One of the sadder aspects of the current Gulf wars is that a number of sellers of woo tech have made fortunes selling garbage to the military and para-military civilian groups - pure woo tech that could lead to unnecessary deaths.
This guy just got 10 years for selling a delabeled golf-ball finder as an explosives detector - a piece of novelty junk that doesn’t even work for its intended purpose. He made a fortune and death from undetected explosives was one mistake away for the users.
The more egregious case is the company that was selling monstrously expensive “hi tech” dowsing rods with absolutely no active (let alone “working”) components, for bomb detection. I haven’t heard of any resolution on that one, but I suggest a good outcome would be to drop the maker/fakers in a large minefield with one of their own devices, and we’ll watch the results on YouTube.
ISTR hearing that there were some heavy bribes involved - that is, everyone involved from beginning to end knew they were wasting money on pure bullshit, but they all got to line their pockets along the way.
Thailand is on the list of sucker countries that bought into this scam, so the subject comes up regularly in the newspapers here. Due in part to the “face-saving” culture here, there is often a call from politicians to just forget about it and move on. People are taught at an early age not to make others feel bad or embarrassed. This of course leads to a total lack of accountability.
A few months ago, an ATM here dispensed a large amount of cash to a woman who only intended to make a small withdrawal. She reported the error to both the bank and the press (I assume, because it made the news), and was harshly chastised by one of the bank’s officers for calling attention to the bank’s mistake and therefore bringing shame to the bank (or words to that effect).