in our ports and in our airports the uk border agency is fighting a constant battle against smugglers coming up a flight from the caribbean yields a number of suspicious looking packages we suspect them to contain herbal cannabis and that's why the gentleman has been arrested and cautioned thousands of dollars turn up at gatwick that can't be accounted for have you got documentation to prove that because otherwise the money can be seized off you and lithuanian cigarette smugglers are called red-handed any in your luggage no cigarettes right okay apart from these ones [Music] at gatwick airport a flight has just landed from montego bay in jamaica uk border agency officers are using drug detection dogs and an x-ray machine to monitor luggage coming off the flight a dog indication has been given on two suitcases and the x-ray strongly suggests that there are drug smugglers on the flight in the baggage reclaim area officers closely monitor the first of the passengers to collect one of the suspect's suitcases a young mother and child collect the case and head towards the customs channels it's here that officer mike steps in to stop the woman and break the news to her [Music] therefore i am arresting you on the suspicion of being involved in the implementation the woman is led away for further questioning but protests her innocence we're going to be getting some women into surgery that's fine meanwhile the second suspect suitcase is collected by another passenger hello there sir you traveling alone today just bring your bag over the bench for me please the man declares he's the owner of the suitcase so officer gary confirms his fate i'm arresting you on suspicion of the illegal importation of controlled drug into the uk you do not have to say anything but it may harm your defense if you don't mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court anything you do say may be given an evidence do you understand you've been arrested and cautioned right if you come this way really the man is also led away for further questioning right over towards that officer over there with both passengers now under arrest gary can finally inspect the suspicious brown packages found in the suitcases we suspect them to contain herbal cannabis and that's why the gentleman has been arrested and cautioned the contents of the packages will need to be formally assessed to get an idea about the weight and the value of the drugs since being in custody the mail passenger's mobile phone has gone off several times certainly trying to get hold of you aren't they that's his mobile phone keep going off it's obviously his accomplices trying to find out where he is hopefully looking for their commodity which they're not going to get [Music] in gatwick's south terminal passengers have just arrived from madrid and border agency officers are on the lookout for signs of suspicious behaviour a lone male passenger who started his journey in argentina has been intercepted after a routine baggage search officer johnson has found thousands of dollars in cash which the passenger hasn't declared that it's about 35 000 dollars okay is that us dollars yeah okay um what's he doing with it what's he saying any sum of cash over 10 000 euros needs to be declared officers are entitled to question passengers carrying anything over a thousand euros to ensure it has no links to organized crime the legislation is such that it's down to the individual to prove that the money is his and is for a legitimate purpose so if we're not sure or uncertain of anything they're saying we can detain the money and it's down to them to like i say prove that it is legit with such a large sum of cash background checks are carried out on the passenger to find out if he has any prior offences greg it's kim yeah well he's got 35 000 us on him so yeah it's anything really we'll just see what we can get on him thanks greg kim joins her colleague johnson to continue with the questioning about where the cash has come from the money is all yours yeah what is it for well this is the one where i explained to your colleague i just went back to argentina for a week because my mother died four or five years ago and then we just finished all the stuff with regards to the money and will and yeah inheritance yes okay this is basically my share have you got documentation to prove that because otherwise the money can be seized off you because you have you're traveling with over 5 000 pounds worth of cash and you haven't got any oh no certainly i can i mean how long would it take you to get these documents they're in argentina are they yes i mean they can get copies yeah i mean whatever the career thinks with no documents or other evidence showing where the money's come from it looks increasingly unlikely the man will be leaving the airport with his cash in the airport's north terminal officers are still investigating the two passengers who were found to have what looks like packages of herbal cannabis in their suitcases a strip search was conducted on both passengers but no further packages were found the woman is led away to the airport's custody suite to be detained whilst officer mike assesses the quantity and value of the drugs found in her suitcase she had eight blocks in the bag all of them are about two kilos each but i'll chuck them on the scales in a minute and just get a weight of all of them together with such a large haul of suspect packages a field test must be conducted to confirm that the substance definitely is herbal cannabis put the first drop on it and that will go through onto the second bit of filter paper then put some of this powdery stuff on it and if it's positive it should go sort of a dark red color [Music] that's a positive thing okay there's a couple of blankets there if you want anything just give us a buzz okay the male passenger is also detained at the custody suite there's not a lot you can do until he um actually gets his solicitor speaks to him then after that where other officers will go and interview and until then we're just now going to go through the bags and find out exactly