Weapons detection CEO calls industry ‘wild west' – great for innovation but lacks regulation

Luca Cacioli says the weapons detection industry is great for innovators, but lacks regulation leading due to what he calls “the wild west” - where school districts across the country are panic buying in the name of security.

“In the K-12 market, nobody is saying I’m the regulatory – no one is saying these are the objects you need to detect. Each school district chooses what they want to choose,” Cacioli told NBC 5 Investigates. “Some direction needs to be given in my opinion. As a matter of fact the standards already exist, they are not applied and they are not tested.”

Cacioli is the CEO of the CEIA, the Italian security company which sells both traditional magnetometers and a weapons scanning system called - OpenGate – which is used at Chicago City Hall and at the Highland Park school district – which purchased the scanners less than a year after the Highland Park mass shooting of 2022.

CEIA (pronounced CHE-uh) sells to both government clients and the private industry, and Cacioli says demand has dramatically changed over the past decade due in part to mass shootings.

By one estimate the weapons detection industry is said to be worth more than $700 million – a figure expected to balloon to more than $2.2 billion by 2033.

A months-long investigation by NBC 5 Investigates found these weapons scanners are becoming increasingly more popular but have limitations – and in some cases – have failed to detect certain weapons.

As we reported Monday night, CEIA’s chief rival is Evolv Technologies, which has come under scrutiny after a 2021 field test revealed its scanners have limitations and - in some cases - have failed to detect certain weapons

A copy of a 52-page private field test report - conducted by a third party and obtained by NBC 5 Investigates - was first reported by the tech firm IPVM. It shows that during a field test of the Evolv Express weapons scanner at an MLS stadium in Columbus, OH, the device performed relatively well when it came to identifying handguns, but missed two sub-compact handguns on two pass-through attempts and failed to detect knives 42 percent of the time.

Stabbing incidents at schools in Utica, New York in 2022, Columbus, Ohio in 2023 and most recently Buffalo, New York in September have continued to raise questions about the devices’ efficacy.

Evolv is also being sued by investors who alleged in a federal lawsuit that were misled and that the company overstated what its products could do.

Evolv declined our request for an on-camera interview at the Global Security Exchange conference in Orlando back in September. The co-founder of the company told us at the time that they couldn’t comment due to the ongoing investigations the Federal Trade Commission and the Security and Exchange Commission.

Both the FTC and SEC declined to comment for our reports.

On Tuesday, a day after our first report aired, an Evolv spokeswoman sent this statement, defending their devices:

“Evolv remains deeply committed to our mission of making the world a safer place. Our systems have demonstrated success in detecting potential threats and mitigating risks across various scenarios… Over the past month alone, there have been a number of stories in the news about schools successfully preventing weapons from entering their facilities. Evolv’s customer relationships are driven by trust, demonstrated through the performance of the Company’s technology at scale and its track record of balancing accurate detection with a positive security experience. The Company has made significant new investments to educate the communities it serves about how technology may be one part of a layered approach that combines people, process, and technology to help reduce the potential for gun violence.”

The statement from the Evolv spokeswoman did not address our questions about the SEC filing filed just weeks ago where the company reported that certain employees had engaged in “misconduct” and that some reported sales figures may be inaccurate due to “extra-contractual terms and conditions” that the company says its accounting personnel was unaware of.  

With regard to the termination of CEO Peter George, the Evolv spokeswoman wrote:

“In May 2024, the Board formed a succession planning committee of independent directors of the Board to evaluate leadership performance and effectiveness and plan for an orderly CEO transition to ensure that the Company is positioned for the next phase of growth.

We continue to cooperate with the SEC investigation.”

The New York Police Department just released data late last month showing the Evolv scanners on the New York subway system had not detected a single firearm but did have more than 100 false positives, according to our sister station, NBC New York.

Cacioli says the weapons scanners are not a cure all and should be viewed as part of a “layered approach” to security. It’s a sentiment echoed in public statements from Evolv.

During our interview, Cacioli said that the weapon detection industry has become “the wild west” with school districts making quick spending decisions.

Cacioli said: “The average school district doesn’t know how to test a metal detector or a weapons detector or a visual gun detector or a camera system – they don’t know how to test that,” he added. “Security is not a revenue producing department – and therefor security purchases are reactive – so there is a lot of panic buying.

We want the school board to decide on something according to knowledgable information – that’s why I say the wild west."

Dr. Ken Trump, a school safety expert out of Cleveland, called this type of buying “security theater.”

While the Department of Homeland Security provides a Safety Act designation or certification for companies who make security screening devices, the feds don’t independently test these devices. Instead, DHS relies on applications and data submitted by the companies themselves.