0:00:00.855,0:00:04.321
Two years ago, I set off[br]from central London on the Tube

0:00:04.345,0:00:06.643
and ended up somewhere[br]in the east of the city

0:00:06.667,0:00:08.580
walking into a self-storage unit

0:00:08.604,0:00:12.199
to meet a guy that had[br]2,000 luxury polo shirts for sale.

0:00:13.180,0:00:15.105
And as I made my way down the corridor,

0:00:15.129,0:00:18.122
a broken, blinking light made it[br]just like the cliche scene

0:00:18.146,0:00:19.343
from a gangster movie.

0:00:20.462,0:00:22.644
Our man was early,[br]and he was waiting for me

0:00:22.668,0:00:25.525
in front of a unit secured[br]with four padlocks down the side.

0:00:26.043,0:00:27.580
On our opening exchange,

0:00:27.604,0:00:29.343
it was like a verbal sparring match

0:00:29.367,0:00:31.001
where he threw the first punches.

0:00:31.401,0:00:33.915
Who was I?[br]Did I have a business card?

0:00:33.939,0:00:35.862
And where was I going to sell?

0:00:35.886,0:00:38.566
And then, he just started opening up,

0:00:38.590,0:00:39.740
and it was my turn.

0:00:40.433,0:00:42.379
Where were the polo shirts coming from?

0:00:42.403,0:00:43.754
What paperwork did he have?

0:00:44.501,0:00:47.032
And when was his next shipment[br]going to arrive?

0:00:47.056,0:00:48.390
I was treading the fine line

0:00:48.414,0:00:51.169
between asking enough questions[br]to get what I needed

0:00:51.193,0:00:53.740
and not enough for him[br]to become suspicious,

0:00:53.764,0:00:58.294
because what he didn't know[br]is that I'm a counterfeit investigator,

0:00:58.318,0:00:59.681
(Laughter)

0:00:59.705,0:01:02.468
and after 20 minutes or so[br]of checking over the product

0:01:02.492,0:01:06.007
for the telltale signs[br]of counterfeit production --

0:01:06.031,0:01:08.357
say, badly stitched labels[br]or how the packaging

0:01:08.381,0:01:11.206
had a huge brand logo[br]stamped all over the front of it --

0:01:11.230,0:01:13.126
I was finally on my way out,

0:01:13.150,0:01:16.221
but not before he insisted[br]on walking down to the street with me

0:01:16.245,0:01:17.451
and back to the station.

0:01:19.237,0:01:21.905
And the feeling after these meetings[br]is always the same:

0:01:21.929,0:01:24.009
my heart is beating like a drum,

0:01:24.033,0:01:26.928
because you never know[br]if they've actually bought your story,

0:01:26.952,0:01:30.080
or they're going to start following you[br]to see who you really are.

0:01:30.104,0:01:32.454
Relief only comes[br]when you turn the first corner

0:01:32.478,0:01:34.842
and glance behind,[br]and they're not standing there.

0:01:36.171,0:01:39.352
But what our counterfeit[br]polo shirt seller certainly didn't realize

0:01:39.376,0:01:43.137
is that everything I'd seen and heard[br]would result in a dawn raid on his house,

0:01:43.161,0:01:45.948
him being woken out of bed[br]by eight men on his doorstep

0:01:45.972,0:01:47.362
and all his product seized.

0:01:48.557,0:01:52.040
But this would reveal[br]that he was just a pawn

0:01:52.064,0:01:55.522
at the end of a counterfeiting network[br]spanning three continents,

0:01:55.546,0:01:58.664
and he was just the first loose thread[br]that I'd started to pull on

0:01:58.688,0:02:00.625
in the hope that it would all unravel.

0:02:01.697,0:02:03.434
Why go through all that trouble?

0:02:04.358,0:02:06.799
Well, maybe counterfeiting[br]is a victimless crime?

0:02:07.365,0:02:09.475
These big companies,[br]they make enough money,

0:02:09.499,0:02:10.770
so if anything,

0:02:10.794,0:02:13.530
counterfeiting is just a free form[br]of advertising, right?

