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Iran's dodgy coronavirus detector - rebirth of the bomb detector that killed many in Iraq [View all]
Iran's dodgy detector
The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unveiled a hand-held device this week which he claimed could identify people infected with coronavirus - and even contaminated surfaces - up to a distance of 100m and within five seconds.
The Physics Society of Iran described the announcement as "pseudoscience", "unbelievable" and on a par with "sci-fi tales".
The device bears an uncanny resemblance to fake bomb detector tools sold by British fraudsters more than a decade ago, all of which claimed to use the same "electrostatic magnetic ion attraction".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52310194
The head of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) unveiled a hand-held device this week which he claimed could identify people infected with coronavirus - and even contaminated surfaces - up to a distance of 100m and within five seconds.
The Physics Society of Iran described the announcement as "pseudoscience", "unbelievable" and on a par with "sci-fi tales".
The device bears an uncanny resemblance to fake bomb detector tools sold by British fraudsters more than a decade ago, all of which claimed to use the same "electrostatic magnetic ion attraction".
Link to tweet
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/52310194
See:
A jury at the Old Bailey found Jim McCormick, 57, from near Taunton, guilty on three counts of fraud over a scam that included the sale of £55m of devices based on a novelty golfball finder to Iraq. They were installed at checkpoints in Baghdad through which car bombs and suicide bombers passed, killing hundreds of civilians.
He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not even connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golfball finder with a different sticker on top.
The court heard they had been marketed at international trade fairs that were backed by UK government departments. They were only banned from export to Iraq and Afghanistan a year after whistleblowers had alerted the Department for Business and the House of Commons defence select committee.
It is now alleged by an Iraqi whistleblower that McCormick paid millions of pounds in bribes to senior Iraqis to secure the deals. Inspector general Aqil al-Turehi of the Iraqi interior ministry has told a BBC Newsnight investigation: "This gang of Jim McCormick and the Iraqis working with him killed my people in cold blood."
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/23/somerset-business-guilty-fake-bombs
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1014463370
He claimed they could detect explosives at long range, deep underground, through lead-lined rooms and multiple buildings. In fact, the handheld devices were useless. Their antennae, which purported to detect explosives, and in other cases narcotics, were not even connected to anything, they had no power source and one of the devices was simply the golfball finder with a different sticker on top.
The court heard they had been marketed at international trade fairs that were backed by UK government departments. They were only banned from export to Iraq and Afghanistan a year after whistleblowers had alerted the Department for Business and the House of Commons defence select committee.
It is now alleged by an Iraqi whistleblower that McCormick paid millions of pounds in bribes to senior Iraqis to secure the deals. Inspector general Aqil al-Turehi of the Iraqi interior ministry has told a BBC Newsnight investigation: "This gang of Jim McCormick and the Iraqis working with him killed my people in cold blood."
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/apr/23/somerset-business-guilty-fake-bombs
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1014463370
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