Couple Caught Smuggling £55,000 Worth Of Cannabis | Customs | Real Responders

customs officers are at war with smugglers in the port airports and at sea coming up sniffer dogs take on drug smugglers in gatwick he looks for cocaine and heroin so he's a class a drugs dog a 200 million pound fraud spirals out of control it's too much of a good thing they did get greedy and officers are on the hunt for illegal in bristol like possibly the one that just went through and that that looked like it did have quite a few in that one [Music] in bristol and erica are on the hunt for tobacco smugglers this is the dalaman flight coming from turkey currently not in the eu and the allowance for that is only 200 cigarettes tobacco's now so highly taxed the black market is booming and nearly one in five cigarettes smoked in the uk is illegal either counterfeit or smuggled in illegally avoiding uk duty we'll be looking for anything over about 400 really at the moment like possibly the one that just went through and that that looked like it did have quite a few in that one so joe stops the passenger whose attempt to dodge duty looks set to end in tears right basically we've got a female passenger who's coming from turkey and she's got 1800 cigarettes so what i'm going to do today is seize 1600 cigarettes off her and give her back 200 as a statutory allowance i'm not sure how she'd take it i don't think she'd be too happy but i didn't think she'd be angry i think she'd be more upset which is harder usually don't mind a bit of um anger but it's just when they cry which is a bit difficult as you're as you know you are over the alliance the allowance is 200 okay um on this occasion i'm going to give you the 200 allowance back that's all i can do i can't do anything more than that i'm afraid i've just spent all that money sorry well i'm afraid there's not really a lot more i can do sorry no you can only have to start to allowance i'm afraid just 200. it gives me no pleasure to seize these cigarettes this is when this amount i have no choice i'm afraid okay [Music] okay and i just knew i had a feeling when it pulled through nothing to declare he's got me i just see the gleam in his eye i generally felt bad because although i believed she she knew she knew what the allowances were i still think for anyone it's still difficult to to have money taken from you the passenger seems surprised but it turns out joe has caught a regular offender i've got away with it for about nine years i shouldn't said that because he's just behind me it may be a small seizure but replacing the cigarettes will cost the passenger hundreds of pounds in gatwick the x-ray has picked up a bag with some suspicious contacts it's put back on the carousel while calvin watches from a distance to identify the bag's owner the passenger's girlfriend is walking ahead a tactic often used by smugglers to avoid detection calvin follows the passenger through the channels where the class a drugstore rossi gives an indication on the same blue bag the questions asked by the officers are seemingly obvious but the answers given can be used to build up a prosecution if anything's found so this is all your banks who your baggage sir yeah and these are banks to check out with you would you give me do anything to bring into this country okay just have a quick look in the blue bag there's just the blue ones here i'll start with that one let's start with that one always start with the bottom the suitcase is full of sealed packages which look like cannabis the couple are arrested immediately i meant to win questions some of you which later rely on court anything you do say maybe give me an evidence do you both understand do you understand is that yes do you understand yep okay all right let's take it at the back now cannabis is a class c drug but a quantity like this is worth thousands of pounds so the investigation starts immediately and calvin needs to make sure the right people feel the full force of the law between 10 and 15 probably it's probably like 15 kilos i mean obviously we'll have to spike it first and test it to establish do a field test which the drug is i'm making some sort of candidates okay and he'll explain whatever the packages contain it's not looking good for this suspect [Music] off the coast of cornwall customs cutter searcher is waiting for orders we've just had some intelligence given basically they've found a leather rope with an anchor there's nothing to say it's what it is what it's for but the locals have never seen it before they don't know what it's all about they've handed it into customs and said we think there's a bit something about that this is a very old way of smuggling it's actually putting things in the bottom and i'm putting up a boy and actually hanging it off the rope it's been doing it here for hundreds of years with brandy in the old days but it's happened before with drugs okay full speed car was recap searcher's crew manned the vessel 24 hours a day ready to respond to any threat to the uk's borders with over 5 000 drug seizures a year the threat's very real and smugglers use any tricks they can to slip through the net there's another one there so the whole place is full it costs millions to operate these high-powered vessels with their on-board speed boats but they're at war with well-financed criminal gangs who can make millions from a single importation and are willing to protect their profits with force we've got still got light we won't have it for much longer um sweaty as quick as we possibly can here to try and get this job done have you seen any any pops you don't recognise local fishermen are a good source of information and they have been unusual pop markers cited in the area in the failing light the officers check as many markers as they can this might be the golden nugget did you say not all operations end with a seizure and kirsty hopes the intelligence gathered