24 Hours In Police Custody Investigates: Zombie Knives (Channel 4)
What I want to know is, how can a consignment of more than 35,000 zombie knives with jagged blades come into the UK from China – and customs officers don’t see a thing?
In the opening shots of the hour–long documentary 24 Hours In Police Custody Investigates: Zombie Knives, a drone camera followed an articulated lorry to a police warehouse.
On the flatbed were half-a-dozen pallets piled high with crates of huge knives. Officers methodically laid the individual weapons out in rows, covering the entire floorspace, like Stacey Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out with machetes instead of children’s toys.
Banned by the Tory government in 2024, zombie knives are at least eight inches from handle to tip, though many are three times that size.
Most have serrated edges, and some have hooked blades, designed to inflict maximum internal injuries.
The lorryful of weaponry was handed in by two Luton businesses, Sporting Wholesale and DNA Leisure, run by brothers Eddy and Adam Eliaz, who were selling them — legally —over the internet prior to the ban.
Tellingly, Adam Eliaz appeared on a junior edition of The Apprentice in 2010, when he was 17. ‘I love making money,’ he bragged. ‘I’ll do anything, you know, if it brings money in my pocket.’
The question this true–crime investigation failed to answer was how it is possible for Chinese manufacturers to export them into the UK in such large numbers, unhindered by police or imports inspectors. Why were the cargos not confiscated, as an obvious danger to public safety?
Rows of zombie knives seized by police were laid out on the 24 Hours In Police Custody Investigates: Zombie Knives on Channel 4
Truckloads of knives were discovered at the border, trying to enter the UK from China
Police officers were shown stacking the mountains of knives away
Zombie knives were banned in the UK by the Conservatives in 2024
Once the knives have been sold, police have lost their chance. The next time one is recovered, it might be evidence in a murder inquiry.
One teenage drug dealer in Luton, Rayis Nibeel, is thought to have bought 65 knives in 13 online orders with DNA Leisure, including ninja swords and bayonets, before the ban.
Nibeel and another youth were convicted of stabbing a 38–year–old man to death in 2023.
None of the knives was recovered. ‘That just fills me with dread,’ said a police officer, ‘because there’s 65 murders waiting to happen.’
DNA Leisure has now ceased trading. But type those two words into Google, and the algorithm directs users to other online sites selling knives.
That begs another question – why are search engines permitted to make buying weapons online so easy?
The statistics set out in this programme are horrific. Nearly 100 young people were stabbed to death in Britain last year, 17 of them aged 15 or younger.
One boy told a reporter, ‘Kids mostly carry knives to protect themselves, and they’re mostly around our age, like 12, 13.’
Two heartbreaking cases were featured. Teenagers Ashraf Habimana and Ronan Kanda were both unarmed when they were killed. Their families pleaded for politicians and police to do more. Preventing the import of these murder weapons would be a start.
