught, they know it's illegal,

they know the consequences.

It's one of the hazards of the job.

ALARM BLEEPS

Right.

CAT MEOWS

Tickets, passport, Lifesavers...

-CAT MEOWS

-Bye, cat, be a good girl.

Right, that's it. Bye!

INDISTINCT COMMENT

I shall. Love you. Bye!

Mark runs the gauntlet of customs every month as he makes

the round trip to Belgium to buy cigarettes.

Jesus Christ! You're in a hurry, mate. Fuck's sake!

Desperate to get to work to please the boss

and they're prepared to kill themselves

and probably me at the same time.

Ten years ago, Mark left behind his nine-to-five.

Used to work in advertising. Very successful.

I guess, in a good year, £100,000 a year.

Five-bedroom house, Victorian place, Aga in the kitchen...

Had a Porsche.

A Ferrari, which is a dreadful thing.

You just think there's more to life than that.

The black market has helped fund a new-found freedom.

I'm much more content now because I can do things

when I want to do things.

I've been able to discover that...

..time is the most precious thing all of us have got, as human beings.

And yet most of us don't seem to understand that.

Mark takes the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk.

From there, it's a short drive to the low-cost cigarettes of Belgium.

On the Richter scale of lawlessness,

it registers about 0.1, which is not even an earthquake.

I mean, you can't stereotype it.

It's all walks of life that do it, from the richest to the poorest.

I feel I'm taking some back from what the government has

taken from us for decades.

That's why I do it. It puts me back in control a bit.

That's how I view it. That's how I rationalise the whole thing.

Now, if people take a dim view of that, that's their business.

But if you want to make a few bob, you could do what I do!

That means getting off your backside and getting it done.

Like anything else in life.

It's estimated that almost 20% of cigarettes in the UK

are illegally imported.

Obviously, it's a free world but, well, we know smoking kills.

My dad was 51 when he died.

It was a narrowing of the arteries.

You know, had he been a non-smoker then he might not have died.

Lee is a trading standards officer on the frontline in the battle

against illicit tobacco.

It's a very quickly evolving market

and I think if you're not careful, you can get caught on the back foot.

She focuses on newsagents selling cigarettes under the counter.

This is London Road in St Leonards.

This is one of our target roads, if you like.

There are multiple shops in this road where we've had several

prosecutions of the same premises.

The volume of shops shows the volume of the market, really.

If they weren't making money, they'd be closing down, wouldn't they?

Lee conducts sting operations to capture the shopkeepers

and the gangs that supply them.

Most smokers will say 20 Marlborough or 20 B&H or whatever, but

customers for the illegal tobacco tend to ask for just cigarettes,

though that phrase tends to open up the market as being

a customer for illegal tobacco.

What I like to try and do is take a £5 note,

so that if they say they've only got the full-priced tobacco,

I've then got the opportunity to say I don't have any more money.

They've heard rumours the shop is selling contraband cigarettes.

I don't enjoy test purchasing.

There's always a risk associated with going to a shop alone.

I may know that the person behind the counter has a record.

-Hiya.

-Hi.

Have you got any cheap cigarettes?

CASH REGISTER BEEPS

Thank you. Bye.

Well! Success!

It was £5, which is quite pricey,

because usually round here, we are paying £3.50.

I've never seen him before. I think these are probably duty evaded.

So they're not legal to sell in the UK.

I'm a bit more worried about the energy drink, 35p,

because that's probably going to kill me!

Lee now has enough evidence to raid the shop.

If they find more illegal cigarettes, they could prosecute.

It's the third week of the World Cup. Slim is at home in Birmingham,

and the morning headlines bring reports of a clampdown on touting.

Do I look like a Guardian reader?

"Swarms of touts have been spotted around stadiums." Blimey!

Should have been in fucking Exeter the other day -

there was only two of us

and we got driven mad! We was hardly swarming, was we?

It was them that was swarming around us!

Swarms of busybodies, all in their blue uniforms.

