UK businessman found guilty of selling fake bomb detectors to Iraq

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: Guardian

A jury at the Old Bailey found Jim McCormick, 57, from near Taunton, guilty on three counts of fraud over a scam that included the sale of £55m of devices based on a novelty golfball finder to Iraq. They were installed at checkpoints in Baghdad through which car bombs and suicide bombers passed, killing hundreds of civilians.

He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not even connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golfball finder with a different sticker on top.

The court heard they had been marketed at international trade fairs that were backed by UK government departments. They were only banned from export to Iraq and Afghanistan a year after whistleblowers had alerted the Department for Business and the House of Commons defence select committee.

It is now alleged by an Iraqi whistleblower that McCormick paid millions of pounds in bribes to senior Iraqis to secure the deals. Inspector general Aqil al-Turehi of the Iraqi interior ministry has told a BBC Newsnight investigation: "This gang of Jim McCormick and the Iraqis working with him killed my people in cold blood."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/23/somerset-business-guilty-fake-bombs

---

You really have to have no conscience whatsoever to even start thinking about a scam like this. I hope the sentence will be the maximum possible.

[DetlefK]

1. Nobody bothered to check them indoors before using them in the field?

"Quartermaster, bring me a grenade. I want to check this thing."

[dipsydoodle]

2. If the only charges were fraud

then I think the max sentence is 7 years.

[naaman fletcher]

4. I admit there is no logical way to feel this way,

But I sort of admire him in a way for taking advantage of a corrupt military procurement system. He just did in the extreme what defense contractors do all the time. If Raytheon sells a missile system that doesn't work as advertised, it is considered a normal affair.

[William Seger]

6. It wasn't just a matter of "didn't work"

It was an astoundingly absurd hoax: a free-mounted "antenna" that just wagged back and forth when you moved your hand. It "worked" on the same principle as a dowsing rod: self-delusion.

[naaman fletcher]

7. Yeah I know

He was just taking the absurd system to the extreme. Don't get me wrong, he deserves jail and all that.

[dotymed]

9. I do not applaud the loss of lives that

this scam may have caused but this fellow has learned, by example, how to get wealthy in this (mainly) fascist world. All of the "big boys" pull scams on everyone and when caught, pay a small amount back. That has become the American business model. "take all that you can, damn the (minimal if you get wealthy) consequences." This is our society at work. Almost every wealthy (self-made) person has made their fortunes by screwing others.
It is sick but this has become the way of the world. Greed trumps all, especially when you get away with it. This is especially true within the MIC community. The people responsible for procuring these devices did not care if they worked or not. They got big bribes, that was all that was important to them. They should be held just as responsible as the seller.

[FailureToCommunicate]

3. It makes you gasp at the human capacity for creative evil.

Put this guy on a bomb squad, and make him go in first.

[Denzil_DC]

10. "Put this guy on a bomb squad, and make him go in first."

Now that's a form of Community Service Order I'd like to see imposed.

[William Seger]

5. It "only" took 5 years...

... and actually, James Randi debunked similar devices several years before that, but he challenged this specific device 5 years ago.

Randi's response to this news.

[Eugene]

8. Fake bomb detectors were being used in Iraq as recently as last month

Source: The Guardian

Fake bomb detectors were being used in Iraq as recently as last month

Iraqi MP says country has paid 'high price in blood' for fake
devices, but officials continue to put faith in them

Peter Beaumont
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 23 April 2013 13.47 BST

On 19 March this year, the tenth anniversary of George W Bush's declaration of war against Iraq, I was heading into Baghdad's ministry of the interior in search of an official from the inspector general's office who had been involved in the investigation into its purchase of fake bomb detectors.

Arriving at the entrance, a bomb – the first of 12 to explode in the city that day – detonated about a kilometre away.

The officer on the gate explained a few minutes later that just the day before two improvised explosive devices had been found nearby. He asked what we were doing at the ministry. He nodded as I explained. "We know that the detectors are useless," he replied bitterly. "They're fakes. We've seen it on the news."

The officer, however, remained last month in a minority in doubting the effectiveness of devices which some had nicknamed the Magic Wand.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/23/fake-bomb-detectors-used-iraq

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. Jailed for 10 years

Fraudster James McCormick has been jailed for 10 years for selling fake bomb detectors.

McCormick, 57, of Langport, Somerset perpetrated a "callous confidence trick", said the Old Bailey judge.

He is thought to have made £50m from sales of 7,000 of the fake devices to countries including Iraq.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380368

I know they're trying to get the millions back, but I expect he'll have done his best to hide a lot of it abroad.

[Sunlei]

12. guess this is where the billion in cash Bush sent was spent, on scams like this.