customs officers are at war with smugglers in the ports airports and at sea coming up two suspects make a confession and it could be mark's first cocaine job is there anything i need to know about you well we were a bit naughty in trinidad how were you the rest of the team were all going this is it this is a job the confessions continue from cannabis smugglers at sea and as they stepped aboard he turned around and said oh right well okay the game's up the six tons on board but it's nothing but lies from cigarette smugglers in bristol have you ever been stopped by customs before never no i've never been stopped it's been stopped before and he's been issued with a notice one in gatwick's south terminal sniffer dog badger is examining baggage arriving from the caribbean customs dogs are possibly the most powerful tool in the fight against drugs and all have their own skills badger is known as a cocaine specialist he gives a clear indication on this black suitcase the case is put back on the carousel and kept under surveillance whoever picks it up will then be stopped and searched to see if badge is right [Music] a passenger collects the suspect bag and then attempts to pass through the controls but customs officer phil is waiting for her hello there hi maybe this driver from youtube are you trying by yourself could you come to a bench for us please it's good to come up to this one here for us thank you very much everybody please have a quick look right these all your bags here did you paint them on yourself and you know what's inside all of them just closed have you been forced or threatened to bring anything into the uk and you understand the control drugs firearms they're illegal to bring into the uk let's have a quick look phil checks to see which is the suspect case and then asks the nervous passenger to open it okay just gonna put this one for extra machine as well okay phil can't see anything yet but an x-ray shows what looks like organic material in the wall of the case so that's probably what we're looking for i'll do i'll quickly go into this quickly and spike it just make sure phil finds a white powder which he tests to see if it is cocaine you see the speed of the reaction indicates the quality of the drugs [Music] it's actually not reacting it's gone it's gone now look it's still sore it's obviously not very good quality that's what we were hoping for but a bit a bit quicker and a bit more the purity is low but badger's legendary nose for cocaine has sniffed out another smuggler okay okay the time is 07.32 i'm arresting you on suspicion of being involved in the importation control drug you don't have to say anything it may harm your defense you're not mentioned when questioned something which later on in court anything you do say may be given evidence do you understand yeah the woman's face says it all bootleggers use ferries to bring in large quantities of tobacco and officers are cracking down on so-called bucky buses amongst all the innocent travelers are passengers offered a free trip away by bootleggers as long as they agreed to carry back the guideline allowance of tobacco which the organizers then collect and sell on the black market did either of you purchase or obtain anything while you're away i just got 100 cities 100 okay can i ask you just to pop through them yeah this passenger has 10 kilos of tobacco worth nearly 2 000 pounds now it's up to the officers to find out if it's for her own use if not it will be seized in bristol dozens of flights a day arrive from outside the eu officers target these flights to make sure no one brings in more than their allowance of 200 cigarettes to sell on the uk's black market usually bags are x-rayed to catch the bootleggers in the act but today a passenger hurrying through the customs channel alerts jane who pulls him in for a chat in the search bay have you got any cigarettes none at all no can you just get that one up on the bench and i'll just have a quick look in it please can you get the other case just up on that bench and open it up for me both bags are full of turkish cigarettes and the passenger is full of lies have you got any in your hand luggage yeah all right just take care of you yeah well you are yeah you're not under arrest so no no what can walk away well we'll do some paperwork you are obviously over the allowance so we are going to be seeing it's not against the law to do it well what i'm going to do is do some paperwork the goods will be seized and destroyed and if he's had good seats before he may face a fine or a prison sentence in portsmouth nikki's now questioning the ferry passenger carrying 10 kilos of tobacco to work out if she may be carrying it for someone else how many times have you been on previously um i was here last month last month no sorry september okay right and how many times have you traveled on the bilbao this year uh about three about three times yes okay have you been stopped by customs before no no a few simple checks tells nikki that this passenger is also telling lies she normally brings in three kilos and a full quantity of cigarettes as well and from that that was back then i'll just see if she's been jogged before so as well she's a well-stocked customer lying to a customs officer isn't a good idea especially if you want to keep your tobacco but nikki suspects she's carrying it as part of an organized backy boss some of these are for you some of your family yeah okay and how much money have they given you towards their contribution towards the goods they haven't really given me anything because i'll give them gifts you know christmas right okay so you don't expect to get receive any payment of any sort for these girls how much should they cost you um 340 pounds 340 pound for all of it yeah yeah right okay it turns out the woman's traveling on a coach known to customs as one of their regular backy buses the passenger is offered an interview but she decides to give up yeah okay you're not under arrest i'll leave this