Police in Dhi Qar are to replace fake bomb detectors bought from a now jailed British businessman with sniffer dogs, the police chief of the southern Iraqi province said on Tuesday.

"We decided to buy 30 police dogs to strengthen security checkpoints and detection of explosives... replacing the explosives detection devices currently in use," Staff Lieutenant General Hussein Abed Ali told reporters.

The 30 dogs will join the eight currently in use in the province, Ali said.

Despite being widely discredited, hand-held "bomb detectors" purchased from British businessman James McCormick are still in widespread use in Iraq.

McCormick made an estimated £50 million ($76 million/59 million euros) selling the devices, which prosecutors said were based on a novelty golf ball finder and did not work, to Iraq and other countries.

He has been sentenced by a judge in Britain to 10 years in jail for fraud.