here may prove valuable in catching future smugglers so what we'll do we'll actually pass that information back inland and we'll pass that back to intelligence to see whether they can match up with any other activity that's been going on and potentially keep an eye on that area just to make sure that we know where to find it and what the potential of it is in gatwick the custody suite is where suspected smugglers are welcomed back into the uk it's a significant seizure but calvin's job now is to make sure everyone involved in the importation is identified and prosecuted what are you doing right sit down and sit down what we'll do is we'll let the custody also know you're here okay and then he'll come and see you and explain your legal rights okay [Music] okay okay i intercepted green channel north north terminal and opened my blue suitcase which he did unzipped it found it to contain foam on the phone with tape back packages which i believe to be controlled drugs number 38 sound number two before you do you can take your shoes off and leave them outside in your belt okay i'll get you you've got a blanket maybe you take your shoes off them just leave them outside here don't they drink water or anything sure okay can't smoke here i'm afraid [Music] and the name on this bag relates to the female that will tie her into this bag it's unclear who's involved so the female passenger must also be kept in custody but it looks like there could be controlled drugs in one of the banks do you understand it sorry no i don't know yet they will find out when they do and let me know let me know we just suspected that they are drugs at the moment calvin suspects the packages contain cannabis and the smell is unmistakable we checked them all just to make sure they were our catalyst rather than we've had consumers before where someone being cannabis hasn't been cocaine they do all contain cannabis and the weighted packages is 20.63 kilos it's a huge amount of drugs off the streets still to come suspected cocaine smugglers in gatwick you swab the bag and they tell you whether or not the bag's been contaminated with drugs [Music] coming up a positive drug swab means an intimate body search for this passenger please don't make any sudden movement i will be going into your groin at some point [Music] over a thousand kilos of cocaine is seized by customs in the uk each year and gatwick is a prime point of entry sniffer dogs are used on the front line in this fight against class a smugglers he looks for cocaine and heroin so he's a class a drugs dog trace smells or large amounts of that kind of scent that's what he goes for this passenger was stopped by immigration officers and has now been brought into customs to be searched sniffer dog rossi picks up a cent from one of his backs and gives the signal to the officers but picking up ascent isn't enough officers must find the drugs before someone can be charged uk customs okay is that your bag yeah who paid for your ticket someone booked it for you but you gave them the money yeah and how do you know this person how do you know the person he's a close friend he's nervous and his story sounds suspicious just take a spot of your bag things it tells me whether or not you've been in contact with drugs at all okay okay with me a sec again basically you swab the bag and we have two machines um and they tell you whether or not the bag's been contaminated with drugs like it's given the reading now showing that it's picked up particles of cocaine could indicate the one that they could be a user at some point there's been drugs within the bag there's stuff there now or stuff on their person obviously you've got to go down every avenue and wall out every avenue i've got a reading for cocaine from your bag and from your clothes and from your laptop bag okay can i start do you use a tool do you use cocaine at all have you used cocaine in trinidad no okay finding nothing in the bag alex requests authority for a body search uh can i have a request for an sop please that's been authorized that's fine i've given my reasons gave him four reasons why nervous to more eyeing track reading dog indication and he's got very little luggage for two weeks stay what i'm going to do now is take him into the surgery and conduct a search okay i'm not going to touch any skin okay i've got no need to obviously i can see if i can just ask you to place your arms out for me put your palms up into the air okay please don't make any sudden movement i'm going to do one side at the time i will be going into your groin at some point okay but i will make you aware when i do that okay again i'm going into your coin okay if you want to take a seat for me please but smugglers don't only carry drugs on their bodies we swap the inside of the shoes because obviously you have swallowers who come into the uk with packages inside them packages give out like sweat and they go into your pores and you sweat through the bottom of your feet so it can give a reading to say that there's possibly patches inside so that's another area that we test it's another frustrating result for alex but this man's troubles are far from over okay if you just like to wait by the bench for me back to immigration now yeah and then they'll make a decision whether they land here from there but from our side we're happy if you got disappointed on every one person you stopped you'd be extremely disappointed and probably lose the enthusiasm to keep looking so you just get back out there and start again stop another passenger customs officers in dover have an entirely different threat to deal with thousands of trucks a day pass through the freight lanes and the detection teams work round the clock to try and spot which ones may have something to hide one just gone over the top there is i've never seen an unmarked one the intelligence hub selects most targets but it's experienced which has alerted