Scam Bomb Detectors Still Used in Pakistan

Diogenes can stopping looking, because we've found an honest man.

He's in Pakistan, and he can't speak freely, but we know he's honest because he just said the truest thing ever about the scam bomb detectors that are used at his country's airports and other sensitive sites.

The scam detectors are those magic wands known as the ADE-651, among other names. See this for more information about them. Despite being repeatedly exposed as frauds, the devices keep selling.

When foreign supplies were cut off after the ADE-651's British manufacturer was convicted, some of his former clients began making their own knock-off versions (can you counterfeit a fraud?) for sale in their own countries. One of those countries is Pakistan, which is now equipping its Airport Security Force with home-made worthless props with which to 'screen' vehicles for bombs.

AFP reports today, Pakistan's bogus bomb-detectors in business despite global scandal:

Islamabad (AFP) - With radio-like antennae meant to swivel and point at vehicles carrying bombs, "magic wand" explosive detectors proliferated throughout conflict zones in the 2000s until they were exposed as a global scam.

But in an astonishing security threat, more than 15,000 of a new variant of the handheld device have been made in Pakistan to guard high-value facilities such as airports and government installations, despite officials conceding they are effectively useless.

-- Snip --

Official silence over the matter may be linked to the enormous sums of money involved in the business, observers say, while many bureaucrats fear for their jobs if they speak out.

"Powerful people make money through these scams and you cannot offend powerful people, even if it means endangering lives," said one former official of the interior ministry."

Pakistan initially imported foreign detector devices such as the ADE-651 and the German made Sniffex, according to a government source, but in 2009 Pakistan's Airport Security Force (ASF) took over making and selling the wands.

More than 15,000 units have been sold within the country at a cost of 70,000 rupees ($700), according to an official, amounting to a total revenue of more than $10 million.

The ASF -- which declined multiple requests for comment -- is technically a civilian institution but is staffed by many serving senior officers deputed from the powerful military, which wields considerable influence over the country's defence and foreign policy.

Truth only goes so far, when the interests of powerful people are involved. But, from what I see while browsing Pakistan Army forums, I'm holding out hope that there are enough honorable soldiers there to bring this disgraceful scandal to an end.

Finally, A Backlash Against Iraq's Fake Bomb Detectors

The most recent terrorist attack in Baghdad killed more than 120 persons and employed a suicide car bomb in a shopping district. Also, it seems to have provoked a long overdue and richly deserved public backlash against the Iraqi government and its outrageous practice of using fake bomb detectors at checkpoints through the country.

From the WaPo story linked above, there is this:

On social media, Iraqis turned their anger toward a wand-style device that has been proved to be fake but is still widely used at checkpoints as a bomb detector. On Sunday night, Abadi announced that the devices should be withdrawn from checkpoints. Little more than an aerial attached to a plastic handle, they have been sold as capable of detecting explosives.

Earlier Sunday, after the bombing, the Interior Ministry’s website was hacked and a picture was posted of a bloodied baby and one of the supposed bomb detectors. “I don’t know how you sleep at night,” the hacked website read.

Hacked Iraq MOI website image

The scandal of these fraudulent devices, which were sold to Iraq under the name ADE 651, is well known and documented. See this Vanity Fair article for background. The Iraqi government purchased the scam detectors in 2008 at a cost of $85 million.

According to the WaPo's Baghdad Bureau Chief, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has finally, just tonight, ordered all the ADE 651s removed from Iraqi checkpoints. That decision comes about two years after he first acknowledged they were fake and promised to remove them.

Now, how about the governments of Pakistan, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Mexico, and Thailand? So far as I know, they all still use the ADE 651 or a copy, under various names, to pretend to detect bombs at airports and other potential targets. Is a hacked website all it will take to cause them enough embarrassment that they'll stop that nonsense?

The Fake Bomb Detectors Are Back, And This Time They're Egyptian

Hey, a guy with an empty box! 