Here you are, they've admitted it themselves.

"Although reselling Rugby World Cup tickets is not in itself

"a criminal offence, the Metropolitan Police said six men

"were arrested at Twickenham under the Proceeds of Crime Act."

Well, how can you nick someone under the Proceeds of Crime Act

if a crime's not being committed?

I mean, what a lot of bollocks.

In over 30 years of touting professionally,

Slim has had hundreds of run-ins with the law.

I mean, they come out with any excuse to stop you.

Suspicion of burglary, shoplifting...

..possession of drugs, possession of firearms...

Oh, here we are - handling stolen goods. I remember that one.

In Norwich. And street trading!

If I kept all these stop-and-searches,

the thing would be up here.

"Forged tickets for the tour of Buckingham Palace."

I got a not-guilty on that one.

It doesn't have any impact on my thinking because, you know,

my thinking has just evolved over the last 35 years.

Just doing this, it's nothing more than disruption tactics for us.

You know, they're making our lives difficult.

# If you knew

# How much I love you... #

Working as a tout can take its toll on family.

The one constant in Slim's life has been his 84-year-old mum Doris.

As far as the police are concerned,

I only moved out about three months ago.

Well, it's always been my bail address, so...

-All right, Mum? How are you?

-I'm all right, thanks.

-KISS

-All right?

-All right?

-Yeah.

I think PG Tips has got a warrant out for this tea, hasn't it?

-Yeah!

-There ain't none in it!

Oh...

He was about 17 and somebody said, a very good friend said,

he would sell a fish to an Eskimo.

And they believed it, they needed it.

You put it right up to six.

-No, I want that!

-Oh, right.

-I'll leave you to it, then. You're in charge of the toast.

-Mm.

I help Gordon Ramsay out when he's busy.

You don't need to tell me how to use a toaster!

He was quite...

quite bright at school. He's always been good at numbers.

Yes, he's always been good at numbers. Always.

Slim hasn't always had to work on the streets.

In the '90s, he had an office-based ticket brokers

and lived with his young family.

I had a hugely successful phone business.

The trimmings of that lifestyle was very good.

Nice homes, nice holidays, nice motor vehicles, nice clothes. Um...

Really, anything you wanted.

At his peak, he had a business address in the heart of the West End.

He's always done well in business. I mean, Harley Street was very good.

But then he closed that down and you know the story of that, so...

In 2006, Slim sold hundreds of tickets for events at the new

Wembley Stadium.

But the opening of the stadium was delayed and he was left with

a cripplingly large number of tickets that nobody wanted.

At that moment in time, you just couldn't cope with it.

And in the end, I literally lent over the desk

and just pulled the wires out the wall and that was it.

And everything went quiet.

All I know is that he was going through a bit of a bad...

He had a nervous breakdown.

You know, basically, I didn't really do a lot of work for 24 months.

But took a lot longer to recover.

Slim lost his house and all of his savings.

It's probably only been the last two or three years that...

..things are getting back to somewhere near normality.

He could have just said, "I'm giving up and that's it,"

and gone and lived on the dole and sort of just lived, you know,

given up. But he didn't. He's carried on and carried on.

All right, Mum. Thanks for having us, all right?

Yeah, thank you for coming.

Eventually you say to yourself, "Hang on a minute,

"I've never had a job and this is all I know, really."

-See you later, Mum. Ta-ta.

-Bye-bye.

You've got to pick yourself up,

dust yourself down and put your nut back into the wind.

See you, Mum.

Bye!

I'm proud, very, very proud of what he's done. Um...

All his life I've been proud of him and I still am. Still am.

The sleepy Belgian town of Adinkerke is easy to miss.

But thanks to the weak euro, lower taxes

and its proximity to the UK, it has become a magnet to British shoppers.

It has one grocer, one sex shop and 24 tobacconists.

Hello.

My name is Mrs Susan Batt and this is my husband,

Mr Batt, and this is my shop, Big 7, in Adinkerke in Belgium.

