Bomb Detector Maker Arrested

Bomb Detector Maker Arrested

news.bbc.co.uk

The maker of a bomb detector used in Iraq & Afghanistan has been arrested after it turns out that the bomb detector doesn't work, it's electronics are shop anti-theft circuit boards but $85 million has been spent on them...

(visit the link for the full news article)

The link to this BBC story is below, but how fishy does this sound?

The device just didn't work and never would, are we seriously to believe that the Iraqi government just went and spent $85 million on these without even testing one to see if it worked, or without having someone take one to pieces and have a look?

It took a tv show investigation to find out it didn't work!!!

They were just shop anti-theft circuit boards, and the maker claimed that they were powered off the bodies static electricity - any electronics engineer would have smelled something fishy in that claim, and would you really want to even try and use such an unreliable power source instead of a battery?

How many people will have died as a result of this scam, and who is really behind it?

news.bbc.co.uk...

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

Wow that is one heck of a ballsy confidence scam! - Also possibly a conspiracy that allowed transport of explosives through security check points in multiple countries?

Mind you seems a bit amateurish and the guy got lucky and just rode his luck?

The maker of a bomb detector used in Iraq & Afghanistan has been arrested after it turns out that the bomb detector doesn't work

I am thinking this contract to buy faulty detectors was on purpose as previously posted. With secret ops going on in the country, bombs going off is the thing that keeps the troops there. So as long as the detectors are faulty, bombs still go off and the troops still have a reason to be there. The arrest is propaganda. With propaganda they lie cheat and steal. All in the name of changing and manipulating peoples minds.

Been around for a while, a total fraud

www.randi.org...
www.npr.org...
www.randi.org...
sniffexquestions.blogspot.com...

reply to post by dereks

Not the same people or "product" but the same scam.

I guess we will see it again with another name soon.

I have dealt with engineers at companies making equipment in my old role as a sales engineer, and in my experience no one will part with even $85 unless they are sure that something works and they have tested it.

The idea that they spent $85million without any evidence or testing suggests to me that some corrupt person/people in the Iraqi government, and some corrupt person/people in the UK government used this company as a medium to extract large sums of money out of Iraq.

I wonder who the shareholders of the companies are, and if the company ended up paying large sums of money to "advisros" or "consultants" somewhere in the process.

It just doesn't add up, it stinks.

Heard about the fake detectors yesterday on BBC news, when they went to interveiw the company boss at his newly extended farmhouse in the middle of nowhere , guess what? He wasnt home. Wonder how long it was before the cops caught up with the Beeb and arrested this slimebag!?
Say what you will about the BBC, but sometimes they have some sharp cookies asking the questions! Speaking of which, this raises some very interesting questions about the legitimacy of corperate interests in countries which have terror troubles.
I cannot understand how a device that finds bombs can ever get into active service without military officials testing it and okaying it for the use for which it is intended?
The controls on companies which sell to terror torn nations should be watched and regulated harder than any other businesses. They are something like ambassadors for capitalism in a way, and to have bad eggs like the fool who marketed these fake bomb detectors at large in the world makes all of us in the west look like the devils and scoundrels the terror mongers make us out to be!

They should send this guy to Iraq, and let the Iraq people, dole out some, Iraq justice on this bum.
What is going to happen is he will get off easy, but how many have died because of this money grubber?

He should be forced to play a human version of mine sweeper using his faux detection device.

Here is a video of people being "trained" to use the device (video paid for by company profits no doubt)



[edit on 23-1-2010 by freeradical]

[edit on 23-1-2010 by freeradical]

What's mind boggling about this story is... How can somebody be that stupid? Did he really think he was going to get away with this? Obviously he got pretty far which means something went wrong. Maybe he possibly did a demonstration with a model which worked and then sold them crap?

A Somerset-based businessman has been convicted of three counts of fraud

over the sale of bogus bomb detectors after his operation was exposed

in a BBC Newsnight investigation in 2010.

This was a scam of global dimensions.

James McCormick marketed his fake bomb detectors around the world,

selling them in Georgia, Romania, Niger, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and beyond.

But his main market was Iraq, where lives depended on bomb detection
and where the bogus devices were, and still are,
used at virtually every checkpoint in the capital.

Between 2008 and 2009 alone, more than 1,000 Iraqis were killed in explosions in Baghdad.

Thousands more were injured, including 21-year-old Haneen Alwan,
who was two months pregnant and had gone out to buy ice cream when she was caught in a bomb in January 2009.

BBC Link