The notorious fake bomb detector that was sold under the name ADE 651, among others, before its manufacturers were sent to prison in the UK for fraud, is back in use once again. This time it's Egyptian hotels in Sharm El Sheik that are using them to not find hidden bombs.

The Daily Mail reports:

British families in Sharm El Sheikh are being guarded with useless bomb detectors based on a bogus device produced by UK fraudsters, the Mail can reveal.

The revelation comes as Egyptian police investigate whether a Sharm hotel worker might be responsible for a suspected attack on a Russian passenger jet. Police fear a bomb may have been smuggled inside luggage.

As thousands of UK families were still waiting to fly home yesterday, the Mail discovered fraudulent 'scanning devices' were being used to protect at least five top hotels packed with Britons. Security guards use them to 'sweep' guests, their cars and luggage.

But experts say these 'screening tools' are almost identical to the bogus devices produced by British fraudsters and sold for millions to foreign governments, resulting in prosecutions in 2013 and 2014.

The Egyptian army appears to have copied these devices and produced its own version called C-Fast, which is being used across Sharm.

It means a terrorist bomb could easily have been smuggled into a hotel, put in a passenger's luggage and potentially taken on to a plane. Since C-Fast devices are made by the Egyptian army, it is likely they are also used at Sharm's airport.

Why not use them at the Sharm airport? The same scam detectors were, and possibly still are, in use at airports in Jordan, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Iraq, among other places.

The ADE 651 consists of an empty box and a telescoping antenna. And nothing else. They have no operating parts, or technology, or theory of operation, or test results, or any history of actually detecting anything. It's an empty box. And yet, the government of Iraq spent $85 million to equip its forces with them. So did other nations. Click on the "ADE 651" label below this post and prepare to be amazed at how many nations bought them, defended them, and continued to use them even after the UK locked up the snake oil salesmen who sold them.

So now the Egyptian Army has joined the scam with its own knock-off version called the C-Fast. Well, there's a fool born every minute. I just wonder whether the Army is fooling itself, or only those British tourists?

Fake Bomb Detector? No Harm In That, So Far As I Can See

For the ADE-651, the test can cost $40,000 to $60,000

Apparently a news outfit in Beirut is only now finding out that those 'bomb detectors' with the swiveling antennas - the ones that are in use all over Lebanon and beyond, the ones that have been exposed as bogus again and again, the ones the Iraqi Ministry of Interior got (some) of its money back from, the ones whose British manufacturer and salesmen have been convicted and sentenced for fraud, those ones? - are fake.

Better late than never, I suppose, but really, how many times does that fraud have to be debunked before the reality sinks in? Folks, the 'bomb detector' known as the ADE-651, among other names, consists of an antenna and an empty box. Let me repeat that last part .. an .. empty .. box. How hard can it be to figure out that it couldn't possibly detect anything?

Al-Akhbar English, from Lebanon, has not-so-breaking news today about the The Great Explosives Detector Hoax:

After the recent car bombs that killed dozens in Beirut and Tripoli, Lebanon’s public and private security forces armed themselves with a simple device that allegedly can detect explosives in a car. Al-Akhbar put the detectors to the test. Here are the results.

All over Beirut, you inevitably come across security guards carrying a plastic device, with what looks like an antenna extending from it, much like an old radio. You are asked to stop your car, and they run the scanner from front to back. If the metallic rod turns in the direction of the car, then it has sniffed a trace of explosives.

But is this kind of detector genuine? Does it in fact protect thousands of lives by finding explosive material? How does it actually work, and how effective is it? Do all the security outfits use the same product or are there a number of different models available?

I'll skip ahead a bit. Al-Akhbar's correspondent next describes loading explosives into his car and driving up to several Lebanese Army and Hezbollah security checkpoints in Beirut where they screened him with the ADE-651 explosives detector, and then  ///  SPOILER ALERT  ///  SPOILER ALERT  ///  SPOILER ALERT ///  pulled him out of his car and busted a cap in his dumb ass. No, just kidding! Actually, nothing happened, because the ADE-651 is only an empty box.

