[Music] customs officers are at war with smugglers in ports airports and at sea coming up there customs officers pay a visit to an illegal cigarette dealer basically we've had information that you may be selling cigarettes from the premises okay i'd like to just pop in another chat with you about it that's all right yeah okay in portsmouth a suspect gets angry when his new car is dismantled and officers find a suspicious substance in a suitcase in gatwick there it is so good result let's go it's early morning rush hour with dozens of flights arriving into gatwick from africa and the caribbean source areas for class a drugs customs officers are on high alert searching passengers who fit profiles associated with smugglers okay i've just secured a passenger's bag and you can see there's clearly two rectangular shapes there so i'm just going to cut the bag open and have a further inspection of what those shapes are the passenger told immigration he has no money will be staying in britain for two months and a friend has agreed to pay all his expenses it's a story mike has heard many times before from drug couriers it's not already kanye it's well concealed but mike thinks he's found a large quantity of cocaine built into the case the pace tests positive for cocaine so good result let's go naked 10 55 yeah [Music] so i've conducted a test on the bottom of your suitcase which has shown a white paste a white paste yep i've conducted a test on it which says it's cocaine they're cocaine therefore the time is 10 55 i'm placing you under arrest on the suspicion of being involved in the impulsation of a controlled drug okay if you could follow this officer please okay [Music] sorry right well that's all going to be discussed with you later i will remind you that everything you say will be noted down now okay and it was a long way from being the perfect crime he's got a really tough invitation the grammar of it was awful there was capital letters mid-sentence it wasn't very good at all there was also a signature on the bottom of the invitation letter and the writing was very very similar so i assume that it was written by him himself it's a serious crime carrying a maximum of 15 years [Music] underpants down okay the officers want to find out if anyone else is involved and the investigations could take some time yeah so that um we'll just nick someone sorry there's a good chance i'll be late [Music] the man initially observes his right to silence but he soon starts giving information about possible accomplices okay what is the name of the person that's meeting you here today okay and what does he look like okay right like i had mike decides to put out an announcement for the man to come to the information desk to see if they can catch him too about five foot ten about five foot in if he's involved it's unlikely he'll fall for the trap but it's worth a try in portsmouth officers are hunting a possible target vehicle picked out by the intelligence hub unfortunately it's it's a bit difficult to actually say whether it's going to be cocaine or heroin or cannabis what tends to flank more than a specific type of commodity is criminality or suspicion and from that you tend to get a job that will fall into one of those categories it could be particularly this time of year with stuff coming up from africa it could be anything as bizarre as tortoises drug smugglers are adept at seeming normal so it's richard's job to hunt for the incriminating details i mentioned about the car so can you tell me what the situation is with the car please uh i'm not sure i might keep the car here and i might take it back i don't know so you bought it when you're in libya yes i think it's your own car okay how long have you been would you normally live please in england so how long you've been away for two months and that's your return to get there is it can i just have a quick look at that please well this is a one-way ticket yeah no this is the ticket you obviously got for this trip yeah okay when did you book the ticket the trip return trip back how much did you book it did you book it when you got to la today i did yes okay and what's been the purpose of your two months away um i went for uh ramadan a month yes he passed a month to libya okay and then i waited for the car and uh basically wait for the car to be ready then i came in the car the long trip and one-way ticket are both reasons to investigate further and the suspiciously clean interior also makes richard think the car may have something that's what he says he said it's not a brand new car he said he has bought media um so i think it's worth it because he's just you know pushed the car in tripoli which is not something that we normally get here is it so it's worth looking at richard must now tell the man his new car is going to be searched in the specialist rummage bay we've got a ramp here we're going to put on the ramp just so we can look over it or something we could do here we have a waiting room that you can sit in there if you wish to keep warm um yeah just to let you know what the situation is okay hopefully as soon as we can it's not going to take a long time can i just put my clothes absolutely absolutely yeah and so do you want me to take the car out while i do this or no no no the driver could be annoyed because he has something to hide but perhaps he's just nervous about having his new car pulled apart the smuggler caught in gatwick is now being transferred to the custody cells where the reality is beginning to sink in you just stand in front of that desk for me all right is there anybody that you want to telling a friend or family that may be meeting you or worried where you are never like the caller the man is locked up while the officers out back work out how much you'll be charged with