what he's got a series of large brown sealed packages are pulled from the bottom of the man's suitcase there are eight blocks in total making it another very significant seizure gary weighs the packages of drugs to find out how much the male passenger was carrying as you can see there the eight blocks weigh approximately 17.26 kilograms so there's probably about 16.5 to 17 kilograms of herbal cannabis within them packages with two suitcases full of herbal cannabis being intercepted from the same flight officers are delighted with the seizure the 16 blocks found in both suitcases weighed over 34 kilograms in total and had a street value of 80 to 100 000 pounds in the south terminal officers are still trying to decide what to do with the man who failed to declare he was carrying over thirty five thousand us dollars and five thousand pounds in cash yeah i don't know if it's going to help but we can i can call buenos aires and just try to find my father and ask him just to [ __ ] the documents the problem is they're gonna be in spanish that's going to be the problem i think we'll just wait and wait till the officer's finished his search and then we'll go from there okay if no evidence can be shown for where the cash has come from drastic action may have to be taken if he can't show us any kind of trail for this and the paperwork's all going to come fire he's down this lizard we're going to you're going to have to take the money off him okay and then now i think he knows that actually oh well i've told you he's got a laptop hasn't he he has a lot yeah if you ask him is there any way he can show proof of where this money's come from on that yeah okay yeah yeah we'll get everything out the back for a search officer johnson bags up the man's cash and leads him away for a search and further questioning so what were you going to do with the money you've got now you've got this one yeah that was i was planning just to basically first we were thinking on doing an extension in the house yeah but uh we were about we need to discuss further really it's not a decision so in the meantime probably going to have you got kids in there yes how many tickets the reason why i did this way i don't have an account on bursaries anymore but the man's answers are starting to convince after kim's background searches show nothing on their system the officers have a change of heart sarah it's kim hi this is going nowhere i think i've seen his business card he's on 60 000 a year he gets on average five six thousand a year bonus he's got a three-bedroom house when franco asked him what he wanted to use the money for he was going to put some in the bank and he was talking about actually um perhaps doing an extension because his kitchen's a bit smaller i mean he's very relaxed he's his um non-verbals are very good as well i just i think he's a genuine guy and i think just send him away yeah and yeah and just say next time make sure you bring all the documents with you thank you very much despite their initial reservations officers are happy with the man's story and let him leave the airport with all of his cash coming up a man from trinidad and tobago causes suspicion after leaving his country for the very first time she's ticking a lot of boxes mate very potentially [Music] coming up a suitcase is found stuffed with animal skins and the passengers excuses aren't washing he's cleaning that rabbit but clearly [Music] at gatwick airport south terminal a number of european flights have just arrived and border agency officer pool is x-raying suitcases for excessive quantities of cigarettes cheap cigarettes purchased outside of the european union are often brought into the country to be sold illegally for personal profit one bag spotted on the x-ray is suspected to contain lots of non-eu cigarettes so paul heads to the luggage reclaim area to see who claims the bag [Music] are these your bags yeah yes did you pack them yourself yeah yes do you have anything to clear to customs yes okay do you have any cigarettes with you i know i know we do some for us yeah but how many cigarettes have you got any in your luggage no cigarettes right okay apart from these ones straight away the couple are busted cigarettes so why didn't you tell me i don't know you don't know why you didn't tell me okay more cigarettes are found concealed in cereal boxes so why are they hidden you don't know why you hope you hide them and you don't know why you didn't tell me about your friends you do know what's going to happen don't you you're going to lose all these cigarettes yes the cigarettes are not purchased in the european union are they they're not tax paid cigarettes anyway yes absolutely there's a problem when you lie to me and you try to hide cigarettes then yes there's a problem do you not understand that the way the cigarettes have been hidden in cereal boxes suggests the couple know their allowance so how much can i bring with me i think you know exactly what you're allowed yeah and that's why you're hit that's why you hit these how much well you know that you're in the european union and if you buy tax paid cigarettes in the european union then you can bring in this amount but these aren't tax paid cigarettes are they that's it are you sure yes because at the moment you haven't been honest with me so i need to check everything don't i with a total of 1800 cigarettes the unpaid duty is worth 360 pounds okay two forms i've got to issue these to you one's a warning letter and one's a seizure information notice thanks very much paul seizes all of the cigarettes and the couple are let off with a warning i mean he just obviously looked down at his feet almost like schoolboyish if i don't look at you then and don't speak to you then it's not really happening [Music] in gadwick's north terminal a plane has just come in from port of spain via saint lucia flights from the caribbean are a popular transit route for drug smugglers and officers working in immigration have concerns about one particular passenger as he collects his suitcase from the luggage carousel officer paul escorts him through