stuff have you got the passports because there's other people waiting to go home you know what i mean okay so you don't want do you want me to detain the goods or do you just want to abandon them just abandon them just abandon their support yeah okay so you don't want to stay for interview and you do not want me to detain you're going to go home we follow the need to be honest people waiting on the coach okay so you just want to leave your goods and walk away okay knowing that organizers of baki buses tell their carriers to abandon their goods in case they give too much away an interview convinces nikki she's done the right thing but the woman insists she's done nothing wrong it's over we're not doing no drugs or nothing you know what i mean you should be looking after where's kim you know i'm not a criminal but you should be looking more to criminals shouldn't they thank you she has been stopped by customs before even though she claimed that she hadn't i was not happy in my own mind to let her proceed with the goods unless i knew though for her own personal use and on this occasion i don't believe they were back in bristol jane's waiting for the results of background checks on the man caught with 11 000 turkish cigarettes have you ever been stopped by customs before never no i've never been stopped so if i check the records now no the checks reveal this to be yet another lie just a record to see if he's um anything c's from him before or if she's anything before i don't think he has but he's been stopped before and he's been issued with a notice one he said to me initially i said have you got cigarettes went no i said well i'm going to look in your bags and he said oh they're full and he said that he knows okay so i'll just uh get rid of him i think the man has been stopped before but it's his first seizure so escapes are fine although he's lost the cigarettes which will be added to the billions taken off the black market by customs each year you could tell that this was for resale because of all the different different brands yeah and there was no luggage and they were both trying to race through without getting eye contact with anyone and that was why i went after him because i think he was trying to get out quite quickly [Music] meanwhile the woman in gatwick's south terminal won't be leaving just yet [Music] might just leave that there you should come around here you can take a seat on the far side please okay do you understand why you've been arrested no okay we found what we believe to be a controlled drug in your bag she's keeping quiet not surprising as there's around a kilo of pure cocaine in her suitcase she's all the way back you can feel it as well how thick it is the woman's taken to the custody cells for questioning [Music] if found guilty she could be facing a long prison sentence [Music] the drugs worth nearly 50 000 pounds have been taken off the streets and it's all thanks to badger there's always that time between the indication when they actually find it sometimes it can be up to sort of quarter now before they actually give you a thumbs up there's something there that's a bit of a worrying time but um with that indication more or less knew there was something there straight away still to come some odd behavior arouses suspicion in gatwick okay has anybody asked you to bring anything back for them not this time not this time coming up officers body yachts and find an honest drug smuggler and as they stepped aboard he turned around and said oh right well okay the game's up the six tons on board the uk's airports are where customs make most class a seizures today in gatwick officers are waiting for targets suspected of bringing in cocaine from trinidad the two women could be the first cocaine job ever for new officer mark nervous because the rest of the team were all going this is it this is a job they've definitely got it so i'm nervous really trying not to be two drug couriers carrying three kilos of cocaine were found on this flight yesterday these two women were meant to be on that flight and their highly excitable behavior is raising suspicions further okay has anybody asked you to bring anything back for them not this time not this time we were so no way to do it this time okay right is it back to work then on monday night children with housewives yes we've got a lot of them cooking and cleaning obviously just flying out somewhere very nice and yeah was it yeah so obviously the tickets were getting out there and staying out there could be quite expensive how did you how did you pay for your tickets all right that was that was nice who was that then was that [Music] that that was my swim why did he do that it's got quite a lot of money to be honest their behavior and their story convinced mark that he's about to get his first cocaine seizure but the first swab shows no trace completely clear chris joins mark to dig a little deeper hello oh really right now do you need a hand yeah would you like to speak more around actually if you you've just taken the words um well we we could actually arrange that if you wish but not not just yet yeah don't worry we'll get that sorted that is obviously there's there's something not quite right there the the fact is it's not opening and closing properly which to me is uh a bit bit suspicious a little bit heavy at the bottom here where are you taking it the bags are clean but with so much to gain from smuggling sometimes couriers carry drugs inside their bodies we'll go for a strip search obviously rather than what i'm about to do i'm going to go and speak to a colleague because i'm going to ask her to somebody to do a search of person yeah because because that's not something that we can do it would just be a visual uh it would be a visual inspection but because of where you've come from just a where you've come from uh you've both said to me obviously your housewives you don't have the money obviously you said uncle tony's pay for it no no that's absolutely