“Alright mate? Can I interest you in a fine TVScoop article?” Stop! Don’t do it! This is in fact a fake article written by a fake Mof Gimmers. This article isn’t even on TVScoop… it’s probably some North Korean spy site or something. Anyway, I’m going stop labouring this ‘fake’ thing and tell you what I really came for.

I’ve just received a press release that yelled “We are all proud of our fakes! Bet you can’t tell the difference! The cheap ‘Rolex’ we snaffled at the local market, those ‘Prada’ jeans, ‘Rayburn’ sunglasses that cost a tenner, the new England kit.” Of course, we’re talking about knock-off goods. Counterfeiting has become the fastest growing crime of modern times, and all because twenty years ago the most famous luxury brands went East in search of cheap labour. On now, that cheap tat is hitting our screens.

The first film in a two part series tells the story of how fakes came to dominate the market and how the brands are struggling to fight back. On a journey that takes us from the sweatshops of Southern China (via the alledged slavery in some factories in Cambodia) to the boutiques of Bond Street, the first film takes us to meet the fakers and the men and women who are risking their lives to take them on. In the modern world almost anything can be copied.

It’s the story of how the brands helped turn counterfeiting into the world’s biggest and fastest-rising criminal industry by outsourcing their production to China… the press release added “a country with a tradition of copying that goes back centuries” but that feels a bit wrong somehow. Anyway, the film charts how fakery here has gone to unbelievable lengths, from £1000 designer goods to humble chicken eggs, and the seeming inability of the brands and the Chinese government to do anything about it.

China’s counterfeiters are now manufacturing and distributing throughout Britain, but only the foot soldiers, themselves exploited by the faking syndicates, ever get caught. And gradually we become clear that this is not a victimless crime: not only the workers are exploited but the consumers as we discover that counterfeiting is into everything, even prescription medicines.

In the second film, the global journey continues through South East Asia, Africa, America and Britain to reveal counterfeiting’s hidden victims: slaves who are forced to work in counterfeit factories; relatives of people who have died because of fake medicines; investigators and regulators who live under the threat of assassination because of their battle with the faking syndicates. We’re shown how the fakers now use the internet to distribute their products throughout the world and how they are recruiting otherwise law-abiding citizens to sell the fakes on their behalf, thus keeping their identities hidden. In recent months fake medicines have been detected in record quantities in the UK. The film shows how easy it is to get them into Britain.

Fake Trade will broadcast March 3rd on Channel 4. Just make sure your telly is the real deal before tuning in.