Counterfeit Chinese made stamps flood postal market

More like about £45 000.

OK but if I were setting up a printing business and looked at how much various things like printing machines cost, I'd probably shop in China, and whilst at it I would buy the inks there and so on. It's safer that way because the Chinese are hardly likely to report your purchase as suspicious.

I just tend to get on with the Chinese and see eye to eye. The thing is if you were a Chinese businessman who could set up an operation to forge British stamps, you would probably make more money simply by setting up a legit printing business in China and print post cards or some other innocuous thing. The days when China was starving and would do just about any crime to survive are long gone. China is now a very law abiding society and most of those who you get to speak to of the younger generations are very well educated and probably have a degree in science and have a well-paid job. Indeed China is going the complete reverse way to this country. If I were to make a stab at who I would least be surprised about doing this, I would say Albanians.  The blacks rule themselves out as too stupid, the Indians are already in government so are loaded, but the Albanians' speciality is organised crime, plus they are known to be pretty smart.

There is no way it was the government. There is a small chance some Chinese backstreet printers were doing it, but backstreet printer businesses are more likely to be large and successful legit enterprises now. This is how it is. You owned a property or a company 20 year ago and you are likely to be ten - fifty times richer today. The rate of growth in that country is phenomenal. Crime occurs when like in the UK if you tried to run a printers you would almost certainly fail in the first few years, so you don't have a legit alternative. If it is easier to do legit business than crime then crime just falls out of the picture. China is becoming like Japan, which is one of the safest countries in the world.