Anonymous Tip-Off About Two Smugglers From Amsterdam | Customs | Real Responders

customs officers are at war with smugglers in the ports airports and at sea coming up officers receive a tip-off about cocaine smugglers in bristol because of my appearance nothing to do with your appearance the rummage team get a shock under a truck in dover i could see a person's leg pair of jeans or something underneath the trailer it's a bit shocking really and officers board a vessel looking for cannabis in cornwall it could be that there are firearms on board officers have met their death in doing this type of work before customs officers aboard searcher are patrolling the deserted waters of the atlantic in winter these custom ships are the front line against international drug smugglers well we're currently about six and a half miles southwest of lizard point in cornwall i just slowed down a ted uh but bringing back to about four and we've sighted a sloop sailing yacht which is uh heading in an easily direction we're within territorial limits so we're going to send our rib boarding team over there to to have a work with them and to see where they've come from in summer the rip team bought dozens of yachts a day hunting for smugglers hiding amongst the traffic but winter also produces drug seizures from criminals on do or die missions across the atlantic we haven't seen any other yachts recently so it's always worth checking as to why he's out here and no one else is at the moment the only way to find out is to go on board protecting britain's borders is a 24-hour a day job and in the dover freight lanes officers have to make instant assessments about which trucks to stop and which to let go and the danger is of course you say no this one's free to go but you're thinking last night or two shifts ago you know i've maybe let something through it's a bit of a game you know on his 12 hour night shift alex has stopped a truck carrying salad which unusually doesn't have a date stamp it's small mistakes like this which can catch out smugglers it's hard to see though from the paper paperwork right his paperwork is pretty tough here the state of the trailer makes alex suspect it may have something to hide yeah okay well the driver is annoyed at being delayed claiming the delay will ruin his perishable salad and he won't get paid we give you a document but a trailer like this must be searched properly no problem no potential okay chef we're going to take a look yeah so we'll go to an outback but in the driver's attitude as well you know when i try to direct him to the base he's trying to tell me he's got to be in birmingham by 8 o'clock in the morning we all know what the traffic's right smugglers use any space they can to evade customs detection alex has seen plenty of dodgy vehicles and thinks this may be yet another screw i mean it'd be pretty obvious one but stranger things have happened as the excitement builds amongst the team in the bay next door another team have made a shocking find yeah is it possible to get immigration to the base please this team have just found a clandestine concealed underneath the vehicle if you look from underneath the back of the lorry the shock driver appears to know nothing about the illegal stowaway who's still hiding under the truck i was just checking the floor of the trailer from the from back and i was just signing shining my torch along the underneath the trailer i could see a person's leg pair of jeans or something underneath the trailer it's just someone sitting on top of the axles it's a bit shocking really illegal immigrants risking their lives in this way is frighteningly common officers managed to gently persuade the stowaway out of his freezing hiding place beautifully dry pallet yes scared and cold the man is surrounded and detained next officers make sure he isn't going to pose a threat to them or himself detention notice will be issued by the immigration authorities and then group four will come detain the person until the immigration authorities actually can come and process him in the morning which isn't too far away now it's a somber end to a long night especially for this man and the driver you know just trying to talk to everyone just knows it's in the canvas time we know it's a an immigrant when i say i've seen quite a few so the driver is more shocked than me and when we showed him music you'd see he was quite upset really the driver's truck appeared to be the perfect cover for this illegal immigrant but his long journey will end in a night behind bars meanwhile the angry behavior of the driver on the other rummage bay means his truck will be x-rayed ben's team are now hopeful they too will find something i think that's the guy's attitude as well is not not putting us off also on the hunt for drugs the rib team are now set to search the suspicious yacht customs officers have the power to board and search any vessel but sometimes this invasion of privacy can cause tensions the cutter monitors the situation on board whilst doing background checks on the yachts and its crew like a nice enough couple don't they got their life jackets on and uh life raft dinghy usually people are quite helpful and friendly and they're quite pleased to see us and um chat to us hopefully the sailors may look happy enough but on board they're venting their frustrations are being boarded this is the second time this has happened to us is this recently isn't it it took absolutely ages last time we had a stinking passage three o'clock in the morning some flipping customers that's it i can't believe it at that time in the morning well like i say it should only take a couple of minutes the rip team do their best to calm the sailors while the cutter checks for previous offenses thank you they weren't so happy about us going on board they'd had a bad experience with customers before and never find by the time we left obviously you're boarding a yacht and these people live on those shots for days and days at a time so they've got all their personal possessions and everything out there and below you've got to be careful when you're going into somebody else's home like that it's uh never