A conman jailed for selling fake bomb detectors to war-torn countries has had more than two years added to his prison sentence after failing to pay back £1.8m of his ill-gotten gains.

James McCormick lived a life of luxury by ripping off customers in Iraq, Niger and Bahrain with the useless devices. He was jailed for 10 years after his trial at the Old Bailey in 2013 and later ordered to pay back about £8m.

That included £4m from the sale of a house in the Circus – one of the most affluent areas of Bath – as well as an £88,000 parking spot, a luxury villa in Limassol, Cyprus, a £345,000 motor cruiser and a family home in Somerset, which he jointly owned with his wife.

But a shortfall remained and McCormick, who was up for release soon, was told he must serve a default additional sentence of 842 days after refusing to meet it at a hearing at North Somerset magistrates court on Wednesday.

Police said they could still pursue McCormick if assets were discovered or if he came into money in the future.

“When McCormick was sentenced both the judge and senior officer made reference to his ‘obscene’ and ‘outrageous profits’ and ‘greedy, extravagant lifestyle’,” said DI Peter Highway, from the south-west regional organised crime unit.

“Following Avon and Somerset’s successful criminal investigation, our team has worked on an international basis to seize money and assets from him, and based on his refusal to meet the shortfall, this work will continue.

“People wrongly assume if they do their time, the debt is written off. The default sentence is for failure to pay up, but we will keep revisiting cases months or years down the line.

“If money or assets are identified or he comes into funds in the future, we can look to take them under the Proceeds of Crime Act. It’s worth remembering too that lives were undoubtedly lost as a result of McCormick’s bogus bomb detectors.”

The jury in McCormick’s trial heard how he made millions of pounds from selling three models of detector – based on a novelty 13 golf ball finder – to Iraq and other countries.



The prosecution said there was no scientific basis to the detectors and they were nothing more than a con. McCormick was one of a series of fraudsters to be convicted over the same scam.

He sold his fake detectors for up to £40,000 each, even though the golf ball finders they were made from cost just $19.99 (£14.34). More than 6,000 of them were sold in Iraq alone, the trial heard.