Reluctant admiration

I suspect that we all of us have admiration for some crooks.  Let's be honest, Robin Hood was just a bandit even though he is an English folk hero, and many of us admire the exploits of Raffles.  Granted, Raffles is entirely fictitious and Robin Hood may well be the same.  But there is, just occasionally, a real-life crook who occasions admiration, even if the admiration is reluctant.  James McCormick is one such.

The day we left for France, the newspapers were reporting how McCormick had been found guilty of fraud and on Thursday it was announced that he had been sentenced to 10 years in jail for selling fake bomb detectors.  (I'm too bone idle to type all the details so I'll copy from the Daily Telegraph site.)

Millionaire James McCormick, 57, sold the useless devices, based on novelty golf-ball finders worth less than £13, for as much as £27,000 each to customers including the Iraqi government, the United Nations, Kenyan police, Hong Kong prison service, the Egyptian army, Thailand's border control and Saudi Arabia.

The ineffectual detectors were used by soldiers and peacekeepers out in the field, putting lives at risk, with McCormick thought to have made an estimated £50 million from sales of his three models to Iraq, Belgium and the UN for use in Lebanon.

Experts said the detectors lacked “any grounding in science, nor does it work in accordance with the known laws of physics”, adding that they were “completely ineffectual as a piece of detection equipment".

Brochures marketing the fake bomb detectors under the Advanced Detection Equipment brand promised that the devices could also pick up substances up to 30 metres underwater or 10 metres underground, and through walls.

The equipment consisted of a swivelling antenna connected to nothing except a plastic handgrip.  No battery or other power source was needed as the devices "came to life after the user had shuffled their feet".  Colour-coded cards could be inserted depending on the substance to be detected: explosives, drugs, ivory or even specified currencies.  Needless to say, the cards were simply different coloured pieces of plastic.

Granted, peoples lives were put at risk - but what chutzpah the guy had to sell these things at up to £27,000 each!  You have to admire that.  And whatever happened to caveat emptor?

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Another shot of the oil seed rape from our trip to France.