trying to smuggle [Music] as you saw on the x-ray there was two of these and from what we've got here we've estimated that the total amount of cocaine could be two kilos which has a street value of about a hundred thousand pounds and in the terminal the person meeting him has answered the announcement and has been arrested [Music] the poorly planned crime has gone wrong on every level [Music] we've gone to the information desk in the north terminal where we've put out a call for the person meeting the courier today and a gentleman has come forward and said that he was here to meet him we've i've subsequently arrested him and he's been brought here today to the custody suite and also the driver of the the vehicle that was also here to meet him he's also been brought to the taxi driver all three are under arrest and placed in cells for questioning it's now up to the investigation team to find out who is responsible and ensure a successful prosecution it's another important seizure but with all the suspects claiming to know nothing about the cocaine it could take some time to work out who's guilty after a long wait for a technical officer to arrive the driver of the suspect libyan vehicle is getting annoyed it's going to take place right when it comes to 15 minutes half an hour an hour two hours i would suggest you know if we don't find anything probably half an hour 45 minutes if we don't find anything the car is suspiciously clean having just driven 2 000 miles from africa this is the problem with the vehicle it's it looks too clean the inside is totally clean they need to examine every possible space to ensure it's not being used for smuggling we're trying to be as you know as reasonable with you and as right as we can i'll tell you what the bricks come you know that's olivia yes but not a single person hopefully i'll try to explain to you as real as i can as to the officers are expert mechanics but this man is clearly very protective of his new car do i look like a dealer hey i'm not a good enough person to to really [Music] the whole search takes nearly two hours and finds nothing and the long wait has allowed the angry driver to calm down the car has been looked at they haven't reduced it they haven't have they honestly so you'll have the car back in a couple of minutes put your bags in and we'll let you out of the back gate okay anyway all right okay thanks for you i'm sorry if i was a bit brave in there just uh don't worry about the part of the daily grind nobody likes the car being put on the rack never wrecking my car have you you are more than welcome to obviously check it out you know i have no idea what has been taken out of the car and was being put back in the car i don't know squat setting still to come officers pay a cigarette dealer a home visit you've had information that you may be selling cigarettes from the premises she knows that she's done something wrong [Music] coming up a suspected swallower gives a massive hit for cocaine [Music] in bristol the usual officers have been joined by the national strike force to carry out house searches on people suspected of dealing illegal cigarettes all the intelligence has come from anonymous tip-offs on the customs confidential hotline i've got i think it's 19 packages from tobacco and iu hopefully to execute today for officers entering suspect homes it can be dangerous you don't want to hang around the ground if you don't like it it may seem heavy-handed for selling a few cigarettes but the black market costs the treasury two billion pounds a year we're going to this lady in bristol information's being received that she could be selling cigarettes at her home address started selling cigarettes in the past two weeks and have been dealing lambert and butler we've also got to be very mindful with this that a lot of this could be malicious as well so they could just be a stitch up many tip-offs are found to be false so the officers initially go in without a warrant and that means negotiating permission to search the house hello i'm from revenue and custom right basically we've had information that you may be selling cigarettes from the premises okay i'd like to just pop in and have a chat with you about it that's all right yeah okay luckily the woman confesses and lets them in what do you think your sons brought cigarettes back from holidays and all the evidence the officers need is sitting on the dining room table yeah there's a few in the front room and that that's all it is right okay do you wanna make me feel like a terrible thing i feel like and she's obviously a bit nervous she knows that she's done something wrong she's got a kitty set up downstairs with all her facts there's a big suitcase here that shows that somebody traveled to palmer in spain on the 9th of october whether that was her or was done it's a very big case very typical of a cigarette smuggler's case is that your big suitcase up there the big upsided one in a spare room oh we use as you know right now you're getting an offense by selling these cigarettes okay so the goods will be seized from you and with perfect timing a customer turns up to find the shop closed indefinitely the black market is clearly booming in bristol in gatwick the customs intelligence hub has given officers information that a drug swallower is coming in from the caribbean a girl being questioned at immigration seems suspicious enough for customs to do a drug swab which gives a massive hit for cocaine drug swallowers are often forced into the crime and told nothing of the dangers and the possible lethal consequences of a burst package she said that she actually came in with someone named peter she met him on the beach and he's got all her money 400 pounds and he's already gone through so it doesn't look too good the suspect has