Angry Passenger Raises Suspicion Of Smuggling | Customs | Real Responders

[Music] in our ports and in our airports the uk border agency is fighting a constant battle against smugglers up in gatwick one man's nerves seem to give the game away [Music] on a flight from malaga one passenger seems to have forgotten who he's traveling with traveling by yourself today just yourself is it who's this and in birmingham officer mike pulls over one unhappy customer now well that's fine if you're not happy sir honestly if you're not happy there's a complaints procedure [Music] at gatwick airport a flight has just landed from bridgetown in barbados a popular transit route for drug smugglers the body language of one passenger has caught the eye of officers he's been acting nervously since coming through immigration so he's pulled over to answer a few questions [Music] [Music] i figured it was better to go there first [Music] a quick search of the man's suitcase has revealed nothing suspicious but his animated and nervous behavior is causing great concern [Music] but the man's answers aren't convincing and he started to sweat noticeably a swap test of his suitcase is carried out for any traces of drugs [Music] the machine gives an extremely high reading for the presence of cocaine as the circumstances become even more suspicious officers escort the man to a private interview room for questioning here they hope he may confess to being a drug smuggler you can't stop talking you look as nervous as anything do you understand what i'm saying i think you might have dropped him towards you or in your person okay he's basically done a couple of iron tracks and they've come up quite high he suspects that he may be internal concealment so he's just i think just arrested him now and you know i just dare say provided we get acceptance from him that will uh body scan him just to check that is clear smugglers carrying packages internally often secrete traces of drugs through the sweat in their shoes a swab test is conducted for any further hits of cocaine and another very high reading for cocaine causes more concern giving officers a good reason to put the passenger through a full body x-ray it's a busy morning at bristol airport passengers have arrived back from malaga and are waiting in baggage reclaim for their luggage officers have been x-raying suitcases coming off the flight and have identified a number of bags carrying large quantities of tobacco officer brandon spots the first bag being collected by a male passenger and moves into position to intercept him in the customs channels hello there's a customs so you come through traveling by yourself today just yourself is it okay tobacco products purchased in spain are only allowed to enter the uk if they're for personal use you ever been stopped by customs before no have you purchased any exercise because obviously being away cigarettes tobacco or anything like that okay how much tobacco have you got as the passenger struggles with the padlock on his bag officer erica has been looking at the passenger list for the flight [Music] are you traveling with anyone else at all no but she knows this isn't true the man is traveling with his wife and he faces an uncomfortable reunion she's mad anything about your passport at all your husband's got it so you're traveling with your husband right okay if you can step with us we've just pulled him in a second was just a pack of four then i spoke to myself it's like your husband though right okay when did you last travel abroad did you not know you were both flying at the same time right i asked you again you still said you weren't traveling with anyone right give me a moment okay brandon decides to run some background checks the man has been stopped by customs in the past meaning he's lied more than once [Music] he doesn't know the combination of his case he said he's not been stopped by customs on a previous occasion which which obviously is a lie again uh there's got to be reasons there's casting a lot it's out in my mind uh we'll have a look what he's got in there and we'll take things from there oh you got it off did you the man must prove his tobacco products are for personal use but given he's lied twice already brandon is less inclined to believe anything he has to say if they fail to convince officers that the tobacco is only for themselves they face having all of their goods seized in gatwick officers are about to x-ray a nervous canadian man who they suspect is trying to smuggle drugs inside his body a swab test has been conducted on the passenger shoes and due to the extremely high reading for cocaine he's been led away for a full body x-ray this isn't helping his nervous behavior [Music] right is this a consent yeah because you're taking our x-ray yeah we need your consent to say that you'll do it for us well i'm not gonna give you my consent i think this is a little crap okay well what happens then if you don't do the x-ray you stay with us until you've produced two clear bowel movements however long that may take if you don't want it at five we'll just take you downstairs get your custard eyes put you in a cell in a white suit and we'll wait there until you've moved your barrels twice to show there's no packages there or you can do it now by doing an extra you're cool the man's options are limited they'll find out one way or another whether he swallowed any drugs right now what you need to do this conveyor belt is going to move if you have you're going to stand on it you need to stand on it as i'm standing on it nice and straight yeah arms by this side nice and still and breathe out slowly yeah until your lungs are empty and hold with the net closing in officers try to get him to confess [Music] incredibly he's still denying it but the x-ray images confirm their suspicions that he's stuffed with packages the man is led away to the airport's custody suite let us know immediately if you feel unwell he kept pleading his innocence but after a week and a half in custody he eventually went to the toilet and produced 36 packages of cocaine with a street value of over 30 000 pounds back at bristol an elderly couple are trying to prove that a large quantity of cigarettes and tobacco purchased in spain is for their personal use only and not a legal resale so no papers no filters no smoking tin nothing what about yourself do you have anything like that you just smoke cigarettes okay with the fingers and there's no odor no tobacco odour from them i'm quite convinced that they're non-smokers the officers decide to take the couple away for further questioning no you stay separate i'll get you a seat now they'll be interviewed separately to see if their stories are the same if they're telling lies then it's very rare that they'll have the same story unless they're well rehearsed but i doubt that is the case during the interviews it's revealed that the couple regularly buy tobacco abroad for themselves and their sons how does that work do they tell you how much they want or do you charge them for the quality you give them when you get back i pay the bills but receiving money for goods is an offence even if it's from family members the christmas presents mostly the children the grandchildren so what was your life about traveling with your wife as brandon and erica compare notes there's some inconsistencies in their stories his wife basically has given a different story being a different picture really where the goods are going and how much they've brought back on on a previous occasion he's also receiving money for two-thirds of the goods i believe is enough grounds to make a sort of viable seizure i'm not satisfied the goods are for yourselves and there's a commercial element involved all right and the goods will be seized from you on this occasion reluctantly the couple signed papers to confirm that their tobacco is all being seized they'll have 30 days in which to appeal the seizure but for now they're leaving empty-handed coming up one man stopped at gatwick yet again yeah i've stopped him before and when we did the iron track it was the highest i've ever ever seen [Music] coming up in birmingham officer mike gets some job advice i don't tell you what to do for your job you please don't tell me what to do for mine and then we'll get on just fine [Music] at gatwick airport a plane has just touched down from amsterdam and border agency officers are observing passengers as they disembark the flight in immigration control officers have been alerted to a dutch man entering the country just go around to the bench here just have a quick look inside your bag it seems this is not the first time the man has been stopped we saw this guy a couple of months ago he's a frequent traveller to the uk when he's intercepted it he comes up with a different reason for travel each time he comes up with a different background story each time for some reason he doesn't want to tell us exactly what he's doing okay now you told me that you wanted to come and live in the uk yeah yes is that what your trip is all about you're coming over here yeah because i want to find that out if i i like it but i want to find that part if i really really like to stay here okay but you're not staying very long to try and find out you know i've been here yeah because i've come here a couple times you don't have much but there's good reason to be suspicious i've stopped him before and he had a laptop case and when we did the iron track on the laptop case it gave us the highest i've ever ever seen and he was very inconsistent with his with his story at the time so we we body scanned him we x-rayed him at the hospital that was all negative and we had nowhere else to go we had to let go having found massively high traces of drugs on the passenger in the past officers must again rule out the possibility that he may be carrying drugs this time you know i was asking you upstairs about the stamps you have in here for the dutch antilles that you went to earlier in the year you told me you went there on vacation did you go on vacation with your wife and children to the dutch antilles where did you stay you've got family out there you're a busy person when do you find time to work just take a seat i'll be back in a moment with large quantities of drugs entering the uk from south america and the caribbean sarah needs to make sure his links with the dutch antilles are legitimate and what i can make out he actually missed the flight yesterday so he's come in today he's going home again tonight he's saying that he just wants to come over here to see what it's like to live in the uk but i'm not really very happy with what he's telling me i'm not really very happy with you know he says he works in a shop in a magazine section of a shop out the back he doesn't actually sell magazines to the public but he's got his clothing is quite quite expensive and just i don't know something's not hanging together right here it's the busiest part of the day at birmingham airport as a number of flights arrive during the lunchtime rush hour as passengers head for the exit officers spot a lone male passenger who's been identified as starting his journey in morocco officer mike pulls him over to ask a few questions are you french english moroccan english yeah yeah english so where's where's kenitra is that morocco yeah is that the ancestral telling you been out there was that holiday yeah and who you visited were you visiting from the man's