Here we are today, here in Tobacco AD, in Adinkerke in Belgium.

The first village in Belgium.

We are here now already 15 years and we are selling tobacco to

the English people because it's a lot cheaper.

Er...

If you're a smoker, it's... It's positively nirvana-ish.

Only a matter of metres from the border with France,

the town has a long history of smuggling.

In the Second World War it was famed for the trade in bootleg butter.

Now, to discourage illegal smugglers,

shops limit how much tobacco they will sell.

But the determined know to shop around.

You can't stop people to go to different shops.

We can't see where they go. They are free. They can do what they want.

It's not a risk for us. We say, "You can take that."

If they go to other shops...

Yeah, that's their own risk, I think, yeah.

Mark, however, always buys from his favourite shop.

-Hey, Mike, how are you doing? Long time no see.

-Everything OK?

-Yeah, cool. How's the family?

-Good, good. How's the dog?

-Dog's good.

The dog says hello.

-Nice and busy here.

-Yeah.

The cigarettes he buys here retail at less than 50% of what

they cost in the UK.

He can make £4 profit for every patch of tobacco

he sells back home.

Oh, nice new bags, Mike. They're really good.

Right, what do I owe you?

Er...£620, please.

£620.

There are no official limits on how much people can bring back,

but if it's more than 800 cigarettes, or 1kg of tobacco,

customs are more likely to stop and investigate you.

Four, five...

-OK, see you next time See you later.

-Bye.

-Bye.

The greedier you get, the higher the risk of being caught.

And then, whatever that punishment is, you have to take it.

Whatever business you're in, keeping afloat can be hard.

Eric hasn't always run a stall.

He and Mary used to have a family business importing

top-of-the-range kitchen appliances.

One of these days, I'm going to sort this shed out.

That's going back a few years. We were turning over in those days...

1.5 million to 2 million.

We went to Barbados and, to be honest with you,

it was too hot for me.

I was a right miserable sod over there.

Yeah, it was OK. The trouble is, you never think it's going to end.

And then of course it does.

The business folded in 1993.

They were left with huge debts.

Eric's one luxury was following Liverpool Football Club.

Whenever we appeared near the stadium

and we got the flags out, we got mobbed.

On a pre-season tour to Guangzhou, China's manufacturing heartland,

Eric stumbled across an opportunity,

a chance to fill a gap in the market.

'I had a queue of lads at the door.'

There we have...

'To them, I did a special offer of £10.'

A German national shirt.

The one problem, the shirts were fakes.

There is big money in phoney football shirts.

Last season, the Premier League

confiscated over three-million-worth of fake football goods.

As the business got bigger, I began to feel uncomfortable.

Not because of the products, not because of the price,

but because I was worried that Eric may be doing something that

he could get into trouble for.

Somewhere I think we have...

an Ireland one.

Went and tried an open market.

Along came a lady from trading standards,

purchased a child's kit...

I think it was the last one of that size that I had.

Did a deal on it at ten quid.

No, I wasn't angry at Eric at all. He...

He was having a really good day.

He was selling shirts to children, old ladies, people with...

such a limited disposable income.

The lady in question took it away and...

..returned...

confiscated everything that we had.

The worst part of that whole experience for me

was seeing Eric standing in court like a common criminal.

It has been...difficult.

I didn't expect to end up with a criminal record.

Eric was convicted. He escaped prison but was made to wear an ankle tag.

He was 69.

He'd done absolutely nothing wrong, not even a parking ticket.

We never misled anybody where the shirts came from.

I regret it, because I've got... a criminal record.

Um...

Do I regret it for selling to people?

I'd have to say no.

Personally, I don't think it is morally wrong.

England's Rugby World Cup dream is over.

They lost 33-13 to Australia at Twickenham.

-TV:

-'England's World Cup over,

'the inquest into what on earth went wrong will now begin.'

England are out of the World Cup. The nation is grieving.

But it's a different story elsewhere.