The story concludes:

Given the possibility that there are more effective models being used elsewhere, we decided to consult a security officer who is an expert in explosives. When we asked him about the detector, he laughed, saying it was a big hoax. He told us that the army had tested one machine, and upon opening it, found nothing more than what you might find inside a child’s toy.

It is worth noting that the BBC aired an investigation into this type of “antenna” detector, enlisting the help of experts from Cambridge University and specialized laboratories. The results revealed, according to the report, that the device is completely ineffective, and the cost of the materials it contains is worth no more than a few dollars.

Why have government agencies all over the world bought the ADE-651, and why do most of them continue to use it? It has no favorable test results, or successful track record, or credible theory of operation, or technology, or even any components other than the box and antenna.

That whole credulity thing keeps bothering me. I think the sales genius behind the ADE-651 must be Irwin Mainway, the deliciously sleazy late night TV hustler portrayed by Dan Aykroyd in those SNL skits back in the 70s.














"Johnny Fake Bomb Detector" sounds like it would fit right in with the other great Mainway toys, like the Invisible Pedestrian Halloween Costume, the Bag O' Glass, the General Tron Secret Police Confession Kit, Doggy Dentist, and the rest.

Mainway said he was only packaging what people wanted, and he always had reasonable-sounding excuses for his dangerous toys. Even warnings right there on the label. If people buy them, hey, you can't fix stupid, I mean, so far as I can see, you know?

Seller of Scam Bomb Detector Sentenced in UK

A UK court has sentenced the chief salesman of the most notorious scam bomb detector in history to seven years imprisonment. Gary Bolton joins his partner in crime, James McCormick, who was sentenced in May to ten years, and their chief customer collaborator in Iraq, Major-General Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives, who reportedly was arrested on corruption charges in February 2011.

Click on the embedded video above for an excellent background story on the scarcely believable fraud that was the GT200 bomb detector.

Here's the story from today's UK Guardian, Kent businessman jailed for seven years over fake bomb detectors:

A Kent businessman who made up to £3m a year from the sale of fake bomb detectors around the world has been jailed for seven years by a judge at the Old Bailey.

Gary Bolton, 47, hawked the bogus kit to military and police clients in countries including Mexico, Thailand, Pakistan, China, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Egypt and Tunisia despite it being based on a novelty golf ball finder.

The devices cost as little as £1.82 to make and were sold for as much as £15,000 [about $24,000]. They remain in use in Thailand, where human rights campaigners claim they have cost lives, and were only abandoned by Mexican agencies in 2011.

An embarrassing aspect of this sad business is that some UK government trade promotion entities - unwitting to the fraudulent nature of the devices - helped Bolton peddle his products abroad.

The court heard that branches of the UK government had offered some support to Bolton's enterprise, called Global Technical. They include UKTI, Whitehall's export sales arm, and the British embassy in Mexico, which from 2005 to 2009 offered support though introductions to potential clients and allowed Bolton's firm to use its premises for demonstrations.

Why would anyone buy a bomb detector that consisted of an empty plastic box and a telescoping antenna? Corruption is one answer, obviously. In a 2011 Report to Congress (here), the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction estimated that 75 percent of the value of McCormick and Bolton's considerable sales in Iraq had gone to bribes.

As for those reasonably honest police and military officials around the world who were genuinely taken in by the GT-200? Well, google "the ideomotor effect" for starters. But also reflect on the fact of life that fifty percent of everybody in any population group is below average. It might not have taken as much snake oil as you would expect to sell a guy an empty plastic box for $24,000. 

Seller of Scam Bomb Detectors Convicted, At Long Last

Police Officer in Islamabad, Pakistan, detecting ... nothing

There is good news from the UK today, where a jury has convicted the biggest con man in the security industry on three counts of fraud. Jim McCormick, salesman extraordinaire of scam bomb detectors, will be sentenced in May. Then, police say, they will go after his multiple millions of ill-gotten gains.