demeanor it seems he's less than happy about being stopped so what do you do in the uk yeah what sort of security building security door door security that those secretaries obviously retire security retail security okay just bear with me i'm going to look through your bag you pop it on there for me okay i'm sorry you got to go somewhere but we'll do this as quick as we can the man's anger at being stopped creates more suspicion that he has something to hide so are you off to them where are you off to where are you off to now sorry you just want to go home where's home sorry well i'll open it the best that i can if you want to catch you want to unwrap it for me do you want to unwrap it so you can wrap it back up how you want or do you want me to just cut it open i'm happy for you to unwrap it you can use machines well that's fine if you're not happy sir honestly if you're not happy there's a complaints procedure you can follow after you've done this well no at the moment we're going to look in this box all right now do you want me to cut it off listen i don't tell you what to do for your job you please don't tell me what to do for mine and then we'll get on just fine won't we with the man's attitude it's going to take mike a while to properly search his bags in gatwick officers are still probing the dutch man with an inconsistent story his passport shows he's made multiple trips in a short period of time and they don't know if he's telling the truth or not i'm not happy but at the same time i can't persecute the guy a swab test is conducted on his back for any traces of drugs so just see if i can get any readings from the bag here [Music] and a positive reading for cocaine leaves officer sarah with yet more questions yes how high 1.96 he works in a magazine section behind a shop see last time he said he was involved in his family gold business oh really no there's been no mention of the family gold business i'll go and investigate further about his job how long have you worked in this warehouse stroke shot five years also for somebody or like when you have a house painting put the floor oh okay the inconsistent job history along with the lack of evidence is beginning to frustrate i don't want to persecute the guy but at the same time there is a lot of stuff that's not adding up what we will do is searching to see if we can find anything on his person any papers last times of cash anything at all which could indicate the real reason for his travel to the uk which obviously doesn't want to tell us about i'm really not very happy about some of the things that you've said to me today you're you know you're not here for very long so for that reason i've had a search authorised so some mail officers here are going to take you into the room away from the public view and they'll just give you a rub-down search okay whilst hoping they may find some concrete evidence to explain the man's suspicious story it doesn't take long to make a decision nothing found means he's free to go you just grab your bag yeah and then just make your way through to the exit good luck to you in finding a job and working out where you want to live okay thank you very much for your time it's an inexplicable outcome for the officers his story his reasons for being here are unbelievably vague doesn't really all add up who knows in birmingham officer mike is still searching the bags of the disgruntled passenger who started his journey in morocco [Music] sorry can you tell me what it is before i get there you tell me you know what's in the bag [Music] the man's nonchalant answers are proving just as much of a headache for mike what's the uh set off what is it's it nationality is it who's the uh who's the other fella having found nothing of significance in the man's bag his shoes are swap tested for any traces of drugs [Music] i just swabbed the end the shoes feel a little heavy and i'll just swab the inside of them to see if we've got a trace reading as you can see there's a small trace reading for heroin i'm just going to pop them through the x-ray heroin use is widespread in morocco and mike is concerned that the passenger may be concealing the drug in his shoes now that to be honest that looks exactly what i expect to see it's fine okay so thanks for your patience um you start putting that back if you want to well you can repack it if you want to i mean it's the legal obligation is passenger league of lifestyle can repack their baggage when requested to do so just speeds things up for you i know you're in a rush the man is clearly unhappy about the whole incident searching passengers and their luggage is part and parcel of the uk border agency's role it's a necessary process and for the officers courtesy goes a long way there you go thanks for your time your patience we're very well aware that the majority of people are perfectly innocent travelers going about their normal day-to-day life the guilty don't wear labels and it can make our job a lot easier if people are compliant and pleasant with us rather than perhaps trying to see things that aren't there [Music] the nervous canadian man who swallowed 36 packages of cocaine pleaded guilty to smuggling drugs and was sentenced to three years in prison [Music] you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 236,529

Keywords: real responders, customs uk, gatwick airport, bristol airport, sniffer dog, cocaine, class a drugs, smuggling, crime, police, police uk, bag search, airports, border patrol forces, border patrol uk, uk border, crime documentary, border patrol, custom officers, sniffer dogs, class c drugs, tobacco, patrol, dover, truck, smugglers

Id: gBY5YpXqh-k

Length: 23min 13sec (1393 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021