THEY ALL SHOUT

THEY CHANT

Japan are the surprise package

and are surfing a wave of popular support.

They're playing the USA in Gloucester.

Slim and Teatime have travelled down to try and cash in.

Take the rest of them, try and flog them.

Anyone need tickets? What?

You ain't got a coin!

I'll buy any spare tickets for today or other days.

Slim has picked up a ticket for 50 quid.

Almost immediately, he has an American punter.

We take dollars, it's not a problem. Yeah.

And an opportunity to make a little extra.

80 and 40 sterling.

It's very easy.

I mean, a lot of people you can bamboozle them with figures because

they went to nice schools where they got taught mathematics, you know?

-Do you understand?

-No.

-You gave me 120, right?

-Yeah.

Tell you what, call it 140

and it stays with the sterling.

All right?

Well, maths is not arithmetic. It's two different things.

You put a pound sign in front of something

and we have no trouble working it out.

Sterling? That's about £90. But we've got to change 'em up,

so we lose a tenner.

-Plus the one-off transaction fee.

-So it's £80?

-Yeah, £80, yeah!

-Yeah, but we've got to change then.

-£80.

-Mm.

But we've got to change then.

That'll work at about £70 by the time I change it up. That's 120.

Yeah, you've got to give me another 10.

Yeah, course, yeah! We've got to change 'em up, haven't we?

I'm not planning on going to America any time soon!

Here you go. No problem. Cheers.

Thank you.

With a tidy £36 profit, Slim is on a roll.

Are you at the stadium now, sir?

Keep that number. If you need anything in future,

give us a ring for other matches, all right, sir?

Are you at the stadium now? Have a wonderful time, OK?

Sales have been good and even the police have not given them

too much bother.

You all right, son? No problem, mate.

Slim and Teatime have sold in excess of 40 tickets.

We've made money

because, at the end of the day, we've supplied our customers

and we've bought the tickets cheaper than what we had them sold for.

So in that respect it's been a good day. You know, we done something.

CROWD ROARS

The World Cup is finally delivering.

Dodging the taxman and the law is nothing new.

I know that Sussex is a very, very famous area for smugglers,

way back hundreds of years, but it still doesn't make it right.

Lee polices the illegal tobacco market in East Sussex.

She is one of thousands of officers investigating shops using ever-more

sophisticated methods to sell under the counter.

When we began inspecting the shops, we were finding larger quantities

hidden in fake walls, fake plug sockets, fridge freezers...

Very quickly, the number of shops increased.

The shop's not terribly far so we won't have a long walk!

Lee thinks she may have found another one of these shops.

They've been watching it for weeks.

Now they've come to investigate if their suspicions are correct.

As they arrive, the man behind the till disappears.

All they need to do now is find the cigarettes.

KNOCKING ON WALL

Hollow wall here.

KNOCKING

It's all quite new. This...

You know, all these fixtures are quite new.

I'm a bit suspicious.

It's not just the peculiar fixtures catching Lee's eye.

This type of display fridge is what you'd perhaps normally

see in the supermarket.

You know, over 50% of this selling space is made up of soft drinks.

But when you actually look at the soft drinks, he's got, um...

some of them aren't very... There's not a lot of depth.

You see here, there's only one facing.

So...from the outset, it looks like it's full. If you look, um...

Sometimes, behind the tissue...

Yeah, there's only one facing.

So although the shop looks full, and it looks well stocked,

there is no depth of stock.

There isn't any depth behind the facings.

It makes me think that the main business of the shop isn't

toilet tissue or kitchen roll, you know, it's something else.

And, obviously, given the volume of customers we've seen, um,

I'd suggest that perhaps the customers are coming in

for illegal tobacco rather than for the food.

Something has grabbed the attention of one of Lee's colleagues.

He's found an electric key fob behind the counter.

BEEPING

WHIRRING

Unbelievable.

Yeah, it's a slick thing.

If that was my garage door, I'd be over the moon!

Six Richmond...

The cigarettes and tobacco are confiscated

and will form the basis of a case against the shopkeeper.

