After three
years of effort the man behind the phony ADE 651 explosives detector
(Jim McCormick) was convicted of fraud in Britain and sentenced to ten
years in jail. An Iraqi general, accused of accepting millions of
dollars in bribes to buy $85 million worth of ADEs four years ago is in
jail on corruption charges.
Three years ago Iraqi police were still using the ADE months
after British authorities informed the Iraqi government that the bomb
detector was a scam and simply did not work. Iraqi officials bought
thousands of these hand held devices in 2009 for up to $60,000 each. At
that time the manufacturer was already being investigated in Britain for
fraud. In Britain it was obvious that the ADE was a fake. The ADE
contained useless components, and repeated tests showed that it could
not detect anything. Early on it was believed that a large chunk of the
money Iraq paid for the ADE 651 was kicked back to the Iraqi officials
who approved the sale. The ADE 651 was very cheap to make, and the
manufacturer made a huge profit even after paying the bribes. The “design” of the ADE was actually based on a $22 novelty (meant as a
joke) “lost golf ball detector.”
No one in Iraq tested the ADE 651, they just took the
government's word that the device worked, and it was still being used
over a year after it was officially known to be a fake. But many Iraqi
police had already discovered that the ADE-651 was useless. When they
complained they were told by some government officials that only some of
the ADE-651s did not work. None of them worked, ever, and many Iraqis
are demanding part of Mr. McCormick’s $11 million fortune as
compensation for the fraud, and those killed because of bombs that went
off after escaping detection by ADEs.
The ADE was not the only fake bomb detector out there. Two
weeks after the Iraqi ADE-651 scandal became public, the Thailand
government ordered the Thai Army to stop buying (for about $30,000 each)
GT200 bomb detectors. Scientific tests of the devices (similar to the
equally ineffective ADE 651) showed that they were useless. But
apparently much of the sales price was kicked back to military
procurement officials, as the devices cost less than $10 to manufacture.
Procurement officers insisted they are innocent. The GT200 was sold to
many other countries (Mexico, the Philippines, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya,
Tanzania, Congo, Lebanon, Jordan, China and the UN) under similar
circumstances. The GT200 was created by a different gang of crooks, led
by Gary Bolton and they were also prosecuted in Britain. Gary Bolton
pled guilty last year. Despite that, some GT200s are still being used.
The British men who created these phony devices spent millions of
dollars of their ill-gotten gains to try and avoid prosecution and
conviction. That’s one reason why it took over three years to convict
all of them. Some of the buyers, who took large bribes to buy the fake
bomb detectors are still using their millions in bribes to avoid
prosecution.
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