happy enough the search may have been an inconvenience but officers must take action if they see something that fits the profile of a smuggler but most customs work comes from intelligence leads in gatwick the intelligence unit has identified two suspects returning from trinidad and the officers are waiting for them the suspects have been ignoring each other for the whole flight he's looking around this is behaviour often associated with smugglers just behind the barrier the guy in khaki he was he was looking around a hell of a lot when he came down here but disassociated all of their travel until now this is how to come in yes sir hi from today in from are you traveling with anybody at all yes i am okay you come on over for both of them go let's just get over and done with you and strip the bags is this your luggage knock yourselves out yeah is this your luggage just knock yourself out that's mine help yourself and that one's yours is it yeah okay did you pack all this luggage yourselves yes i did that's great has anybody given you anything to bring into the country no okay and you understand something's not allowed here drugs wise of course really okay like what all right cannabis and all the rest seriously yeah not allowed here no no that's right okay come on over the bag swab on the man in beige gives a hit for cocaine if there's any choice of tests for cocaine and heroin no it's not worth it if that's um well the local authorities are rubbing down yeah the man in black also gives a high score for cocaine it looks like the intelligence may prove correct now there's one final thing that we'd like to do which is uh such a person well unfortunately much as we might like to we've got to be 100 certain in dover the seller truck with a suspicious floor is about to be x-rayed yeah we're just doing some scanning so obviously loaded up there we can't really get into about ruining it really um or certainly something anyway so let's get out of the scanner hopefully i'll clear it or not the delayed driver's behavior is the other reason they decided to scan the lorry the driver's attitude isn't doing him in itself any favors alone it's still so and obviously although we've done the outside and looked at the structure of the vehicle it's sort of handy to have a second opinion which is what this kind of gives us the team were initially convinced this was going to be a job but it's looking like the team who found the illegal immigrant have had all the excitement for tonight no it's it's it's not watercress so it's very it's very light the scan quickly shows that the floor is clean and the cargo of salad can be on its way alex and ben send the driver away reasonably happy advising him to allow more time in future the officers then go back out to stop their next customer still to come a drug suspect feels victimized because of my appearance it's nothing to do with your appearance i think it was all right but anything you're being prejudiced coming up a drug suspect feels victimized because of my appearance it's nothing to do with your appearance all right but anyway drug smuggling through airports is big business for organized gangs today customs have a tip-off that passengers carrying cocaine will be arriving in bristol from amsterdam we've already had a word with immigration once they've been pointed out we've got two offices with no idea what they look like john's team are hoping to get a point out from immigration and will then stop and search the suspects the lady has got an address in holland and then a dress in the us but we think they're both uk nationals basically you can you can smuggle drugs in anything we've had it in babies milk powder in tins of fruit and tins of vegetables meat even they just adapt and improve their techniques and we've got to make sure that we keep up with that and find it and keep it off the streets it turns out the female passenger is an american national and the answers she gives to immigration's questions are already revealing lies the woman with the orange jacket was sat down behind immigration were in front of immigration that's the woman she's staying with him alone i've got to go just in case he goes through that's brilliant the passengers have split up but an immigration officer at passport control identifies the suspect and gives john and erica a discreet nod the tip-off was that the passengers are bringing in cocaine the lies of passport control are suspicious but john needs to find the evidence or they'll be free to go hello sir customs you're traveling on your own today who are you traveling with well my girlfriend she's still the other side she's american citizen so she's being held up there for a minute all right okay and just all your luggage that's where is that and this is mine okay so why have you picked your girlfriends up then i've been polite right okay you just want to come come through with me then and does she live with you full time was she just here on vacation okay have you got a ticket for your flight the man's admission that he's traveling with his girlfriend contradicts her story of immigration and the route they've flown sounds like an attempt to avoid customs attention and you've come in from amsterdam were you anywhere before amsterdam yep texas frankfurt and chicago so how long have you been at the uk thursday are you married yeah i know all right when did you get married friday well do you ever use any drugs no no what about your girlfriend i've done in the past but i decided to get my act together do you still smoke then or not well you're completely clean you must have a vice the female passenger has been interviewed by immigration and can now be searched by customs from dallas to frankfurt germany right and then frankfurt germany to amsterdam and amsterdam to to here right their flight plans match up but the woman is very nervous i really have to pay because at some point i mean does somebody want to go with me to the bathroom i just gotta pee yeah watch me pee i just gotta go because the woman is possibly carrying drugs erica must accompany her to the toilet but it turns out to be just nerves and john's bag search has also turned