Thailand spends $30 million on fake bomb detectors

Washington Times:
Thailand’s security forces bought more than 1,500 fake “bomb detectors” for $30 million, investigators say, and the armycurrently deploys them against Islamist rebels despite a U.S. Embassywarning that the devices are as useless as “a toy.”
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) announced this month that the manufacturers and distributors of the devices fraudulently sold them to Thailand's military, narcotics bureau, airports and other security agencies. The DSI has sent the case to the National Anti-Corruption Commission for further investigation.
About a dozen government agencies purchased 1,576 the hand-held units, called GT200 and Alpha 6.
Despite the investigation and the U.S. Embassy warning, Thailand’s top defense officials insist the devices work.
“Do not say the GT200 used as a bomb detector in the far south does not work,” Defense Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat said last week, referring to southern Thailand where 40,000 troops are fighting Muslim separatists. “It has often detected explosives.”
More than 5,000 people have died in the conflict since 2004, and many were killed by bombs.
... 
My recollection is that Iraq bought similar phony bomb detectors and the Iraqis were also hard to convince that the devices did not work.   Perhaps they hope that the bad guys will be deterred by the presence of the gadgets. But, I would not want to bet my life on that.

Comments

  1. Peter1:45 PM

    Latest on fraud charges in the UK

    http://ade651gt200scamfraud.blogspot.co.uk/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t...
Read more

Is the F-35 obsolete?

Headline USA: Pentagon Fires Back after Musk Calls Its Most Expensive Project ‘Obsolete’ 'Yeah, as I'm sure you can appreciate, Mr. Musk is, currently, a private citizen, I'm not going to make any comments about what a private citizen may have to say about the F-35....'   ... ... Drones appear to be replacing jets for many operations.  The Russia-Ukraine war is an example of that.  Drones are often hard to detect and can be used for intelligence operations as well as for attacking enemy targets.  It would not surprise me to see drones engaging other drones in combat.  They also cost much less than manned fighters.  
Read more