{"id":2464,"date":"2010-01-22T09:36:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-22T13:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=2464"},"modified":"2010-01-22T16:05:53","modified_gmt":"2010-01-22T20:05:53","slug":"there-should-be-a-special-hell-for-this-scam-artist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2010\/01\/22\/there-should-be-a-special-hell-for-this-scam-artist\/","title":{"rendered":"There should be a special hell for this scam artist"},"content":{"rendered":"

A report from the BBC<\/a> on a “bomb detection device” widely sold in the Middle East, which does nothing at all:<\/p>\n

\n

A BBC Newsnight<\/em> investigation has found that a so-called “bomb detector”, thousands of which have been sold to Iraq, cannot possibly work.<\/p>\n

Leading explosives expert Sidney Alford told Newsnight<\/em> the sale of the ADE-651 was “absolutely immoral”.<\/p>\n

“This type of equipment does not work,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind betting that lives have been lost as a consequence.”<\/p>\n

Questions have been raised over the ADE-651, following three recent co-ordinated waves of bombings in Baghdad. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It sounds like the ADE-651 is a combination of tech-look crap and new age marketing crap:<\/p>\n

\n

Iraq has bought thousands of the detectors for a total of $85m (\u00a352m).<\/p>\n

The device is sold by Jim McCormick, based at offices in rural Somerset, UK.<\/p>\n

The ADE-651 detector has never been shown to work in a scientific test.<\/p>\n

There are no batteries and it consists of a swivelling aerial mounted to a hinge on a hand-grip. Critics have likened it to a glorified dowsing rod. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And if that’s not enough whiff of flim-flam for you, how about this claim?<\/p>\n

\n

The training manual for the device says it can even, with the right card, detect elephants, humans and 100 dollar bills. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Update<\/b>: The Guardian<\/em> reports that the managing director of the firm has been arrested today<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report from the BBC on a “bomb detection device” widely sold in the Middle East, which does nothing at all: A BBC Newsnight investigation has found that a so-called “bomb detector”, thousands of which have been sold to Iraq, cannot possibly work. Leading explosives expert Sidney Alford told Newsnight the sale of the ADE-651 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,370,15],"tags":[194,333,39],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-middle-east","category-technology","tag-fraud","tag-iraq","tag-junkscience"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-DK","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2466,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions\/2466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}