Fake Bomb Detector Man Jailed

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-23768203

I simply can't understand this business at all. These so-called bomb detectors were simple empty boxes with antennas attached. And yet this man managed to sell thousands of them, for as much as £10,000 each !
According to the Judge "Soldiers, police officers, customs officers and many others put their trust in a device which worked no better than random chance"

He wasn't some idiot selling these on ebay. They were sold to public bodies. Didn't anyone open one of these devices up and check that they worked before they handed over the money ?

[sandyRoe]

It's the sign of a great con-man that he could sell his rubbish to the people he did.

[mikey4444]

It shows that all those people who bought must have been so stupid !

[LazyGun]

Apparently not. Not just this guy either - another bloke out of Bristol was recently jailed for similarly selling such "devices". In that case, there was more than a hint of a suggestion that very large bribes were paid to senior military staff working within defence procurement for those particular countries, which included Iraq where tragically these things were used as the main form of bomb detection around the checkpoints into the green zone in Baghdad.

To me it just seems an extension of the dowsing principle, and there are those that think well if it works for water detection, why not for bombs, or tobacco, or drugs? Especially if someone warbles on about quantum signatures or what-not...

[LazyGun]

Re the guy in Bristol

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22380368

[sandyRoe]

I agree.^ A palm or two must have been greased. If he'd been asked to demonstrate the device he'd have fallen at the first hurdle.

[bert_h]

It reminds me of a scam called "Bai-Lin Tea" quite a few years ago, which it was claimed would just 'melt away' excess fat from your body. They must have made a fortune, for no effort other than the advertising, and the re-labelling of completely ordinary tea. The trick seems to be to tell people something that they would like to believe.

[baza]

a palm greased here another one there and before you know it soldiers lives are at risk, heads should roll.

[mikey4444]

The only explanation that would seem to fit this business is that he bribed people into giving him the contract. The Bai-Lin Tea con worked because the stuff was sold to a lot of stupid people, most of them women, who were unable to check in advance whether the stuff was real or not. All it took to discover the real worth of these bomb detectors was a small screwdriver.

I still refuse to believe that public bodies would hand over huge sums of money without testing these items rigorously. I look forward to seeing more people in court over the next few months.

[baza]

i'm with you on that one mikey.

[sandyRoe]

The Bai-Lin tea man moved in exalted circles. He 'helped' Cheri Blair buy two flats in Wales at bargain prices. He also had Samantha Fox, a one-time page 3 girl, under his thumb. I remember in the News of the World there was a full page article about the magical weight reducing properties of the tea. In the same issue, a story about her. I think the paper paid for the story with the article on the tea.

[jake-the-peg]

It's very easy to think of people as 'stupid' when you're only looking at prosecution evidence here.

* Note someone x-rayed the box to find it empty - obviously not just a screwed down lid that you could just undo and see nothing inside

* In a different report you learn that he falsified MOD documents in order to validate them http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/486141/20130703/gary-bolton-fake-bomb-detector-scam.htm

* Public bodies in some of these countries aren't necesarilly like the ones in the UK - there may be no joined up connections - security at airports will not have ready access to explosives to perform their own tests and may not be able to get help from their armed forces to perform tests on them.

Why would they ruin a perfectly good detector by cutting it open when they have documents supposedly saying how good they are from the UK MOD?

That's the thing about confidence tricks they seem so obvious when you know that they are.

[Old_Geezer]

Which leads me to wonder. The con merchant knows it's a confidence trick, so must think it is obvious. So how do they get the nerve to try it ?

[youngmafbog]

Jake, quite obviously they did not test it or trial it or it would have shown up as useless, whether or not the box was empty.

I'm afraid civil servants are useless when it comes to procurement/contracts; it happens time and time again, but this is OUR money they are wasting.

[mikey4444]

Jake...you have a point but not a terribly valid one. The bottom line is that he sold empty plastic boxes to thousands of people who didn't bother to make even the most cursory check. Look at the link...he got away with this for 10 years. These devices don't even look like they were real.

It is inconceivable that he possibly have done all this, for so long, without enlisting the corrupt assistance of some, at least, of the senior personal in authority. These would have had to be the people signing the cheques. I don't care how good a confidence trickster he is, I am not prepared to believe that he did this without help.

Just to repeat he wasn't selling some daft dieting gimmick, to an even dafter person. He was selling a supposedly scientific and highly complicated piece of kit, to professionals. A small screwdriver would have been all that was needed to see the truth. If it is true that he managed to fool so many, than the maxim that "a fool and his money are soon parted" would seem to hit the nail on the head.

[Spoonboy]

Things like this prove P.T Barnam right every time.

[chrissa1]

The guy himself "demonstrated" these machines and of course they worked and "detected" the explosives.

[dave50]

You hit the nail on the head Mikey when you referred to 'public bodies'. They have no concept or interest of cost or value for money because it comes off the money tree, also known as the tax payer.

[mikey4444]

Front page of the Guardian today :::

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/government-fake-bomb-detectors-bolton

So it seems that 3 Government departments not only didn't use enough rigour in examining these useless detectors, they actually backed and promoted Bolton !

You couldn't make it up if you tried ! A quote from the link above ::

"A Home Office scientist who ran a test in 2001 that demonstrated the so-called bomb detector was useless said he had issued a written warning against the device which was circulated to at least 1,000 officials across Whitehall, the military and police departments. It was circulated before the government launched its cross-departmental promotional drive."

So they can't say now that they didn't know. How far did this corruption go in official circles ?

[factor-fiction]

I don't understand how he got away with it for so long.
When I worked in procurement if it was a product we hadn't bought before we always tested stuff thoroughly before we bought it. We had detailed test plans where the results were documented. It's hard to imagine how someone didn't say "hold on a minute...it doesn't work for us"

[Hypognosis]

I would like to see a re-run of the Tomorrow's World feature as it's the sort of programme I would have watched at the time.

I vaguely recall the inventor being challenged to show the 'innards' of the device but, like every con artist, he had that angle covered as well - he removed the cover and showed that the 'circuits' were embedded in black epoxy resin. When asked why this was, there was handwaving about 'commercially confidential', at which point I think my hackles were raised.

Basically, I want to know if that's a hefty dose of false memory syndrome or if it's an accurate recollection.