What’s made of plastic, has a couple of pieces of wire and two plastic antenna probes? A bomb detector, after all.
The Thai military was duped into buying the dodgy bomb detectors thirteen years ago. Hilarious of them! With the ongoing insurgency in southern Thailand, the bomb detectors were a potential solution for ferreting out small ordinances in the three southern provinces of Pattanai, Yala, and Narathiwat, before they exploded. Or that’s the method it was bought to the Army.
Yesterday, the Thai PM introduced that the Ministry of Defence had already taken authorized motion in opposition to the native suppliers of the utterly ineffective ‘bomb detectors’, marketed because the GT-200, seeking compensation of 747 million baht.
A Move Forward MP Jirat Thongsuwan asked parliament who, or which, organisation should be held accountable for the procurement scandal involving the GT-200s. They were purchased from a British company over two years, from 2006, with contracts valued at a quantity of hundred million baht.
According to Thai PBS World, in January 2010, the British authorities banned the export of the ADE651 bomb detecting device to Iraq and Afghanistan, after discovering that the device is a pretend (and not even an excellent fake), and warned foreign governments that the ADE651 and GT-200 are “infective in detecting bombs or explosives.”
The GT200 was produced by UK-based Global Technical Ltd, which claimed the device may detect, from a distance, numerous substances together with explosives and drugs. It was distributed to a variety of different international locations in 2001 under the identify GT200, ALPHA46, ADE+651, and AL-6D. The first organization that imported and used the GT200 system was the Royal Thai Airforce.
The proprietor of Global Technical, the British producer of the gadgets, was later convicted and sentenced to seven years in a UK jail.
To make matter worse, the Royal Thai Army spent 7.5 million investigating 320 of the procured models. The Move Forward celebration claimed, after the investigation, that the GT200s, all 320 of them, have been “only good enough for use as a “cat poop scoop”.
The gadget was first used at Bor Thong Airport in Yala. Officials were “impressed by the results” so more gadgets were imported into other departments. But the device’s effectivity was questioned after it did not detect automotive bombs in Narathiwat.
The device was examined and it was discovered that it could only detect 4 bombs from 20. This result led to an extra investigation and prosecution of the distributing firms and relevant Thai officers. From 2001 to 2010, Thailand imported 1,398 GT200 and ALPHA46 units, costing 1.2 billion baht.
The Thaiger believes that the GT200’s capability to detect four bombs out of 20, as reported by the Royal Thai Army, is completely inconceivable given that the design and function of the plastic field and a few wires would be unable to detect a nuclear explosion at point-blank range.
But MP Jirat Thongsuwan already knew that.
“We all know that the system was just an empty plastic field with two plastic antennae that couldn’t detect any bombs. When anybody asked about the contract signing with NSTDA, the Royal Thai Army would say it is a secret.”