0:02:14.170,0:02:16.546
And consumers believe just that --

0:02:16.570,0:02:19.467
that the buying and selling of fakes[br]is not that big a deal.

0:02:20.110,0:02:23.149
But I'm here to tell you[br]that that is just not true.

0:02:24.848,0:02:28.777
What the tourist on holiday doesn't see[br]about those fake handbags

0:02:28.801,0:02:31.237
is they may well[br]have been stitched together

0:02:31.261,0:02:34.750
by a child who was trafficked[br]away from her family,

0:02:34.774,0:02:37.246
and what the car repair shop[br]owner doesn't realize

0:02:37.270,0:02:39.403
about those fake brake pads

0:02:39.427,0:02:42.769
is they may well be lining the pockets[br]of an organized crime gang

0:02:42.793,0:02:44.895
involved in drugs and prostitution.

0:02:45.950,0:02:48.840
And while those two things[br]are horrible to think about,

0:02:48.864,0:02:51.172
it gets much worse,

0:02:51.196,0:02:54.068
because counterfeiting[br]is even funding terrorism.

0:02:55.043,0:02:56.511
Let that sink in for a moment.

0:02:57.567,0:03:00.396
Terrorists are selling fakes[br]to fund attacks,

0:03:00.420,0:03:04.109
attacks in our cities[br]that try to make victims of all of us.

0:03:05.442,0:03:07.681
You wouldn't buy a live scorpion,

0:03:07.705,0:03:10.753
because there's a chance[br]that it would sting you on the way home,

0:03:10.777,0:03:12.760
but would you still buy a fake handbag

0:03:12.784,0:03:16.283
if you knew the profits[br]would enable someone to buy bullets

0:03:16.307,0:03:19.672
that would kill you and other[br]innocent people six months later?

0:03:20.594,0:03:21.744
Maybe not.

0:03:22.552,0:03:24.314
OK, time to come clean.

0:03:24.668,0:03:25.819
In my youth --

0:03:25.843,0:03:28.696
yeah, I might look like I'm still[br]clinging on to it a bit --

0:03:28.720,0:03:31.888
I bought fake watches[br]while on holiday in the Canary Islands.

0:03:32.395,0:03:33.767
But why do I tell you this?

0:03:34.229,0:03:36.681
Well, we've all done it,

0:03:36.705,0:03:38.380
or we know someone that's done it.

0:03:38.404,0:03:42.047
And until this very moment,[br]maybe you didn't think twice about it,

0:03:42.071,0:03:43.447
and nor did I,

0:03:43.471,0:03:46.098
until I answered a 20-word cryptic advert

0:03:46.122,0:03:48.407
to become an intellectual[br]property investigator.

0:03:50.086,0:03:53.128
It said "Full training given[br]and some international travel."

0:03:53.152,0:03:56.901
Within a week, I was creating[br]my first of many aliases,

0:03:56.925,0:04:00.003
and in the 10 years since,[br]I've investigated fake car parts,

0:04:00.027,0:04:03.241
alloy wheels, fake pet grooming tools,

0:04:03.265,0:04:04.956
fake bicycle parts,

0:04:04.980,0:04:07.107
and, of course,[br]the counterfeiter's favorite,

0:04:07.131,0:04:10.241
fake luxury leather goods,[br]clothing and shoes.

0:04:11.027,0:04:13.901
And what I've learned in the 10 years[br]of investigating fakes

0:04:13.925,0:04:16.366
is that once you start[br]to scratch the surface,

0:04:16.390,0:04:18.552
you find that they are rotten to the core,

0:04:18.576,0:04:23.314
as are the people and organizations[br]that are making money from them,

0:04:23.338,0:04:26.805
because they are profiting[br]on a massive, massive scale.

0:04:27.499,0:04:29.928
You can only make[br]around a hundred to 200 percent

0:04:29.952,0:04:31.466
selling drugs on the street.

0:04:31.807,0:04:35.650
You can make 2,000 percent[br]selling fakes online

0:04:35.674,0:04:37.895
with little of the same[br]risks or penalties.

