Kent businessman jailed for seven years over fake bomb detectors
Gary Bolton made up to £3m a year selling bogus equipment based on novelty golf ball finder
Devices sold by Gary Bolton.
Gary Bolton (Picture Mike Gunnill)
A Kent businessman who made up to £3m a year from the sale of fake bomb detectors around the world has been jailed for seven years by a judge at the Old Bailey.
Gary Bolton, 47, hawked the bogus kit to military and police clients in countries including Mexico, Thailand, Pakistan, China, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Egypt and Tunisia despite it being based on a novelty golf ball finder.
The devices cost as little as £1.82 to make and were sold for as much as £15,000. They remain in use in Thailand, where human rights campaigners claim they have cost lives, and were only abandoned by Mexican agencies in 2011.
Sentencing him on two counts of making and selling an article for use in fraud over a period of five years, Mr Justice Hone said: "The culpability and harm of what you were doing is at the highest level because when used for the detection of explosives, in my judgment the use of the GT200, albeit in conjunction with other detectors, did materially increase the risk of personal injury and death."
Human rights campaigners in Thailand, where the devices were widely used by the army and police, have identified two fatal bombings that killed four people and injured more after the device was used to check suspicious vehicles.
Bolton's sentence follows that of his former business partner Jim McCormick, who was jailed for 10 years in May for selling around £50m worth of similar devices, many to postwar Iraq where their use is thought to have cost lives.
Speaking in mitigation, Jonathan Higgs QC said Bolton had three children, including a eight-month-old baby, and had been diagnosed with depression.
The court heard that branches of the UK government had offered some support to Bolton's enterprise, called Global Technical. They include UKTI, Whitehall's export sales arm, and the British embassy in Mexico, which from 2005 to 2009 offered support though introductions to potential clients and allowed Bolton's firm to use its premises for demonstrations.
"You have damaged the reputation of British trade abroad, having duped UKTI and other agencies dedicated to supporting the export of quality British goods as opposed to the dross that you manufactured," said the judge.
The jury heard that Bolton's devices were "nothing more than a box with a handle and antennae attached to it and pieces of plastic inside it".
The charges related to a period from 2007 to 2012, but Bolton began marketing the device in 2000 demonstrating it in Malta, Egypt, Uganda and South Africa.
In 1999 the Royal Engineers exports support team tested a version of the invention, at Bolton's request, but the army unit found it to be accurate only around 30% of the time, the court heard.
Bolton went on to doctor the reports to make them appear a clear vindication of the science he claimed was behind the device. A version of the report, seen by the Guardian, claims the detector "looks for the atomic structure of the substance and once located locks on giving its location". It "operates by the generation of static electricity within the body, which sets up a field around the searcher, activating the unit and making it attract to the substance".
Bolton claimed that his detectors worked with a range of 766 yards at ground level and from as far as 2.5 miles in the air and said they were effective through lead-lined and metal walls, water, containers and earth.
Bolton's sales pitch boasted of detecting explosives, narcotics, ivory, tobacco and even money. The prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told the jury when arrested in July 2012 Bolton "said he had no background in science, research, training or specifically security". During the trial Bolton called in his defence an expert in dowsing, a method of "divining" for water using sticks.
It has taken more than 16 years for the law to catch up with Bolton. Tests in 2001 proved the detectors performed no better than random in searches for explosives.
Gary Bolton, 47, hawked the bogus kit to military and police clients in countries including Mexico, Thailand, Pakistan, China, India, the Philippines, Singapore, Egypt and Tunisia despite it being based on a novelty golf ball finder.
The devices cost as little as £1.82 to make and were sold for as much as £15,000. They remain in use in Thailand, where human rights campaigners claim they have cost lives, and were only abandoned by Mexican agencies in 2011.
Sentencing him on two counts of making and selling an article for use in fraud over a period of five years, Mr Justice Hone said: "The culpability and harm of what you were doing is at the highest level because when used for the detection of explosives, in my judgment the use of the GT200, albeit in conjunction with other detectors, did materially increase the risk of personal injury and death."
Human rights campaigners in Thailand, where the devices were widely used by the army and police, have identified two fatal bombings that killed four people and injured more after the device was used to check suspicious vehicles.
Bolton's sentence follows that of his former business partner Jim McCormick, who was jailed for 10 years in May for selling around £50m worth of similar devices, many to postwar Iraq where their use is thought to have cost lives.
Speaking in mitigation, Jonathan Higgs QC said Bolton had three children, including a eight-month-old baby, and had been diagnosed with depression.
The court heard that branches of the UK government had offered some support to Bolton's enterprise, called Global Technical. They include UKTI, Whitehall's export sales arm, and the British embassy in Mexico, which from 2005 to 2009 offered support though introductions to potential clients and allowed Bolton's firm to use its premises for demonstrations.
"You have damaged the reputation of British trade abroad, having duped UKTI and other agencies dedicated to supporting the export of quality British goods as opposed to the dross that you manufactured," said the judge.
The jury heard that Bolton's devices were "nothing more than a box with a handle and antennae attached to it and pieces of plastic inside it".
The charges related to a period from 2007 to 2012, but Bolton began marketing the device in 2000 demonstrating it in Malta, Egypt, Uganda and South Africa.
In 1999 the Royal Engineers exports support team tested a version of the invention, at Bolton's request, but the army unit found it to be accurate only around 30% of the time, the court heard.
Bolton went on to doctor the reports to make them appear a clear vindication of the science he claimed was behind the device. A version of the report, seen by the Guardian, claims the detector "looks for the atomic structure of the substance and once located locks on giving its location". It "operates by the generation of static electricity within the body, which sets up a field around the searcher, activating the unit and making it attract to the substance".
Bolton claimed that his detectors worked with a range of 766 yards at ground level and from as far as 2.5 miles in the air and said they were effective through lead-lined and metal walls, water, containers and earth.
Bolton's sales pitch boasted of detecting explosives, narcotics, ivory, tobacco and even money. The prosecutor Richard Whittam QC told the jury when arrested in July 2012 Bolton "said he had no background in science, research, training or specifically security". During the trial Bolton called in his defence an expert in dowsing, a method of "divining" for water using sticks.
It has taken more than 16 years for the law to catch up with Bolton. Tests in 2001 proved the detectors performed no better than random in searches for explosives.
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