fine but obviously we come across people that don't have money that other people pay to go out and bring drugs in so so it's something that we need to check they're not happy but a body search will find the truth the quicker i go the quicker it gets done officers aboard the cutters protect our coastline against drug smugglers who are a constant but invisible threat these high-powered ships operate in all weathers but in september 2000 a storm off the coast of cornwall drove them back into falmouth in search of shelter always on the lookout for suspicious activity they noticed another vessel taking refuge from the heavy seas the vessel rather than coming into falmouth it turned and went to the other side of carrick roads which is into a small harbour which is actually saint moore's the officers thought it was a local but then watched as it tied up in a dangerous position as the tide started to go out they realized that this mooring was actually on a mud bank or sand bank and the yacht was actually settling and starting to tip always ready to respond to a fellow sailor in need the cutter decided to help so they launched their onboard rigid inflatable their rib motored across into some moore's harbour went to the vessel and challenged it the officers had come to help but the man on board was a smuggler who made a startling confession and as they stepped aboard he turned around and said oh right well okay the game's up there's six tons on board the officers act of charity had paid dividends they were completely flabbergasted the first reaction was and what do we do now and then somebody managed so i better get a notebook out and make a note of this because effectively i've got a confession already before we go to court at which point they arrested him the skipper was john moore he led them into the cabin to see the drugs for themselves there were bales of cannabis uh literally in every available space within the vessel they also found evidence he wasn't working alone but two passports were actually found on the vessel so they decided that the best thing to do was to remove him from the vessel three of the cutter crew stayed on board the catch and wait and see if the crew came back in the morning moore's accomplices did return right into the trap it's about eight o'clock in the morning two men jumped into the cockpit of the yacht and basically cut a crew arrested them there and then the accomplices craig and needham joined their skipper at the police station where moore's frank confessions continued and he was presented to the custody sergeant he was then asked what's your occupation to which he replied i'm a drug smuggler [Music] this time however he'd failed on the day of the trial all three pleaded guilty to their part in the crime mr moore was subsequently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment mr needham to four years imprisonment and mr craig to five years imprisonment three more criminals were behind bars thanks to the keen eyes of the officers and a stroke of luck the street value at that time was estimated to be in the region of 14 and a half million pounds at the end of the day the vessel being forced into falmouth was really the only reason that we were able to intercept this load without that it's very unlikely anybody would have known that this consignment of drugs was on its way back in gatwick's north terminal mark is still hoping to find his first drug smuggler his two female suspects are about to be searched so far they've cooperated but the daughter is getting angry the search the search i'm yeah yeah obviously i can we're gonna have a search as soon as we've had that shirt search i think we should be able to leave we've got children to get back to you're delaying asking no reason but once you've searched us you know we have nothing on us why are we still holding your custody their story suggests they're carrying drugs and mark waits expectantly outside for the results bend over slightly no slightly that's right and part the cheeks of your bottle the strip search finds nothing but mark refuses to give up just yet a pair of shoes from the lady that we've just searched um i'm going to swap them with our tool that checks with drugs as it can be an indication that they've swallowed drugs so i shall do that better a small indication the indication means mark wants to do a body scan 4.5 something to think about with these indications came to go for an x-ray which the mum has already sort of informally said she's happy to do it what about the daughter in terms of x-ray do you think she'll be happy to do that i'm happy to be worried about the daughter's reaction to the x-ray they decide to arrest them i'm arresting you on suspicion of being involved with the importation of a controlled drug you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court i hope i want to go first the daughter agrees to be x-rayed first in just a few seconds mark will know if they've swallowed packages of cocaine against the odds both scans are clear and mark admits that this won't be his first class a drug bust 758 you're unarrested mark and the ladies part as friends and you're glad we weren't smuggled isn't yeah yes and no i know because i haven't had my first catch of the day exactly well i haven't had well i'm still fairly new with this and i haven't had my first successful job here not i'm wishing you particularly were a drugstore but you know and we do understand drugs is very bad in england and we would not contribute to bringing in drugs because my husband died of a heroin overdose my brother died of a heroin overdose so i do understand drugs do not need to be in this country i've got four children who i don't want on drugs so i'm anti-drugs i understand why you have to do this you don't mind and all good on her not good on them yeah the cocaine smuggler from the south terminal was charged with attempting to import 873 grams of cocaine she pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison [Music] you