I could be doing illegal tobacco every day, Monday to Friday,

Saturday, Sunday, evenings, weekends.

I could be doing it full time.

We really could be doing it full time.

The person in the pub,

where you ask whether he's just doing it to sort of make

a bit extra on the side, that kind of thing,

I personally think that's as bad as somebody selling it in a shop.

If they were to be caught, I wouldn't have any sympathy for them

because I think they know what they're doing,

and I think they know what they're doing is wrong.

There you go. Yeah, just me.

Mr Lonesome!

Mark is on the final leg of his trip, just a ferry-ride away from home.

Thanks a lot, fella. Cheers, bye.

These expeditions have become a monthly ritual.

I think a lot of people zigzag their way through life.

What I try to do is zigzag, try and do things a bit different.

I feel quite liberated by it.

I'm not constrained by all this control nonsense

that seems to get ever and ever and ever tighter in the UK.

I feel I can do something without being controlled.

In 2013, there were over 400 prosecutions for smuggling tobacco.

I want to get through there without being stopped, basically.

That's my major consideration.

Customs make random stops.

Don't look nervous, obviously.

They also employ sniffer dogs and X-ray machines.

Don't do anything suspicious.

Don't play loud music.

Take off your sunglasses, because it looks like you're hiding something.

Don't go in a car with tinted windows.

Don't have a cigarette in your mouth.

Don't go fast.

They'll pick you up on that, as well.

Don't make direct eye contact with them.

Safely through customs, and another tax-free consignment makes it ashore.

But Mark is only one of thousands who bring in cigarettes every year

under the radar.

I think the black market touches everybody.

I'm not saying every day,

but some time in your life you will get sucked into it.

Twickenham hosts the Rugby World Cup final this afternoon.

Australia take on New Zealand,

who go into the match as marginal favourites.

I don't care about the fucking music! I'm asking you a question!

Is this your phone number?

For Slim, today could be the biggest day of the year.

Some tickets are going for over a grand.

But it's not started well.

It's not scanning properly, no?

One of his customers has been turned away from the ground.

No, I will forward your number on and the ticket will be replaced, OK?

The turnstiles have only been open ten minutes,

so I don't know why he wants to go in now.

Even worse, he's having to work the game by himself.

Teatime has been arrested.

Well, he got chored last week.

The bail conditions are that he can't go within

a sports stadium until his bail is up.

Slim has some lucrative orders. His customers are waiting for him.

But so are the police.

It's going to be extremely difficult for me if you're filming me,

because what will happen is, it will only draw attention to me,

so obviously the law are going to think,

"What's the focus on him for?"

Put it this way, in the nicest possible way,

I'm glad I'm here, I wish you weren't.

I don't want to see you for the rest of the day.

There's always been people selling on the edge of the law.

And it's not likely they'll be out of work any time soon.

Money in this country, for a lot of people, is running out.

I put the proposition in front of them. And that's it.

It's up to them whether they want it or not.

If it's a good deal, they'll take it.

I think it's made Eric think twice about what he does,

which is probably why, now, we're doing everything legal.

And as his wife and his best friend,

if he ever tried to sidestep the law now, it wouldn't happen, full stop.

For Slim, the Rugby World Cup is finally over.

In the last six weeks, he's made 40% of his yearly profit

and stayed out of trouble.

The plan for the rest of the year is

Cats at the London Palladium, I think.

As long as there's a ticket, someone's going to buy

and sell it, aren't they?

My kids haven't gone into it, no.

I wouldn't want them to be in my business.

I'd like my sons to be punters. I don't want them selling to punters,

you know? I want them to have a good enough job, where they're saying,

"Right, give us two of them," and enjoying their day out.

Is that the sad walk into the darkness,

the one where everyone feels sorry for me?

# Because you're mine I walk the line

# I find it very, very easy to be true

# I find myself alone when each day is through

# Yes, I'll admit that I'm a fool for you

# Because your mine I walk the line. #