0:04:38.856,0:04:40.141
And this quick, easy money

0:04:40.165,0:04:42.809
then goes on to fund[br]the more serious types of crime,

0:04:42.833,0:04:45.397
and it pays the way[br]to making these organizations,

0:04:45.421,0:04:47.832
these criminal organizations,[br]look more legitimate.

0:04:48.863,0:04:50.894
So let me bring you in on a live case.

0:04:51.620,0:04:53.819
Earlier this year,[br]a series of raids took place

0:04:53.843,0:04:56.164
in one of my longest-running[br]investigations.

0:04:56.470,0:04:59.523
Five warehouses were raided in Turkey,

0:04:59.547,0:05:03.360
and over two million finished[br]counterfeit clothing products were seized,

0:05:03.384,0:05:06.375
and it took 16 trucks[br]to take that all away.

0:05:07.288,0:05:08.718
But this gang had been clever.

0:05:08.742,0:05:12.130
They had gone to the lengths[br]of creating their own fashion brands,

0:05:12.154,0:05:14.137
complete with registered trademarks,

0:05:14.161,0:05:16.662
and even having photo shoots[br]on yachts in Italy.

0:05:19.124,0:05:22.782
And they would use these completely[br]unheard-of and unsuspicious brand names

0:05:22.806,0:05:25.448
as a way of shipping[br]container loads of fakes

0:05:25.472,0:05:27.948
to shell companies[br]that they'd set up across Europe.

0:05:28.974,0:05:30.846
And documents found during those raids

0:05:30.870,0:05:34.244
found that they'd been falsifying[br]shipping documents

0:05:34.268,0:05:37.014
so the customs officials[br]would literally have no idea

0:05:37.038,0:05:39.228
who had sent the products[br]in the first place.

0:05:39.944,0:05:42.301
When police got access[br]to just one bank account,

0:05:42.325,0:05:44.139
they found nearly three million euros

0:05:44.163,0:05:47.608
had been laundered out of Spain[br]in less than two years,

0:05:47.632,0:05:49.711
and just two days after those raids,

0:05:49.735,0:05:53.200
that gang were trying to bribe a law firm[br]to get their stock back.

0:05:54.782,0:05:57.846
Even now, we have no idea[br]where all that money went,

0:05:57.870,0:05:59.036
to who it went to,

0:05:59.060,0:06:02.353
but you can bet it's never going[br]to benefit the likes of you or me.

0:06:03.970,0:06:06.272
But these aren't just[br]low-level street thugs.

0:06:06.739,0:06:09.876
They're business professionals,[br]and they fly first class.

0:06:09.900,0:06:11.806
They trick legitimate businesses

0:06:11.830,0:06:14.790
with convincing fake invoices[br]and paperwork,

0:06:14.814,0:06:16.440
so everything just seems real,

0:06:16.464,0:06:19.060
and then they set up eBay[br]and Amazon accounts

0:06:19.084,0:06:22.027
just to compete with the people[br]they've already sold fakes to.

0:06:23.813,0:06:25.622
But this isn't just happening online.

0:06:26.117,0:06:30.594
For a few years, I also used to attend[br]automotive trade shows

0:06:30.618,0:06:33.301
taking place in huge exhibition spaces,

0:06:33.325,0:06:36.517
but away from the Ferraris[br]and the Bentleys and the flashing lights,

0:06:36.541,0:06:38.475
there'd be companies selling fakes:

0:06:38.499,0:06:41.190
companies with a brochure on the counter

0:06:41.214,0:06:44.516
and another one underneath,[br]if you ask them the right questions.

0:06:44.540,0:06:47.351
And they would sell me fake car parts,[br]faulty fake car parts

0:06:47.375,0:06:51.892
that have been estimated to cause[br]over 36,000 fatalities,

0:06:51.916,0:06:53.787
deaths on our roads each year.

0:06:55.182,0:07:01.071
Counterfeiting is set to become[br]a 2.3-trillion-dollar underground economy,

0:07:01.095,0:07:04.150
and the damage that can be done[br]with that kind of money,

0:07:04.174,0:07:05.460
it's really frightening ...

