Fake bomb-detector deal added to Baghdad’s vulnerability

Government continued using phoney devices even after con man was sentenced

BAGHDAD— After at least 250 people were killed in a devastating bomb attack by Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) in the Iraqi capital, Iraqis turned their anger toward a symbol of government corruption and the state’s failure to protect them: fake bomb detectors.

The wand-like devices, little more than an aerial attached to a plastic handle, are still widely in use at security checkpoints around the country even years after the British con man who sold them was arrested for fraud and the U.K. banned their export.

They are used at the entrances to embassies, compounds and government ministries. They are used by security forces at checkpoints such as those on the shopping street at Karrada that was hit in the suicide bombing in the early hours of Sunday morning and has been targeted numerous times in the past.

As infernos set off by the blast engulfed shopping centres, suffocating and burning to death those inside, Iraqis took to social media to vent about the fake detectors.

An Arabic hashtag began trending for “soup detectors,” mocking the absurdity that these hand-held devices can detect explosives. The Ministry of Interior’s website was hacked and a picture of a bloodied baby was posted along with a bomb detector bearing Daesh’s markings. “I don’t know how you sleep at night,” the hacked site read. “Your conscience is dead.”

As anger grew, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced Sunday night that all the country’s security forces should remove the hand-held devices from checkpoints and that the Ministry of Interior should reopen its investigation into the corrupt deals for the devices.

But they were still in use in Baghdad the following morning, and it’s unclear when the move will happen.

“We haven’t received an order yet,” said Muqdad al-Timimi, a police officer at a checkpoint in northern Baghdad who was still using one of the devices. “We know it doesn’t work, everybody knows it doesn’t work and the man who made it is in prison now. But I don’t have any other choice.”

The device, known as the ADE 651, was sold to Iraq by Jim McCormick, a British man sentenced to 10 years in prison by a U.K. court in 2014 for fraud. He made more than $80 million selling the devices in countries including Iraq. McCormick’s company had claimed that the devices could detect contraband such as drugs and explosives from as far as a kilometre away. The manual for the device had said that with the right “substance detection cards,” the devices could even detect elephants or $100 bills.

McCormick sold devices to Iraq for thousands of dollars each, according to news reports.

A 2010 BBC investigation concluded it was impossible for the device could detect anything.

But despite being disproved, the devices are still heavily relied-upon in the Middle East, with many raising questions over their use.

In a May, Iraq’s interior minister, Mohammed Ghabban, said he had inherited the problem and that a “committee” should be formed to see whether the devices work. He described the problem as “bigger than the Ministry of Interior.

“People are waiting at checkpoints in the heat every day to pass by a fake detector, which is just a toy,” said Aws Yassin, 35, protesting near the scene of the bombing on Sunday night.

The protesters moved onto Abadi’s family home in the area, calling him a thief and accusing him of killing the people of Karrada.

Abadi has struggled to implement his limited political reforms. It is unclear what the government plans to replace the fake detectors with, but Abadi has ordered the rollout of U.S.made Rapiscan scanners on roads into Baghdad.