I've blogged about this outrageous scam before, here, here, here, and here. The ADE 651 'bomb detector' consists of an empty plastic box, a swiveling antenna, 'coded' cards, and a massive load of snake oil. A little official corruption helps to close the deal, too.

The ADE 651, sold to Iraq for $65,000 @

The things have been sold under various names in Iraq, Pakistan, Jordon, Mexico, and many other places where the bombs are as real as McCormick's detectors are phony.

Would you buy a magic wand from this man?

The UK Guardian has a good piece on the 'magic' bomb detector that endangered lives all over the world:

Jim McCormick's claims about his range of detection devices were extraordinary. He said the Advanced Detecting Equipment (ADE) he developed at his Somerset farm could pick up the most minuscule traces of explosives, drugs, ivory and even money. They were so good they could spot target substances from as far away as 1,000 metres, deep underground and even through lead-lined rooms. If their plastic grips and waggling antennae bore a passing resemblance to a £15 novelty golf ball finder, that was no coincidence. The 57-year-old businessman had used the jokey product sourced from the US as a starting point for an enterprise that made him a multimillion-pound fortune but placed lives at risk around the world.

-- snip --

It was all nonsense, albeit potentially lethal for the people of Iraq, where 6,000 of the fraudulent gadgets formed a first line of defence against car bombs and suicide bombers at checkpoints. When the devices were opened, it emerged that cable sockets were unconnected and supposed data cards were linked to nothing. One scientist told the jury who on Tuesday convicted McCormick of three counts of fraud that the antenna intended to point to suspect substances was "no more a radio antenna than a nine-inch nail".

It is thought hundreds of lives could have been lost as a result of the failure of the devices, whose detection powers were no better than a random check. One truckload of rockets reportedly went through 23 checkpoints in Baghdad equipped with one of McCormick's devices without being spotted once.

-- snip --

It took the [British] government over a year to cotton on to the problems. In November 2008, a whistleblower wrote to Ian Pearson, a minister in the business department, urging him to shut down the trade in fake explosive detectors, but nothing was done. In January 2009, the whistleblower, who does not want to be named, sent a dossier detailing the scam that began with a hard-hitting title – "Dowsing rods endanger lives" – to James Arbuthnot, the chairman of the Commons defence select committee.

Arbuthnot promised to raise the matter with the minister for defence equipment and support but it was not until 12 months later that their export was banned on the basis that they were a danger to British and allied troops. By then, McCormick had made a fortune on the back of contracts with Iraqis, who paid $85m (£55m) for the bogus devices.

-- snip --

Police have identified £7m of McCormick's assets, which they intend to try to seize, but believe the fraudster has stashed at least that amount away from the eyes of the taxman and other authorities in Cyprus, Belize and Beirut ... McCormick had separate trading arrangements with other countries. In Lebanon, a UN agency and a luxury hotel were among purchasers. Devices were sold to Muammar Gaddafi's Libyan regime, Iran, China, Syria, Jordan, Georgia and Mexico.

-- snip --

[After selling someone else's phony device for a few years in the 1990s, McCormick] decided to try to make his own detector. By now the 9/11 attacks had happened and there were fortunes to be made in security. McCormick found a novelty device called the Golfinder "tuned to elements found in golf balls". The marketing blurb urged: "Don't laugh. It works when used properly," but added: "It's also a great novelty item that you should have fun with."

He bought 300 for just under $20 each and replaced the labels with his own. The ADE 100 was born. McCormick modified his device between 2005 and 2009 and it morphed into the ADE 101 with an asking price of around $7,000. A similar but more solid device was called the ADE 650.

-- snip --

By 2009, British and US soldiers in Basra and Baghdad were expressing "real concern" about the devices after x-raying them and finding no working parts inside. One brigadier told the Old Bailey jury "he had never seen the device detect anything". They compared them to divining rods or ouija boards. Soldiers reported going through checkpoints when they knew they were covered in traces of explosives. At one checkpoint McCormick's detectors might pick something up – but they would then sail through the next one.

