Quotulatiousness

January 27, 2011

UK government officials implicated in ADE-651 bomb detector scam

Filed under: Britain, Law, Middle East, Military, Technology — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 13:03

Remember the ADE-651? The bomb detector that could “detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills”? It now appears that British army personnel and civil servants were involved in the effort to sell the bogus device:

The government has admitted that the Army and UK civil servants helped market so-called “bomb detectors”, which did not work, around the world.

Export of the “magic wand” detectors to Iraq and Afghanistan was banned on 27 January 2010 because of the threat they posed to British and allied troops.

The move followed a BBC Newsnight investigation showing they could not detect explosives — or anything else.

Now Newsnight has learned that they are still being sold around the globe.

You can understand the attraction to potential scammers, as the things cost £11 to make (at most) and can be sold for £15,000 to unsuspecting dupes (or willing accomplices, splitting the profits) representing foreign governments.

1 Comment

  1. ……………………………………………….Better late than never James McCormic who is responsible for the ADE651 Bomb Detector produced by his company ATSC was arrested by UK authorities on suspicion of fraud. For those who dont know the ADE651 device was being sold by McCormics . The device allegedly would point to all manner of explosives simply by holding it in their vicinity. Basically a dowsing rod In face the device didnt actually have any active components in it and has been shown to be useless in repeated field tests..In fact according to one page that was selling the device it Can detect all current known drug explosive based substances. Yet on closer inspection the device appears to be a simple plastic handle a telescopic antenna a and a small panel There are no functional electronics on the device and theres no theoretical mechanism by which it could detect explosives narcotics or anything else..If this sounds familiar it may be because a . The biggest difference between the Sniffex and the ADE651 is that the Sniffex was just a telescopic antenna connected to a piece of stock metal where as the ADE651 at least made a minimal effort to look like a piece of technology. Both are equally useless and seem so obvious even on the face of things that its amazing they made it as far as they did. . Our good friend and .Unfortunately despite these efforts the device was sold to the United States and the British Governments but these constituted only a handful of evaluation sales similar to the scam that the markers Sniffex device ran. The real damage however was to Iraq. The fledgling Iraqi government seems to have bought this lie hook line and sinker ! The device may have also found its way to Afghanistan..While the theft by deception of this money from these governments is inexcusable in itself it is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the damage done. As the US has pulled out of Iraqi cities Iraqi forces many of them new recruits have been stepping up to provide security including the screening of vehicles and packages for hidden weapons and explosives. By using a device that claims to detect explosives but in fact does not the lives of both security personnel and civilians is placed in danger. A vehicle could easily be waved through a checkpoint without any further inspection because this device did not flag it as carrying a bomb even if it in fact did..To areas of the world that have suffered so greatly from violence it seems the ultimate slap in the face to have companies in the Western First World scam their people and put their lives in danger by selling these fraudulent products. After all theyve been through it adds a little insult to injury to use Iraq as the sucker for such a callous scam.. . Iraqs prime minister has asked . Personally Id like to see Mister McCormick extradited to Iraq to face their justice system on this one. However since thats not likely to happen at the very least he should be charged with criminally negligent homicide for any instances where a death can be attributed to this devices failure to detect explosives……………………………..This entry was posted…………..on Sunday January 24th 2010 at 10 53 pm……and is filed under ………You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed………………You can or from your own site………………….

    Comment by company offshore — January 28, 2011 @ 14:24

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