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Kenya Police: Our Fake Bomb Detectors Are Real
First time accepted submitter NF6X writes "Following the conviction of British conman James McCormick for selling fake bomb detectors which were in fact rebadged novelty golf ball divining rods, Nairobi police chief Benson Githinji stated to reporters that his department's fake bomb detectors are serviceable, and contributed towards a recent elimination of successful grenade attacks."
About 2 years ago, when it came to light these bomb detectors were totally fake, the Thai government, who has bought a whole bunch of these came out insisting they were real and worked. My hunch is there are no "real" portable bomb detectors (other than a trained dog), and government middle managers under pressure to buy bomb detectors bought the only thing on the market claiming to do that regardless of whether it worked or not. They knew it didn't work, but the politicians further up the chain didn't care, they just wanted to be able to say they'd purchased bomb detectors and people would be safe. Alternately, maybe James was just really good at structuring kickbacks and bribes to the decision makers. Its not like Thailand, Iraq or Kenya's governments are corruption free.
You know, about 15 years ago I worked in an electronics store. For an April fools joke I once stuck an antenna and an LED in a mains plug and put it in the shop window as a "wireless extension cord - 29.95" I got quite a few interested customers for this item. From what I have picked up from the coverage of the trial these devices are about as sophisticated as my five minute handywork.
I can build one and sell it to you for an inflation adjusted price. You could draw the conclusion from my post that I'm selling you a bunch of junk, but have you tested it? No.
Come to think of it, your post reminds me of the poor sods coming in for a 555 timer IC a 9V battery clip and a couple of passive components, convinced that they could build a cancer defeating device described in some quack book. No use in arguing with them but I felt sad after they'd gone, and bad for taking their money.