richard to this truck and he decides it's worth searching tires in a fridge i've never seen an freaking an omega pills no unit before never especially tiresome smugglers often use awkward loads like tires as cover and so customs have developed x-ray machines big enough to scan an entire truck so we probably might end up scanning that's a brand spanking new fridge and like that's not a refrigerated load the trucks are under pressure to deliver so this polish driver isn't happy to learn his truck will have to be scanned if it finds anything suspicious it may have to be offloaded which the driver's company will have to pay for they get a little bit about it they don't like that we do that the x-ray picks up an anomaly it looks like there may be a secret compartment hidden in the floor richard needs to find out what it is but he doesn't want to cost the driver money if you can avoid it no i think it's in the floor is it the floor yeah but what is i think it's ripped i think we've got to make a decision as to whether this is worth offloading or not the team are all highly trained mechanics so richard decides to try to access the suspicious area from underneath customs officers also take on gangs involved in carousel fraud which steal money from the vat system it works like this criminals set up fake companies to import high-value goods vat free the goods get exported back out to fake companies in europe at which point that is reclaimed these shipments get stamped at the border but then simply turn around and come back into the uk the same goods go in and out of the country again and again in 2001 a man by the name of ray cox was at the center of a carousel fraud so massive it would take the next six years to bring him to justice looking at him in financial profiling of ray cox uh we basically determined that in a space of three years he'd gone from being a pallet repairer um to a multi-millionaire he became a major thorn in the side of attacking the uk's uh that system and uh we embarked on what became an eight month long surveillance operation uh against raymond cox to identify those he was associating with those he was trading with we effectively identified a total of seven people they were just average people so they weren't particularly well educated people and certainly not with a business background day after day the surveillance team looked on as the fraud increased cox and his six accomplices gradually lost control the goods were going round and round on the carousel so fast they forgot who was selling what to who they they became blase and uh as often you see within their fraudulent activities they did get greedy it's too much of a good thing in may 2002 it culminated in a meeting at the trafford center in manchester at a restaurant called tiggy's about keeping the fraud on track and of course they were unaware they were under surveillance at the time the surveillance team tracked all the suspects to the meeting and captured it all on film whereupon we were all able to get inside in effect get into the cctv control room for the trafford center uh zoom in and recalled the whole meeting a surveillance officer's dream with the gang making around 10 million pounds a week from the fraud tensions were clearly running high the meeting at the trafford centre was the first time that they'd actually all been filmed together come the end of the meeting when the paperwork appeared to be sorted out they all got up and it was very jovial much back slapping hugging as if there were no problems but in fact their problems were about to get a lot worse the officers had decided enough was enough on the morning of the 8th of july 2002 the carousel the conspiracy was taken out the 217 fake companies had stolen over 180 million pounds and it took four years to sift through the mountains of paperwork the nine-month trial found six of the seven guiltiest charged who all received at least five years in prison seen as the organizer cox received the heaviest sentence raymond cox who was the principal received a 12 and a half year prison sentence it was a very rewarding result for the effort that he put in and the signal to the criminal fraternity as a whole that um you know we are going to take these fraud seriously and you do get similar sentences to what you can get in major major drug cases back in dover however a lengthy search has found nothing i think you just got to use the common sense of it yeah so at the end of the day are we going to charge you 150 quid offloading find nothing or do just make a judgment angry someone richard decides the truck doesn't need to be offloaded and the happy driver can carry on and deliver his load but on the bay next door a white van has been pulled and this time it's a hit the vans full of cigarettes destined for the uk's black market but not anymore the drivers have been arrested and taken into custody they stopped the vehicle and questioned them and whilst they questioned the driver they um went in the load and examined the load and on opening a couple of boxes one of the pallets protected it's a serious crime but their efforts to avoid detection aren't quite so easy to take seriously obviously it's failed design in a vain hope that we wouldn't detect these but it's kind of laughable but aluminium trays i don't know whether they were taping our x-ray eyes wouldn't go through them or just seems you um at the end of the day it's a cardboard box of cigarettes in it and we will find them in just one van load the officers have seized over a million illegal cigarettes the cannabis found in gatwick was valued at 55 000 pounds the man has since pleaded guilty the female passenger pleaded not guilty and will stand trial soon [Music] you

Channel: Real Responders

Views: 626,389

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

Id: EZLEQ_obCgg

Length: 23min 13sec (1393 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 04 2021