0:07:06.587,0:07:09.905
because fakes fund terror.

0:07:09.929,0:07:12.350
Fake trainers on the streets of Paris,

0:07:12.374,0:07:14.817
fake cigarettes in West Africa,

0:07:14.841,0:07:17.056
and pirate music CDs in the USA

0:07:17.080,0:07:20.334
have all gone on to fund[br]trips to training camps,

0:07:20.358,0:07:23.484
bought weapons and ammunition,[br]or the ingredients for explosives.

0:07:24.421,0:07:27.620
In June 2014, the French security services

0:07:27.644,0:07:33.620
stopped monitoring the communications[br]of Said and Cherif Kouachi,

0:07:33.644,0:07:37.524
the two brothers who had been[br]on a terror watch list for three years.

0:07:37.548,0:07:40.772
But that summer, they were only[br]picking up that Cherif was buying

0:07:40.796,0:07:42.855
fake trainers from China,

0:07:42.879,0:07:45.514
so it signaled a shift away from extremism

0:07:45.538,0:07:48.442
into what was considered[br]a low-level petty crime.

0:07:49.752,0:07:51.045
The threat had gone away.

0:07:52.049,0:07:53.207
Seven months later,

0:07:53.231,0:07:56.389
the two brothers walked into the offices[br]of Charlie Hebdo magazine

0:07:56.413,0:07:59.218
and killed 12 people, wounded 11 more,

0:07:59.242,0:08:01.908
with guns from the proceeds[br]of those fakes.

0:08:02.603,0:08:06.235
So whatever you think, this isn't[br]a faraway problem happening in China.

0:08:06.259,0:08:07.551
It's happening right here.

0:08:09.528,0:08:10.885
And Paris is not unique.

0:08:11.642,0:08:15.754
Ten years earlier, in 2004,[br]191 people lost their lives

0:08:15.778,0:08:17.721
when a Madrid commuter train was bombed.

0:08:18.307,0:08:22.561
The attack had been partly funded[br]by the sale of pirate music CDs in the US.

0:08:22.880,0:08:25.722
Two years prior to that,[br]an Al Qaeda training manual

0:08:25.746,0:08:28.316
recommended explicitly selling fakes

0:08:28.340,0:08:30.991
as a good way of supporting terror cells.

0:08:32.574,0:08:37.709
But despite this, despite the evidence[br]connecting terrorism and counterfeiting,

0:08:37.733,0:08:40.503
we do go on buying them,[br]increasing the demand

0:08:40.527,0:08:42.876
to the point where[br]there's even a store in Turkey

0:08:42.900,0:08:46.664
called "I Love Genuine Fakes."

0:08:46.688,0:08:49.887
And you have tourists posing[br]with photographs on TripAdvisor,

0:08:49.911,0:08:51.648
giving it five-star reviews.

0:08:52.301,0:08:54.736
But would those same tourists[br]have gone into a store

0:08:54.760,0:08:58.072
called "I Love Genuine Fake Viagra Pills"

0:08:58.096,0:09:00.500
or "I Genuinely Love Funding Terrorism"?

0:09:01.282,0:09:02.432
I doubt it.

0:09:03.564,0:09:06.510
Many of us think[br]that we're completely helpless

0:09:06.534,0:09:08.620
against organized crime and terrorism,

0:09:08.644,0:09:11.550
that we can do nothing[br]about the next attack,

0:09:11.574,0:09:12.986
but I believe you can.

0:09:13.755,0:09:16.359
You can by becoming investigators, too.

0:09:17.875,0:09:20.756
The way we cripple these networks[br]is to cut their funding,

0:09:20.780,0:09:22.392
and that means cutting the demand

0:09:22.416,0:09:25.173
and changing this idea[br]that it's a victimless crime.

0:09:25.197,0:09:27.658
Let's all identify counterfeiters,

0:09:27.682,0:09:29.181
and don't give them our money.

