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Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that
tells gripping life and death spy stories and

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the amazing devices and operations that made
them possible. Now let's get started.

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Welcome everybody today, we're gonna be
talking about a spy story and pepper shakers.

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Believe it or not. You see, the CIA how to get creative

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with their bugging operations as part of
their never ending battle with the KGB.

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In many ways, the CIA's lesser
known audio technicians part of the ts Technical

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Services Division which is now the OTS
where every bit the equal of their more

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famous counterparts in the clandestine Service.
They were highly trained and serve titious entry

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and the use of operational covers,
and often worked in some of the most

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dangerous parts of the world. What
ended up happening, though, is the

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Europeans, well this is Northern n
actually called upon the TSD to solve a

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problem that they couldn't figure out.
A Soviet diplomatis suspected KGB officer had begun

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meeting regularly with the senior government minister. While the meetings had legitimacy and the

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fact that they were based on official
duties of the two men, the security

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service in the Northern Europe suspected the
minister of also spying for the Soviets,

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yet their investigation had turned up no
hard evidence of espionage when this was problematic.

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So what they ended up doing is
the alleged KGB officer was kg He

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was professional, Sha'll tell you in
a minute. He met the minister openly,

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the government minister at expensive, well
known restaurants to discuss legitimate diplomatic matters.

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That was true. Several times counterintelligence
officers had notice of a plan meeting

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and plotted with the restaurant's manager to
install monitoring equipment at the table where the

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Soviet would be seated. They deploy
never seemed to work. In some instances,

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the Soviet even canceled reservations at the
last moment in favor of an alternative

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location. In other cases, the
KGB officer and the minister objected to the

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table offered and insisted on another.
Obviously, these were techniques to avoid being

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caught. Tom Grant had been in
the country several times providing technical support to

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joint operations. On one of his
trips, and Grant's contacts confided, we're

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certain the minister's dirty, but we
can't get the goods on this guy.

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End quote. Now, the individual
Tom Grant, whether his name, Rio's

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name or not, I was looking
at pepper mills or pepper shakers as they're

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known, and he wondered maybe these
could go. These could be used to

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hide audio equipment inside to record the
conversation. None of the pepper mills ever

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made the trip to America. Grant
went directly to the audio shop audio shopper.

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He had several cylindrical transmitters that would
fit probably quite nicely inside these pepper

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mills or pepper shakers. With the
help of concealment text, he just assembled

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the pepper shakers and created a cavity
sufficient for the transmitter, microphone, and

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batteries. By modifying the grinding and
dispensing mechanisms, A small pepper reservoir was

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retained so it can still function,
and this would provide the bugs with an

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active concealment. When showed the pepper
shaker bug, the local security service agree

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that it might work and even sought
the assistance of managers at three restaurants where

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the KGB officer and his minister frequently
met. So you can see they're starting

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to figure this out. The operation
went off perfectly. The two officials met

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over lunch at one of the three
cooperating restaurants. There are three restaurants that

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they targeted that they've usually visited,
but rather than try to place the transmitters

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on a specific table, the service
asked the managers to remove all pepper shakers

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from the table and then bring one
to the table after the patrons were seated.

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Now this was a key part of
the plan because remember the KGB officer

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and the Minister would shit would shift
tables most of the time. When they

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got there, they would ask to
move tables. So now by providing the

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pepper shaker after they moved, it
wouldn't matter, and it worked perfectly.

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What happened is the KGB off officer
arrived, he asked for a different table

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like he normally would, and then
of course the minister joined him and the

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head waiter in on the spy mission. Here put the pepper shaker down right

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between the two of them, and
the KGB officer and the minister ordered a

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meal as normal and engaged in small
talk. And actually nothing was really going

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on for about an hour or so, and then something happened. Once lunch

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was about to be over and the
KGB officer paid the bill. He leaned

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over and gave the minister precise directions
for a dead drop, and the message

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was lot and clear from the pepper
shaker at that point they got him.

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Later, the government minister was arrested
as a spy and the KGB officer expelled

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from the country. So you can
see how this turned out for them.

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The operation went off perfectly. The
European diplomat was arrested by his own intelligence

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service and the KGB official was expelled
from the country, all because of the

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pepper shaker, and all because he
traveled to Europe. He saw a pepper

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shaker on his family trip and it
made him think, how you could put

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a device in here. And again
this was the TSD. So they have

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these professionals in the CIA, always
looking for wiring devices and ways of doing

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things, and we'll be looking at
more of these techniques throughout our podcasts.

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Make sure if you want to support
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that like button. Thanks for listening
everyone,