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Subscribe to RSSLONDON -- A British businessman who has sold bomb-detecting equipment to at least 20 countries, including Iraq, will appear in a London court on Thursday to face fraud charges, BBC News reported.
Police with the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, in the southwest of England, told the BBC that Jim McCormick, 55, would face six charges including producing and supplying the devices knowing that they were designed or adapted for use in fraud.
The British government banned the export of the handheld ADE-651 in 2010 as a result of a BBC investigation that showed the device did not work. McCormick had been on bail since 2010 while authorities examined the sale of the device, the BBC reported.
U.K. bans export of bomb detection device
McCormick was director of a Somerset-based company called ATSC.
The Iraqi government reportedly spent $85 million on the detectors, which were used at most Baghdad checkpoints.
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In addition to the ADE-651, the ADE-650 and the ADE-101 are named in the charges, the Guardian newspaper reported.
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Leave a Comment:
I hope he has found a way to share his proceeds with the tax payers he swindled. I congratulate him on the fact he scammed governments out of millions. For those he has gotten hurt and even killed I hope he rots in jail.
I was an engineer in the Army and my biggest fear was not the enemy, it was faulty equipment. There were no second chances.
How did this equipment get through anyway? I know that it is the UK, but they are certainly not 3rd world and I would have thought there would be some testing prior to sending them into operation. Shows how much I do not know.
Easy solution - Sentence him to 5 years of mine detection with his equipment or payback of all proceeds plus interest that would have accrued at double the prime lending rate since the sale - he can buy his way out at any time and the governments get their money back.
And if he can't pay it back well let karmic retribution take its natural path...
In that case, many US contractors and businessmen will be in jails. Some consider these frauds as usual.
Scamming governments while selling equipment that soldiers are putting their lives on the line, thinking it will find bombs.
Hope they put this thief where he belongs. Jail but it would be better if he was on the front line, using the very defective equipment he sold.
If Jim McCormack says they work, send him to the Korean DMZ and demand he cross the minefields with his ADE-651 bomb detector. What kind of an idiot thinks they can actually get away with selling a useless bomb detector to a country involved in a war?
Probably were designed by the Taliban.
No. Actually, they were designed by someone much worse and much more dangerous: a pure capitalist on the fast track to being a 1%er. They will sell out their country, their family, and their own soul for an extra large piece of the pie. These are the same type of people who are selling "bio fuel" to the US Navy at $26/gallon.
It should have been purchased BY the taliban...
You can bet he wouldn't have hesitated to sell to the Taliban.
Wanna bet our tax dollars paid for the scam?
Of course they did. The Iraqis and Afghans don't buy anything for themselves. The USA has to because we are committed to rebuilding.
He should be charged with treason for knowingly selling defective equipment that puts service men and women in harms way. I'll bet that will deter the next guy.
News of the World. Barclays. HSBC. Now this dirtball. And the year is only 6 1/2 months old. Good work, UK!!!
So who did the testing and approved these detectors before they purchased it? With lives on the line, it is unconscionable that anyone in the military would have approved these devices if it didn't detect bombs...
He sure made a fool out of the hierarchy of the military sector.
They should be required to be 3rd party ( independent ) tested of course.
Iraq had 85 million to spend. That means the Afghanistan had 185 million to spend and the American tax payer will foot the bill for all of it.
IT is long past time for all these welfare payments to counties who mask being our allies just to collect off the American tax payer is stop. We don't owe these people one dam*ed dime.
We have given our sons and daughters lives, their mental and physical conditions for these people who have no respect for us, and would just as soon see us dead.
I hope if one of our solders was killed or maimed by these devices that he gets life in prison for the killing.
"Jim McCormick, 55, would face six charges including producing and supplying the devices knowing that they were designed or adapted for use in fraud."
What is the big deal?
Many US defence companies and contractors benefit from these wars. Along with Saudis, oil companies, lobbyists, these sections made their monies in Iraqi wars and now Afghan war.
Examine the tax monies they have swindled in their war business.
Many politicians are connected with these companies!
Ultimately soldiers and tax payers lose!
For some it is business and "generating jobs."
Would you stop with the America this, America that that you keep posting. This isn't a story about America.
This guy should be sent in first as a bomb tester!
No wonder the middle east nations don't trust the western nations. With idiots like this politics nor peace talks will never work. Perhaps spending time in an Iraqi prison is needed rather than the soft approach of western confinement will change the business aspect.
I think the journalists at MSNBC desperately need a geography book.
Last week an article about Japan posted in the Europe section. (until I commented on it)
This article about a British business man in England (with references to the Middle East) is posted in the Africa section??? DUH!
How much of the money went into bribes for buying the junk ? Truth be told: Wars are simply a way for the nations to reduce the populatoins. Throw the dirt bag and his family in a den of hungry lions