0:09:29.736,0:09:32.396
So here's a few tips[br]from one investigator to another

0:09:32.420,0:09:33.704
to get you started.

0:09:34.633,0:09:35.910
Number one:

0:09:35.934,0:09:38.609
here's a typical[br]online counterfeiter's website.

0:09:39.263,0:09:40.413
Note the URL.

0:09:40.923,0:09:43.884
If you're shopping for sunglasses[br]or camera lenses, say,

0:09:43.908,0:09:47.414
and you come across a website[br]like medical-insurance-bankruptcy.com,

0:09:47.438,0:09:49.003
start to get very suspicious.

0:09:49.027,0:09:50.553
(Laughter)

0:09:50.577,0:09:52.849
Counterfeiters register[br]expired domain names

0:09:52.873,0:09:56.149
as a way of keeping up[br]the old website's Google page ranking.

0:09:57.401,0:09:58.552
Number two:

0:09:58.576,0:10:02.059
is the website screaming at you[br]that everything is 100 percent genuine,

0:10:02.083,0:10:05.290
but still giving you 75 percent[br]off the latest collection?

0:10:06.003,0:10:08.431
Look for words like "master copy,"

0:10:08.455,0:10:10.455
"overruns," "straight from the factory."

0:10:11.201,0:10:14.321
They could write this all in Comic Sans,[br]it's that much of a joke.

0:10:14.345,0:10:15.954
(Laughter)

0:10:15.978,0:10:17.212
Number three:

0:10:17.236,0:10:19.112
if you get as far as the checkout page,

0:10:19.136,0:10:24.399
and you don't see "https"[br]or a padlock symbol next to the URL,

0:10:24.423,0:10:27.035
you should really start thinking[br]about closing the tab,

0:10:27.059,0:10:29.337
because these indicate[br]active security measures

0:10:29.361,0:10:32.466
that will keep your personal[br]and credit card information safe.

0:10:32.490,0:10:34.583
OK, last one:

0:10:34.607,0:10:36.811
go hunting for the "Contact Us" page.

0:10:36.835,0:10:39.664
If you can only find a generic webform,

0:10:39.688,0:10:43.613
no company name, telephone number,[br]email address, postal address --

0:10:43.637,0:10:45.697
that's it, case closed.

0:10:45.721,0:10:47.968
You found a counterfeiter.

0:10:47.992,0:10:50.263
Sadly, you're going to have[br]to go back to Google

0:10:50.287,0:10:52.431
and start your shopping search[br]all over again,

0:10:52.455,0:10:55.365
but you didn't get ripped off,[br]so that's only a good thing.

0:10:56.601,0:11:00.173
As the world's most famous[br]fictional detective would say,

0:11:00.197,0:11:02.275
"Watson, the game is afoot."

0:11:03.027,0:11:05.558
Only this time, my investigator friends,

0:11:05.582,0:11:07.162
the game is painfully real.

0:11:07.973,0:11:10.075
So the next time you're shopping online,

0:11:10.099,0:11:11.996
or perhaps wherever it is,

0:11:12.020,0:11:16.212
look closer, question a little bit[br]deeper, and ask yourself --

0:11:16.236,0:11:19.147
before you hand over[br]the cash or click "Buy,"

0:11:19.171,0:11:20.449
"Am I sure this is real?"

0:11:21.208,0:11:24.658
Tell your friend that used to buy[br]counterfeit watches

0:11:24.682,0:11:27.656
that he may just have brought[br]the next attack one day closer.

0:11:28.335,0:11:30.810
And, if you see[br]an Instagram advert for fakes,

0:11:30.834,0:11:32.224
don't keep scrolling past,

0:11:32.248,0:11:34.461
report it to the platform as a scam.

0:11:35.375,0:11:38.437
Let's shine a light[br]on the dark forces of counterfeiting

0:11:38.461,0:11:39.946
that are hiding in plain sight.

0:11:40.460,0:11:42.525
So please, spread the word

0:11:42.549,0:11:43.970
and don't stop investigating.

0:11:44.385,0:11:45.536
Thank you.

0:11:45.560,0:11:49.730
(Applause)