McCormick was arrested in the UK in January 2010 and as part of the investigation a full double-blind trial of the devices at Cambridge's Cavendish laboratory found the results were no better than random. The device was right three out of 25 times. One scientist said McCormick's description of radio technology was "an affront".

But still the device continued to be used in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. "We know it doesn't work and that it has been banned, but we are continuing to use it," an Iraqi army lieutenant told an AFP correspondent in the weeks after McCormick's arrest. "It is bullshit. But still we are lying about it."

-- snip --

"I'm confident people have lost their lives because of this," said Detective Superintendent Nigel Rock, who led the Avon and Somerset police investigation. "There are young Iraqi officials standing on checkpoints hoping this device is going to tell them if there's a bomb in that car or wrapped around that person. I find it incredible and diabolical. He knew what he was doing."

In a just world, McCormick would be sentenced to spend the rest of his life in Iraq searching for bombs with his own ADE 651. But in this world, it looks like we will have to settle for taking away his cash, cars, boats, and homes.

Iraqi Treasury Gets Refund on Magic Wands

The wands in question are those scam bomb detectors that I have gone on about before (here, here, and here). That's an actual promotional video for them, above. Check out all those explosions! It's even more dramatic than those Brinks/Broadview home security commercials that feature single women in their twenties who live alone in five-bedroom suburban houses and are under constant assault by stalkers.

Now, Lowering the Bar, a blog by lawyers who see the lighter side, has taken judicial notice of this matter:

On Wednesday, the Iraqi Interior Ministry reportedly said it had recovered the equivalent of $20 million that the government lost due to corruption. Unfortunately, that's only a fraction of the amount it lost to people who duped it into buying hundreds of magic wands.

Some refer to these as "ADE-651 bomb detectors," but those people are crooks, like Jim McCormick, the head of the British company that sold them. He was arrested last year for fraud (but is currently out on bail). What he sold the Iraqis, and many others, was - literally - a plastic handle with a TV antenna stuck onto it, which the company claimed could find explosives in the same way a dowsing rod finds water. I guess that's true in a sense, because dowsing rods also don't work. This, however, did not stop the Iraqis from spending $85 million to buy 1,500 ADE-651s.

McCormick was the director of ATSC Ltd, which marketed the ADE-651 as being able to detect "all known drug and explosive based substances." (Amazingly, the company's website is still up.) Supposedly, it could detect tiny quantities of explosives at distances of up to one kilometer (or three kilometers from the air). In a test conducted by the London Times, though, it failed to detect a paper bag containing fireworks from a distance of a few feet.

McCormick insisted that his detectors do work, although in the Times interview he could not explain why or even what principle is involved. (This is generally a bad sign.) According to the company's website, which amazingly is still up, the ADE-651 uses "long range electromagnetic attraction" to detect the "resonance frequency" of nitrogen atoms, which sounds scientific but is in fact complete bullshit. McCormick, though, said he and his company had been "dealing with doubters" for years, but thought that they had finally identified the issue causing the doubts. "One of the problems we have," he said, "is that the machine does look a little primitive." To address this problem, "[w]e are working on a new model that has flashing lights."
Yes, that's the problem. It needs some lights.

The ministry's inspector general issued a report last October confirming that the things are totally useless, and news agencies have taken the things apart to show they contain no electronics. But some minds will not be changed. "Whether it's magic or scientific," said Major General Jehad al-Jabiri, "what I care about is [that] it detects bombs." Fair enough, only it doesn't. Although ministry officials did take swift action by granting immunity to the guy who signed the contracts, they did not take the magic wands out of service, and according to this report people were still waving them around expecting to find bombs as recently as three weeks ago. (I imagine some of them find bombs, but not in the way they expect.)

A policeman quoted in the report said he wasn't surprised that the inspector general found the devices to be a sham. "We all knew they're a failure," he said. "They don't achieve anything. It's all a show for the public." But that can't be true - what kind of government would spend huge amounts of money on security technology that doesn't work and is just a show for the public?

