Defenders: Busting the Bad Guys

An 80-year-old woman is bombarded with scam mail and tricked into handing over an estimated £50,000. Her daughter is so outraged that she starts a campaign to ensure no-one else gets caught by scams like this.

A young family attempts to cut their energy bills by up to £850 a year by having solar panels fitted. But the company they use is being run by a crooked businessman, and the family never get the savings they were promised.

And a persistent fly-tipper thinks he's going to get away with dumping piles of rubbish in a remote location, but the game's up when he is spotted by military-grade camera equipment on board a Royal Navy helicopter hovering overhead.

Trading Standards team up with Ed Sheeran's manager to take on the ticket touts making millions of pounds at the expense of ordinary music fans. Their e-crime team discovers one case in which tickets with a face value of £75 are being sold for thousands. In the first prosecution of its kind, two of the most prolific touts are charged with fraudulent trading and end up going to jail. The result is hailed as a victory for ordinary fans.

In a separate case, officers investigate a couple conning ordinary, hard-working people out of their pensions and ruining their retirements. In total, 245 people were taken in by this cold-calling pension scam.

DVSA inspectors investigate the cause of a horrific crash in which an HGV careered out of control, smashing through a motorway central reservation and killing two people. The HGV is found to have a defective braking system and is one of a fleet of vehicles operated by a company putting profits before safety. The haulage company's boss faces the prospect of jail after the inspectors discover he ignored warnings about the defective brakes.

Elsewhere, Trading Standards take strong action against a prolific cowboy builder who keeps changing his name to avoid detection and uses 30 different bank accounts to hide the thousands of pounds he charges people for work that's never finished.

The Civil Aviation Authority catches a fraudster who lied to get a job as a captain with one of the UK's largest airlines. After looking into his background, they discover his deception when he accidentally plunges an aircraft into darkness.

Food inspectors discover a blocked drain and a pool of stagnant water when they carry out routine hygiene checks at a takeaway, and trading standards investigators are on the trail of a rogue roofer who's conned people out of more than half a million pounds.

Hundreds of pensioners are left stranded after booking a five-day holiday in Torquay. They only discover they've been conned when the coaches that are supposed to pick them up don't arrive. Trading standards officers are determined to bring the boss of the bogus coach holiday company to justice.

Elsewhere, officers track down a loan shark targeting hard-up families, and they investigate the tragic death of a railway worker.

A seven-year-old boy suffers a fatal electric shock during a family visit to their local pub. Investigators discover a catalogue of electrical faults, including 12 defects that were an immediate danger. In another case, they close in on a fraudster bombarding us with scam text messages claiming to be from well-known organisations including the Royal Mail and HMRC.
And they crackdown on criminals who are dumping mountains of rubbish illegally at 300 sites across south east England.

An investigation into an £800,000 home improvement scam reveals that fraudsters are using a kitchen extension built by someone else as a fake show home and posting fake reviews on their website to help persuade customers to hand over large deposits. The fraudsters pocket the money, but no work is ever carried out.

In another case, officers rescue puppies from an unlicensed backyard breeder and seize pet passports and other documents as evidence.

A secret surveillance operation uncovers a shocking case of human trafficking and modern slavery. Scores of young men and women are being kept as prisoners and forced into unpaid labour, working for nothing at a car wash in Bristol.

Officers also investigate an online trader using the dark web to illegally sell potentially deadly diet pills. Pills like these have already been responsible for several fatalities in the UK, and the National Food Crime Unit is determined to stop anyone from selling these pills for human consumption.

In another case, investigators catch-up with a cowboy builder with an incredible list of excuses and a track record for conning people out of thousands of pounds.

Enforcement officers investigate the death of a worker at one of the UK's largest recycling plants. They seize more than 300 hours' worth of CCTV footage that shows dangerous work practices and breaches of health and safety rules in the days running up to the tragedy.

They also catch a rogue trader selling chocolate bars with a fake list of ingredients, putting children's health at risk. And a specialist team of dedicated enforcement officers get their hands dirty in a crackdown on fly-tipping.

Investigators crack down on companies deliberately bombarding the elderly with marketing phone calls and pressuring them into taking out insurance policies and setting up direct debits. It's a lucrative business, but they are determined to put a stop to it.

Elsewhere, officers tackle the disturbing crime of drink spiking, and they confront a travel agent with a shop full of angry customers.