ADE 651

[10] The ADE 651 is a descendant of the Quadro Tracker Positive Molecular Locator produced in the 1990s by Wade Quattlebaum, an American car dealer, commercial diver and treasure hunter.

The Quadro Tracker was promoted by Quattlebaum initially as a device to find lost golf balls, and later as a means of detecting marijuana, cocaine, heroin, gunpowder, and dynamite using "carbo-crystalised" software cards.

Like the ADE 651, it consisted of a hand unit on which a swinging antenna was mounted, linked to a box worn on the belt in which the cards were inserted to identify the "molecular frequency" of whatever the user wanted to detect.

Some of the distribution agents broke away and began producing their own copies of the Quadro Tracker, such as the Alpha 6, Mole Programmable Substance Detector, Sniffex and GT200.

[7] The ADE 651's inventor was Jim McCormick, a former Merseyside Police officer and managing director of ATSC, was previously a salesman specialising in communications equipment[7][11] but had no scientific or technical background.

[7] McCormick responded to this setback by copying Quadro's Golfinder, sticking an ATSC label onto it, renaming it the ADE (Advanced Detection Equipment) 100, and marketing it as a bomb detector.

[13] There were also several resellers of ATSC's fake bomb detectors, including Cumberland Industries UK, a company based in Kettering, Northamptonshire,[16] and Prosec of Baabda, Lebanon.

[6] Major-General Jihad al-Jabiri of the Interior Ministry's General Directorate for Combating Explosives has defended the device: "Whether it's magic or scientific, what I care about is detecting bombs.

The website claimed that the Jordanian government required hotels to employ ADE 651 devices to scan vehicles entering underground car parks.

[22] ATSC's McCormick says that 20 countries have acquired the device, with purchasers including "the Saudis, Indian police, a Belgian drug squad, a Hong Kong correctional facility and the Chittagong navy.

[24] The use of the ADE 651 prompted strong criticism, and eventually led to a ban on the device's export from the UK to Iraq and Afghanistan and a criminal investigation of its manufacturer.

An Iraqi guard and driver for The New York Times, both of whom were licensed to carry firearms, were able to drive two AK-47 rifles and ammunition through nine police checkpoints that were using the device without any of them detecting the weapons.

McCormick of ATSC falsely claimed that the apparent responsiveness of the ADE 651 was due to fragrances containing traces of the explosive substance RDX.

[25] The veteran Canadian-American skeptic and magician James Randi publicly offered one million dollars to anyone who can prove the device's effectiveness as far back as October 2008.

[26] Randi issued a statement calling the ADE 651 "a useless quack device which cannot perform any other function than separating naive persons from their money.

Psychology professor Bruce Hood has noted that the swinging of the antenna is merely due to its loose assembly and unconscious wrist movements by the user (ideomotor phenomenon).

[2] McCormick refused to be interviewed for the Newsnight investigation, but told The New York Times that ATSC would remain in business: "Our company is still fully operational.

[14] Your fraudulent conduct in selling so many useless devices for simply enormous profit promoted a false sense of security and in all probability materially contributed to causing death and injury to innocent individuals.

The matter subsequently came to the notice of Colin Port, the Chief Constable of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary and Chair of the International Police Assistance Board, who personally ordered an investigation into McCormick and ATSC.

[35] The chief investigating officer in the case, Detective Superintendent Nigel Rock, said: There was no evidence demonstrated, that McCormick or his company ATSC UK conducted any proper research or development into the products manufactured; in fact he refused to submit the ADE devices to independent tests.

In passing sentence, Richard Hone said: "Your fraudulent conduct in selling so many useless devices for simply enormous profit promoted a false sense of security and in all probability materially contributed to causing death and injury to innocent individuals.

Brigadier Simon Marriner told the court that the ADE 651 was clearly implicated in failing to prevent bomb attacks: "The inescapable conclusion is that devices have been detonated after passing through checkpoints.

[46] Hadi Al-Ameri, the head of the Parliament's Security and Defense Committee, said that he would push for an official investigation to "find out how this piece of equipment was sold to Iraq."

"[48] The Supreme Board of Audit in Iraq announced an investigation into the procurement of the ADE 651, focusing on the officials who had previously given assurances of the device's technical soundness.

[49] According to the Iraqi Interior Ministry's inspector-general Aqil al-Turehi, he had investigated the device in 2008 but found it "inoperative" and costly and recommended that Iraq should not buy it.

[53] Aqil al-Turehi said that he "feel[s] furious when I think that this gang of Jim McCormick and the Iraqis working with him killed my people by creating false security and selling such a useless device".

[4] The false sense of security provided by the device had catastrophic effects for many Iraqi people, hundreds of whom were killed in bombings that the ADE 651 failed to prevent.

[58] The ADE 651 was also sold to customers in Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Georgia, India, Iran, Kenya, Niger, Qatar, Romania, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

[57] The Mövenpick hotel ceased using the device following the intervention of the Bahrain Ministry of Interior in mid 2010 at the beginning of an enquiry in co-operation with UK Police which continued until the trial of McCormick in April 2013.

An apparent recycling of the Quadro Tracker turned up as the DKLabs Lifeguard, which had a similar appearance and made ambitious claims about being able to locate survivors missing under rubble or hiding in shipping containers.