Can we at least get some flashing lights on our body scanners? I mean, give us our money's worth.

I observed airport police in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi, Pakistan using the ADE651 to 'screen' incoming vehicles during a visit last October. The snake oil that is used to sell those things is so powerful it is almost impossible to overcome.

Even the Strongest Snake Oil Wears Off Eventually

You don't often get good news out of Iraq, but the WaPo has some today. A big victory for reason over superstition, sincerity over hokum, and sense over snake oil. One of our Iraqi partners has finally determined that the high-tech 'bomb detector' upon which their police and military have relied for years is, in fact, a total fraud.

I've posted about this $60,000 scam bomb detector before, here and here.

From the WaPo:

The Iraqi Interior Ministry inspector general recently determined that wands used by police as the frontline defense in the country's fight against bombs are worthless.

His finding was unsurprising. But in today's Iraq, it had the potential to be politically explosive. What the ministry did in response to the inspector general's conclusion speaks volumes about how the Iraqi government works these days - and why so often it doesn't.

U.S. military officials have been calling the devices a scam for years. The British government this year jailed the manufacturer of the ADE-651 gadgets on fraud charges, and banned the company from exporting more [here].

But as damning evidence against the wands mounted, senior Iraqi security officials, including Interior Minister Jawad Bolani, said the critics were uninformed and swore that the devices - which are supposed to detect explosives inside vehicles and prompt police to search them manually - had saved countless lives.

When faced with the inspector general's findings, Interior Ministry officials didn't pull the devices from hundreds of checkpoints that snarl traffic around Baghdad and other Iraqi cities. Instead, they shelved the report and quietly granted immunity to the official who signed the no-bid contracts worth at least $85 million.

The only public mention of the finding was a small blurb in the report to Congress submitted by the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction last week [here]. The Iraqi ministry's inspector general, Aqeel Al Turaihi, "reports that many lives have been lost due to the wands' utter ineffectiveness," the report said.

The devices remain ubiquitous across Iraq.

-- snip --

American military explosives experts found [belief in the ADE-651's effectiveness] laughable. Worried about the effect that relying on the device could have on their effort to interdict the slew of bombs that were killing Iraqis and American soldiers daily, many U.S. officers tried to persuade their Iraqi counterparts to ditch them.

In one of many attempts, a team of American officers in 2008 asked Iraqi soldiers trained to use the ADE-651 to demonstrate whether the devices could determine which vehicle parked inside a U.S. base contained dynamite.

The operator's wand tilted toward a couple of vehicles. Neither, it turned out, contained explosives, according to a U.S. military official who participated in the exercise and spoke about it on the condition of anonymity.

"The entire time his American assistant had a stick of C4 under his uniform," the officer said. "It was like a Monty Python sketch gone horribly wrong."

-- snip --

The interior minister stood his ground, telling state-run Iraqiya television station in January that the wands had prevented more than 16,000 bombs. The Iraqi government has not disclosed who authorized the orders.

Ministry officials at the time surveyed policemen at checkpoints about whether the devices were showing results.

"We told them they were working fine," an Iraqi police lieutenant said Wednesday, standing next to a checkpoint where his men were using the wands near the neighborhood where a Catholic church was attacked Sunday by a band of suicide bombers. "That's what they wanted to hear," he added. "They want to try to give citizens an image of security that is false."

That attitude infuriates many American officers who have fought in Iraq.
"I'm finding it harder and harder to see any humor in this," Lt. Col. Dennis Yates, who was among the device's critics when he last served in Baghdad in 2008. "This piece of junk did, in fact, significantly contribute to an unknown - and pathetically large - loss of innocent lives. The guy who bought it should rot in one of the stinking jails that dot Baghdad."

That guy should not be the only one rotting in jail, because Iraq is far from the only victim of the ADE-651 scam. Security forces in Thailand and Mexico, among other countries, are still loyal customers. So is Pakistan, where I saw the devices in use by airport police in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi last month. I'm hoping they didn't use U.S. funds to buy them, but I'm afraid to find out.

