Judge Orders Earnings from Bogus Bomb Detectors Sold to Mexico be Confiscated Robert Booth - The Guardian
go to original June 20, 2016

Background story of Jim McCormick and his fake bomb-detector business (BBC/cybersceptic)

A judge at the Old Bailey has ordered the confiscation of £8m fraudulently earned by a British businessman who risked lives selling fake bomb detectors to war-torn Iraq.

Jim McCormick, who was jailed for fraud in May 2013, will have to pay £2.5m to the Iraqi government in compensation for selling what was little more than a repackaged novelty golf ball detector. McCormick earned more than £21m from the bogus trade worldwide.

The 60-year-old married father of two from Langport, Somerset, is serving 10 years in jail following a scam that included the sale of £55m-worth of devices based on a novelty golf ball finder to Iraq, Niger, Syria, Mexico and other countries including Lebanon where a United Nations agency was a client.

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

The devices were marketed at international trade fairs that were backed by UK government departments. It was also alleged that McCormick paid millions of pounds in bribes to senior Iraqis to secure the deals.

Read the rest at The Guardian

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