Introducing: Explosive Lies
Unmissables: Explosive Lies
Global
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 January 2026
⏱️ 3 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Coming January 13th 2026.
He said it could save lives. It didn’t. It couldn’t even find golf balls…
Jim McCormick was a cocky English salesman with an outrageous claim: a black plastic gadget that could sniff out bombs using “electromagnetic energy.” The science was pure fiction. But in the panic after 9/11, governments bought the lie - paying up to $60,000 for a device that started life as a $20 novelty golf-ball finder.
McCormick sold hope to armies and security forces across the globe. But hope turned deadly. Behind the deals were fragmented friendships, betrayals, and a truth so dangerous it would take years to drag into the light.
Alice Levine uncovers the jaw-dropping story of a con that cost countless lives - and the unlikely people who stopped at nothing to uncover the truth.
Explosive Lies is a Global Original podcast, produced by Forest Sounds in partnership with Dentsu Entertainment.
Listen to all episodes on Global Player.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This is a Global Player original podcast. I've got a darkly comic, but deadly tale to tell you. |
| 0:10.3 | This is a story about a lie, a lie so big that it likely cost countless lives and turned con artists into multi-millionaires. |
| 0:20.4 | People are reliant on this to save lives and save their own life. |
| 0:24.4 | It's also about what happens when you're forced to confront that lie |
| 0:27.7 | and destroy your oldest friendship. |
| 0:31.9 | At the centre of this story is Jim. |
| 0:34.5 | Gift of the Gab Wheeler Dealer-de dealer turned mastermind of this audacious con. |
| 0:39.3 | And his long-time pal and business partner, Steve. |
| 0:42.3 | This scam isn't like the ones that you've heard before, targeting vulnerable people. |
| 0:46.3 | This one fooled governments and security services around the world. |
| 0:51.3 | People who should definitely know better. How can you go out there and say to people, |
| 0:56.0 | keep using these devices, |
| 0:58.0 | knowing that people are dying every day, you know, |
| 1:01.0 | I just don't understand how you can do that? |
| 1:03.0 | Incredibly, Jim convinced them that a cheap golf ball finder |
| 1:07.0 | sold as a stocking filler |
| 1:09.0 | was in fact a world-class, life-saving bomb detector. |
| 1:13.9 | He used pseudoscience to fool extremely powerful people. |
| 1:19.3 | You pull out the area out of the device and you flick your wrist and it just moves |
| 1:22.6 | whichever way you wanted to. And you just think, no, seriously, come on. |
| 1:27.0 | There's something absolutely horrific about the idea that was originally sold almost as a |
| 1:31.6 | stocking filler, $10 or $20. Something that didn't work at detecting golf balls is now being used |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 26 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Global, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Global and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.