to the customs channels do you have anything to declare to customs cigarettes alcohol drugs firearms one bottle of alcohol okay sniffer dog bren also shows an interest in the passenger he showed an awful lot of interest in this gentleman here didn't such indicate but it gave me enough information to say yeah i want that looked at okay sir please ask questions about your luggage anybody giving you anything at all to bring here yeah yeah okay so when did you arrange this trip last month last do you know what she does for work do you know what your auntie does for work here no you don't know that paul conducts a thorough search of the man's bags for any signs of drugs so i'm trinidad you're a fisherman here yeah how much do you get paid doing that then well depends how many fish you catch so what are you intending to do while you're here what made you want to visit this country [Music] but the man's story about the seasons doesn't convince so you've come here to see autumn have you wow your first time in travel she never even been to another caribbean island or anything i can leave that view and i'll have a chat with my boss and i'll be back with you in a minute all right she's ticking a lot of boxes mate um very potentially um third party's auntie bought the ticket he's got three hundred trillion tomato dollars worth he's never even traveled before on his body this growing area through this strip yeah hello sir i want to do a search on you okay to make sure you don't have anything on your body what we'll do is we'll go to a private room okay suspecting he may have swallowed packages of drugs the man is led away for further investigation across in gatwick's south terminal it's not just drugs that the border agency are looking out for officer liz is working in the baggage reclaim area with sniffer dog cody who's the airport's newest dog trained specifically in the detection of products of animal it origin back from when we had the out the foot and mouth outbreak um and we're trying to sort of stop any sort of food products coming out from outside the eu certainly meats cheeses any sort of products of animal origin really if there's any sort of um parasites or any sort of bacterias etc that could get into our own food chain this is what we really are trying to prevent passengers from istanbul just arrived and officers in the customs channels are making a number of seizures of meat and other banned foods one passenger has caught the attention of officers after her suitcase was found to contain a number of animal skins let's have a look in the bag i've come across these skins she's cleaning that rabbit but they're clearly not grab it they're all going to be detained if they're okay they'll be forwarded on to it [Music] until we get confirmation they're going to be detained the animal skins will be sent to a specialist unit at heathrow airport who deal with items that are suspected to originate from endangered species certainly a couple of these look like cat some sort of big game cat probably deer elk maybe [Music] and i mean the obvious thing would say bear there but until we get it properly looked at it's going to be very difficult to sort of see really exactly what we are dealing with it's an unusual discovery so officer allen decides to use the seizure as a training aid for sniffer dog cody cody's is still sort of quite a young dog so he's still new to the actual work um so yes we use the word scent library it's a new scent for the dog he's never come across these pelts before so it's what we do we can put him in the bag and hopefully he'll remember this smell it's all part of a sort of development of a young dog definitely the animal skins are hidden in a case and cody shows an interest first time it's early days but cody seems to have made a flying start to his new life as a sniffer dog at gatwick [Music] in the airport's north terminal the man suspected of having swallowed packages of drugs is still under investigation what i want to do and use strip search okay because dogs showed an interest around the groin there okay okay okay [Music] officer paul conducts a thorough search of the passenger but he's not found to be hiding anything you're not intending to stay here no no you sure positively show all that but you don't have a return ticket no you told me i have to return on the 14th of um november yeah but i didn't get any um singers yet so there's one final way of finding out whether the man is smuggling drugs inside his body another way people can bring drugs in the country is to have it inside them yeah we have a machine which can can do an x-ray you okay to do that for us why not why not okay good man the fisherman volunteers to do a full body x-ray it will take just moments to find out if he's got drugs inside him right this is conveyor belt okay okay so you're going to stand on this stand up here and it's going to move when i say face this way goes this way all right come closer to me here that's it legs apart a bit more all right you need to stay very still otherwise it won't work i'm going to do it again okay all right it's going down and breathe out okay sir thank you very much despite their suspicions this time the x-ray shows there are no packages inside the man's body my colleague upstairs it still has an interest in you okay he's basically a fisherman in trinidad and tobago he doesn't earn very much money his ticket was brought yesterday by a third party supposedly an auntie but he doesn't know what that auntie even does for a job or anything like that basically his story and his reasons for coming here not only drew our attention but also the immigration officials upstairs so unless possibly they can find this auntie and she could substantiate while he's here why he's here maybe on the next flight home we'll have to see the man was questioned further by officers in immigration and was eventually denied entry into the uk the two cannabis smugglers found with eight blocks each in their suitcases both pleaded guilty to drug smuggling the man was sentenced to 15 months and the woman awaits sentencing [Music] you