denied taking cocaine so a positive urine test would suggest she has swallowed drugs [Music] there's no line by the thc since she's positive for cannabis there's no line by the coc she's possible for cocaine as well which would indicate to us that she has cocaine in her system the woman will now be arrested and x-rayed for packages [Music] okay yeah okay but to the officer's frustration she's now claiming to have used drugs [Music] they suspect she may be pregnant and so will be taken to a private hospital to have her body scanned safely that means waiting for another interpreter and that means putting on the white suit because she's um we've got her on suspicion of swallowing and we always put them in a white suit because what we'd be concerned was if she maybe started to pass packages in the sale whether she may pick them up and harm to herself sometimes it might be possible that she could retry and swallow them again we can see through the suit that's why we need her in the white suit the officers are extremely concerned for the woman's health and all the signs are pointing to a definite swallower if so she'd be looking at a lengthy sentence it's a bit concerning because with her her original story when we asked her she she doesn't touch drugs she doesn't drink it's then oh well i smoke marijuana i have taken cocaine so her story is continually changing when we take her down i really wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see packages in their body from the way her story is it's a nervous ride to the hospital which could decide the woman's future customs officers also stop smugglers who try to bring in drugs using the postal system in october 2002 a routine parcel exam uncovered a massive haul of drugs hidden in a shipment of doors and i recall getting a phone call at home that had been a major seizure within it they found hull dolls examining the whole dolls different packages which turned out to be a mixture of class a and b drugs and i can recall getting a phone call but chose after that to advise me that they had found something else in the box were live ammunition rounds and something altogether more frightening they came across another box and you can imagine their surprise when they opened it to find a grenade and i think everyone stepped back about half a mile the decision was made to do a controlled delivery and catch the culprits in the act but all they had to go on was the consignment address in devon and a phone number which belonged to timothy andrews one individual in particular timothy andrews we conducted surveillance on him over that weekend [Music] officers tailed andrews round-the-clock for three days mobile phone analysis identified andrew's partner in crime andrew griffiths the race was now on to get the package delivered on time the team replaced all the drugs and ammunition with props and prepared to make the delivery the control delivery commenced on the on the monday morning one of our officers acted as the tnt delivery driver he drove it down to the address the consignment address in the ivy bridge but within the actual consignment we had placed an audio device we've got a number of audio devices the officers were hiding waiting for the right time to strike when it became clear that the packaging has been broken into and dismantled um i decided at that point that i would call the knock fifty armed officers stormed the building and found two henchmen andrews and griffiths were elsewhere but were still being followed and were arrested they would plead not guilty but customs investigators used mobile phone cell tracking information to tie them to the crime scene on this occasion and on four previous occasions where consignments had gone to to that address that they had been in the vicinity and that's more than coincidence the evidence convinced the jury it was andrews and griffiths behind the crime the henchmen were acquitted and the sentences handed down to the smugglers made a happy ending for the officers sentences had done by a judge trial judge resulted in a 40-year sentence for griffiths in a 39-year sentence for andres but they will be serving at least 15 years back in bristol russ and jane haven't found any more cigarettes and decide not to prosecute the woman instead they want her to turn him forward um try and get some details about her son his name is [Music] is in danger of uh not only losing their cigarettes but losing his vehicle etc so it could be hefty for him seizing the 9 000 cigarettes they now want to get out before it turns ugly we don't really have the public on our side because the locals think she's providing a service so people aren't sympathetic to us so sometimes once people have clocked who we are it's better to just get the [ __ ] and get out isn't it in gatwick the suspected swallower is back with the x-rays she's put back in the cell while the officers take a look at the results if she had swallowed something you you would possibly see the shapes of packages they'd be down here they can be collected up around here and there's nothing there's nothing at all compared to an actual swallower the difference is clear see the package shapes collected down there whereas that one is totally no shapes whatsoever in that one it was negative it's an anti-climax for the officers but they're glad she'll be okay take her back up to the south terminal if she wants to so she could be on her way yeah it's negative every all the way down the line to me i was thinking yeah it's going to be positive positive the way she was acting and the things she was saying but sometimes it happens like that you know [Music] six months later the gatwick cocaine smugglers pleaded guilty and were sentenced to six and a half years in prison the taxi driver was released without charge [Music] you