UK Warns Mexico Against Using Scam Bomb Detector

A few months ago the British government took action against a corporation that has been selling a notorious scam bomb detector known variously as the GT 200, the ADE 651, the Sniffex and the MOLE. Now the British are attempting to warn the Mexican government against using the ridiculous devices, which their military and police forces have purchased by the hundreds at the price of $20,000 each.

Good luck to the Brits. The U.S. government has so far been unable to convince the Iraqi government to stop using the thousands of GT 200s it purchased for $85 million. Evidently, the snake oil used to sell these things is particularly long-lasting and the victim doesn't come to his senses for years, if ever.

For their $20K, the Mexicans get nothing but an empty plastic box connected to an antenna and programmed with a deck of ordinary plastic cards. Really. That's all. See here and here for U.S. government test reports that document the bald-faced fraud that is the GT 200, ADE 651, et al.

From today's New York Times:

The British government has notified Mexico that a handheld device widely used by the Mexican military and police to search for drugs and explosives may be ineffective, British officials said. [TSB note: "may" be ineffective? That's British understatement. There's no maybe about it.]

Mexico’s National Defense Secretariat has spent more than $10 million to purchase hundreds of the detectors, similar to the “magic wands” in use in Iraq and Afghanistan, for its antidrug fight. Although critics have called them nothing more than divining rods, Mexican defense officials praise the devices as a critical part of their efforts to combat drug traffickers. At the military’s National Drug Museum, one of the devices is on display, with a plaque that describes its success in finding hidden caches of drugs.

-- snip --

As of April 20, 2009, the army had purchased 521 of the GT 200 detectors for just over $20,000 apiece, for a total cost of more than $10 million, according to Mexican government documents. Police agencies across Mexico have made additional purchases, records show.

“We’ve had success with it,” Capt. Jesús Héctor Larios Salazar, an officer with the Mexican Army’s antidrug unit in Culiacán, said recently. “It works with molecules. It functions with the energy of the body.”

Molecules? That quote must be a translation error. I think Captain Larios meant to say it works with magic, and it functions with the energy supplied by a body of money. Captain, please open your eyes. The only ones who have ever had any success with the GT 200 are the gringos who sold them to you.

Scam Bomb Detector Finally Banned in Britain

As was noted tonight on National Public Radio, authorities in Britain have finally taken action against the perpetrator of a murderous fraud, the scam bomb detector that is currently marketed under the name "ADE 651." This device, which consists of an antenna, an empty box, a set of plastic cards and a massive load of snake oil, has been sold to gullible security agencies all over the world. Iraqi agencies have spent $85 million on them and continue to insist, against all evidence, that the ridiculous things work.

The video embedded above is from the BBC's Newsnight program, and my favorite moment comes at about the 7 minute and 30 second mark when the wizened old scientist solemnly notes that the plastic case which houses the operating components of the ADE 651 is, upon his scientific observation, totally empty.

I've posted about this outrageous fraud before and linked to decades-old U.S. government reports, such as this one and this one, that documented the utter impossibility of using the ADE 651 to detect bombs or anything else.

Let's hope the export ban will finally break the evil spell that has been cast on suckers the world over by the ADE 651 - or as I call it, the PLACEBO 60K (Predatory Lucrative Advanced Confusinator Explosive-Detecting Bankable Opportunity @ $60,000). On the other hand, new suckers are being born every minute.

Iraq Spent $85 Million on Magical Bomb Detectors

The New York Times had a story Thursday on the infuriating commercial success in Iraq - $85 million in sales and still climbing - of the oldest and most ludicrous scam explosives detector that ever cursed the security market.

Some quotes from the NYT:

BAGHDAD — Despite major bombings that have rattled the nation, and fears of rising violence as American troops withdraw, Iraq’s security forces have been relying on a device to detect bombs and weapons that the United States military and technical experts say is useless.

