The ADE 651 can detect bombs

The ADE 651 can detect bombs
	FALSE
	"The ADE 651, a handheld device with a swiveling antenna and programmable "sensor cards," can detect explosives, drugs and other substances from a distance, even through walls."
Domain	Crime & Public Safety
Tactic	Pseudoscience / Junk Science; Fraud or Scam;
Era	Current
First seen	2000s
Origin	ATSC (UK) Ltd, a company run by British businessman Jim McCormick, which sold the devices to governments including Iraq from the mid-2000s
Last reviewed	2026-10-27
	Further reading: books on Crime & Public Safety

The claim that the ADE 651 can detect bombs was used to sell thousands of handheld "detectors" to security forces in Iraq and other countries for prices reported at up to tens of thousands of dollars each. The ADE 651 consisted of a plastic handle with a swiveling antenna and slots for cards said to be tuned to specific substances. It had no working electronics capable of detecting anything; it was based on a novelty golf ball finder. Iraqi security forces used the devices at checkpoints for years, including in Baghdad during deadly bombings. In 2013 a British court convicted its seller, Jim McCormick, of fraud and sentenced him to ten years in prison.

The claim

Marketing materials claimed the ADE 651 could detect explosives, narcotics, weapons and even people at distances of up to a kilometer, through walls and from aircraft. It was said to work by "electrostatic magnetic ion attraction," with no batteries needed, powered by the user's static electricity. Operators inserted a card for the substance they wanted to detect, then walked while holding the device; the antenna would swing toward the target.

Origin

McCormick, a former police officer with no scientific training, began selling the device in the 2000s after buying a batch of novelty golf ball finders in the United States. His company, ATSC (UK) Ltd, repackaged them under several names and sold them to governments and security agencies, mainly in the Middle East and Asia. The most important customer was Iraq's Interior Ministry, which bought large numbers of devices at a time when car bombs were killing many civilians.

What the evidence shows

No working components. Investigations, including a 2010 BBC Newsnight report and laboratory analysis, found that the "sensor cards" contained only anti-theft shop tags or paper, and that the device had no power source or circuitry capable of detection. The antenna moved because of tiny, unconscious movements by the operator, the ideomotor effect, the same principle behind dowsing rods.
Earlier warnings. Similar devices had already been exposed. In the 1990s the FBI and Sandia National Laboratories found that a comparable product, the Quadro Tracker, had no working detection capability, and its sellers were prosecuted. US military officials warned Iraq about the ADE 651.
Export ban. After the BBC investigation, the UK government banned export of the devices to Iraq and Afghanistan in January 2010.
Convictions. In April 2013 a jury at the Old Bailey in London convicted McCormick of three counts of fraud. The judge said the fraud had contributed to the risk of death and injury to innocent people and sentenced him to ten years. A separate British businessman, Gary Bolton, was convicted in 2013 of selling similar fake detectors, the GT200, used in Thailand and elsewhere, and was sentenced to seven years.

Consequences

Iraq reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars on the devices. Iraqi officials were later investigated over allegations of corruption in the purchases. The devices continued to be used at Baghdad checkpoints for years after they were exposed. In July 2016, after a truck bomb in Baghdad's Karrada district killed around 300 people, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered security forces to stop using them. Fake detectors were also used in Thailand, Mexico, Pakistan and other countries, where officials sometimes defended them long after their exposure.

Why it persists

The ADE 651 succeeded because it appealed to desperate buyers seeking a quick technological answer to a deadly problem, because operators believed it worked thanks to the ideomotor effect, and because procurement processes failed to test it. Corruption may also have played a role, since high prices could create opportunities for kickbacks.

Lessons for readers

Any security technology should be tested independently in blinded trials before it is trusted.
A device that needs no power source to detect distant substances should raise immediate suspicion.
The ideomotor effect can make sincere operators believe a device is responding.
Very high prices for simple devices can signal fraud or corruption.
Fake safety equipment can cost lives, not just money.

Sources

Caroline Hawley and Meirion Jones, "Export ban for useless 'bomb detector'," BBC Newsnight, January 22, 2010.
Reporting on the conviction and sentencing of James McCormick at the Central Criminal Court, London, April–May 2013 (BBC and others).
Reporting on Gary Bolton's conviction for selling fake GT200 detectors, 2013.
Reporting on Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's order withdrawing fake bomb detectors after the Karrada bombing, July 2016.