Government to test Scottsdale-designed sensors for border wall

PHOENIX — The federal government will test sensor technology next month designed by a Scottsdale, Arizona-based company that could be used in a border wall that will separate the United States from Mexico.

“We will have the technology embedded inside the barrier and below it,” DarkPulse Technologies CEO Dennis O’Leary said Monday. “It would detect tampering, tunneling and anybody trying to climb over the wall itself.”

O’Leary said the sensors were expected to be tested during the second week of September in California. The government was expected to be testing other possible options as well.

“It’s more like a general contract, you could say, and they’re trying to allot different time slots for different groups,” he said.

The sensors cost about $100,000 per kilometer, meaning the total cost could be somewhere near $320 million should they be installed along the entire length of the border wall.

Last week, the U.S. House passed a $788 billion spending bill that included a $1.6 billion down payment for the border wall.

O’Leary’s company could be on the verge of a second payday after fielding calls from another agency.

“We were contacted separately by a different (government) agency that want us to do a demonstration of the technologies strictly for tunnel detection,” he said. “That’s going to take place close to around the same time.”

O’Leary did not specify which agencies had contacted him.

KTAR’s Bob McClay contributed to this report.