Businessman James McCormick has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. His international fraud has brought him about £50 mln. McCormick was arrested in 2010, the investigation has recently been completed and the England’s Central Criminal Court has found him guilty.
According to the investigation materials, the subject of the contract was the ADE 651 (Advanced Detection Equipment) bomb detectors. In fact, McCormick was selling the slightly modified $20 golf ball finders as bomb detectors for up to $44,000 each.
The clients of the businessman were authorities of several foreign countries. McCormick was personally organizing the project demonstration. Presenting himself as a chartered scientist, he was holding meetings with the heads of security agencies. He was misinforming his customers by describing the functionality of his revolutionary invention. Even businessman’s claims about the device’s ability to detect not only bombs, but also banknotes, liquids, drugs and other stuff did not arouse the purchasers’ suspicions.
The biggest contract was signed by the Iraqi Armed Forces. The lot price was £26.2 mln. The British Embassy in Iraq was the first to express alarm to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki about the fraud. The investigators suppose that the Iraqi Armed Forces could not prevent a series of the terrorist attacks because of the pseudo-bomb detectors.