up nothing it was looking really good because the woman at immigration said that she's on her own he came down started figuring within snowball to text her picked up her bag and bought her bag through was she was still at immigration after not obviously he may not have known that she had said that she was on her own yeah i'll do some the last thing to do is swab the bags for drugs if this comes up negative john will be forced to let the suspects go [Music] back in gatwig the officers are body searching the two targets whose bags gave high readings for cocaine you just turn around close your arms outside what did your friend do is he okay he seems a bit chumpy he's not hyperactive at the moment for a reason he hasn't been using on the planes or something like that if you want to wait here for everybody i should imagine he'll get searched as well soon i'll understand his um his base giving a reading for cocaine as well that's why he found a trait i told him the reason he found a trace in the laptop is because i'll sit there do a bit and play on my laptop what's what's he saying for a holiday been out there for a holiday he's used um coke and canvas which is why the high traces of coke on the laptop there you go he's been well turned out whilst he was over there and he knew that he was being stopped on the way back do you fancy him for internal talk the intelligence that they're involved with drugs was correct but personal use abroad isn't a matter for uk customs and the search for smugglers will have to continue there's a sense of anti-climax because i mean you're looking for the gear and it's not there but next time [Music] successful drug seizures at sea are often triggered by foreign surveillance aircraft who alert british customs when a suspicious vessel is headed for uk waters in february 2000 we became alerted to suspicious activity by the french customs service who had been patrolling the western fringes of the bay biscay they did some basic checks as they're doing all vessels and found that they'd been registered from panama they also noticed that there was a number of um items on board which appeared to be barrels which they thought was a little bit unusual they they got in quite close to it and i think as a result of that um the vessel turned off its gps which the french thought a little bit unusual they were suspicious of that the vessel was heading towards the uk mainland immediately the french alerted the british cutters we were very fortunate and that we had quite a number of cutters who were actually in south coast ports at the time and therefore they were immediately deployed to the coordinates that the french were constantly giving for the vessel with no gps the aircraft needed to maintain constant visual contact with the vessel named the deep diver it was very important to continue to track the vessel and round the clock this was during the day and at night they sent up light aircraft to continue that monitoring as the deep diver entered british waters the suspects on board knew they were being watched from all sides the cutters who were surveilling the deep diver were able to observe the the barrels being jettisoned by someone on that particular vessel into the english channel the cutter crew decided to strike they don't know what they're going to find it could be that there are firearms on board and officers have met their death in doing this type of work before once on board the crew were arrested immediately meanwhile the rip team searched for the evidence their swift action recovered all the barrels containing one of the biggest halls of cannabis for years and when all the barrels were recovered it totaled 680 kilos of cannabis which then had a street value in the region of about 3.5 to 4 million pounds so it was a very significant seizure of cannabis they were all eventually found guilty by jury trial and they were sentenced to nine seven and five years thanks to the cutters three more drug smugglers were safely behind bars back in bristol john's waiting for the result of the last drug swap on the passengers from amsterdam the test result proves that the anonymous tip-off claiming they were carrying drugs was false okay what we'll do we'll pack you back up yep quite happy really yeah he's very calm understand why told the immigration so she's traveling which would justify it but he's completely shoes bag passport but what began as a custom search has identified an immigration problem and their contradictory accounts will help immigration with their inquiries but she said she was traveling on her own weren't there i've just been to speak to immigration and there's a problem with her passport and that it looks like she's doing lots of trips in and around europe possibly to disguise the fact that she's been staying in the uk for longer than she perhaps should be and because she's made untruthful statements to immigration it looks highly likely that they're going to be sending her back to the united states the couple are given the all clear by customs but the female passenger will be detained which won't please her new husband immigration are keeping her there for the time being they won't have a chat with her unfortunately there's nothing i can do to help you with that i mean um i'm not i'm focused because of my appearance no it wasn't that no no i can assure you it wasn't anything to do with your appearance all right i mean there are your wife has said things which are concerning immigration at the moment and that's why they want to talk to her about it that wasn't why it was in there was it i pulled you in separate to your wife you pulled me in because of my appearance it's nothing to do with your appearance all right but anyway you're being prejudiced um okay the man's anger gets him nowhere and he storms off alone she wasn't a smuggler but the man's wife failed to convince immigration that she was a genuine tourist and was sent back to america you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 282,257

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: ZLFGN9aUaIQ

Length: 23min 12sec (1392 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 31 2021