The small hand-held wand, with a telescopic antenna on a swivel, is being used at hundreds of checkpoints in Iraq. But the device works “on the same principle as a Ouija board” — the power of suggestion — said a retired United States Air Force officer, Lt. Col. Hal Bidlack, who described the wand as nothing more than an explosives divining rod.

Still, the Iraqi government has purchased more than 1,500 of the devices, known as the "ADE 651", at costs from $16,500 to $60,000 each. Nearly every police checkpoint, and many Iraqi military checkpoints, have one of the devices, which are now normally used in place of physical inspections of vehicles.

-- snip --

The American military does not use the devices. “I don’t believe there’s a magic wand that can detect explosives,” said Maj. Gen. Richard J. Rowe Jr., who oversees Iraqi police training for the American military. “If there was, we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work.”

The Iraqis, however, believe passionately in them. “Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs,” said Maj. Gen. Jehad al-Jabiri, head of the Ministry of the Interior’s General Directorate for Combating Explosives.

-- snip --

Aqeel al-Turaihi, the inspector general for the Ministry of the Interior, reported that the ministry bought 800 of the devices from a company called ATSC (UK) Ltd. for $32 million in 2008, and an unspecified larger quantity for $53 million. Mr. Turaihi said Iraqi officials paid up to $60,000 apiece, when the wands could be purchased for as little as $18,500. He said he had begun an investigation into the no-bid contracts with ATSC.

And here's the bottom line:

Colonel Bidlack said, “When they say they are selling you something that will save your son or daughter on a patrol, they’ve crossed an insupportable line into moral depravity.”

It's not just Iraqis who are buying these devices. They are also being sold to credulous security authorities in Thailand, where there is an active insurgency in the south, under the name "GT-200." From a recent story in the Bangkok Post:

A bomb detection squad later arrived at the scene and searched the area with the help of GT-200 devices, which detected nothing suspicious. Shortly afterwards, the car exploded.

The Mexican police, military, and PEMEX (the national oil company) are also buying these useless playthings, which are marketed as being able to detect drugs as well as explosives. To take a story pulled at random about the Mexican drug wars:

Responding to another call, Espinosa's crew takes up positions behind an army platoon clustered around a warehouse. Federal detectives are breaking open the lock ... Inside, the soldiers discover magazines full of AK-47 bullets scattered across a patio. In the rooms beyond are hundreds of sacks and 55-gallon drums containing chemicals used for making methamphetamines ... It's a major find — but the Mexican military claims credit. Lt. Col. Oswaldo Bejar boasts that his unit has made five busts in eight days in Uruapan, many of them using a chemical-sniffing device known as a GT-200.

By whatever name, it is the same empty box with an antenna sticking out that was debunked by U.S. government testing way back as 1995 when it was called the "Quadro Tracker," and again in 2002 when it was called the "MOLE Programmable Detection System," and yet again in 2005 when it was called the "Sniffex." It's also been sold under the names GT-200 Molecular Detector, the Alpha 6, the Scandec, the PSD-22, and no doubt many others that I'm not aware of.

I'd like to think this is a case of European Enlightenment rationalism (“I don’t believe there’s a magic wand that can detect explosives ... If there was, we would all be using it. I have no confidence that these work”) versus the traditional magical thinking of the non-western world ("Whether it’s magic or scientific, what I care about is it detects bombs”).

I'd like to think that modern westerners, with all our concern for evidence, proofs, and falsification, would never buy an explosives detector that has absolutely no theoretical basis or credible principle of operation, or any favorable test results, or a successful track record, or even any components inside the box.

Surely rational men would laugh at gibberish like this:



Or at operator training sessions like this:



I'd like to think that. Except, the U.S. military once bought a few of them too.

If the consumers of security products can't be educated out of buying this dangerous fraud, I suggest we at least agree to rename it something more descriptive, like the PLACEBO 60K, the "Predatory Lucrative Advanced Confusinator Explosive-detecting Bankable Opportunity @ $60,000."